Every so often, sobriety in media is portrayed as an issue that isn’t serious or a joke that doesn’t deserve to be treated with respect. Sobriety isn’t easy — anyone who says otherwise is simply lying to you. Due to this, television and film often make light of the subject to avoid portraying how ugly it can be. That doesn’t mean that movies or television shows have never done sobriety justice, but the examples are so few that it is hard to recall instances the subject matter is treated with dignity.
However, that’s changed. Freeform’s Single Drunk Female, a dark comedy that doesn’t shy away from the ugly while making you laugh alongside the tears does just that. When I first discovered Single Drunk Female, I was only a few months into my sobriety. It was a hard time, but for the very first time, I felt seen on screen. It was a time that I don’t like looking back on, simply because of the mental space I was in.
Single Drunk Female follows Samantha Fink (Sofia Black-D’Elia), who, after a spectacularly embarrassing public breakdown, is forced to move back home with her overbearing mother to sober up and avoid jail time. With just one season, the series provides some of the best representations of sobriety and alcoholism. It shows the ugly side and the community one finds once one starts the program, whether it’s by showing how difficult it is for her or how long it takes her to simply accept the process.
Samantha is a nuanced character, she’s selfish and self-centered but also full of love. The writers never try to make her the villain, even when she is under the influence. Instead, her struggle with alcoholism is treated with the respect it deserves. Samantha might not be perfect, but the show does its best to show that alcohol isn’t all her problem. Samantha has family problems, especially with her mother and their strained relationship, she has problems maintaining relationships, whether they are romantic or friendly. Alcohol isn’t the only thing that is bad in her life, it just enhances them. She is a flawed human being who also has an alcohol problem.
Samantha is allowed to fail and stumble and is never depicted as a failure. Instead, the audience is shown that the path to sobriety isn’t easy, but full of bumps, twists, and turns in the road. Television shows that tackle sobriety often depict that once someone gets sober, everything is good, and there is no more need to worry about the addiction or its root cause. Once someone gets sober, the story ends, never to be mentioned again. Instead of doing that, Single Drunk Female shows us the aftermath. However, it also attempts to prove that there is no one way to get sober. The others that are in the program and surround Samantha are all on their own journeys, but while everyone is working the program, their stories differ from hers.
From Samantha’s sponsor Olivia (Rebecca Henderson) to her love interest James (Garrick Bernard), Single Drunk Female depicts the many facets of sobriety. Samantha gets sober because she has to. It is court-mandated, and she isn’t overly enthusiastic about it, but once she begins her journey, she makes a commitment to herself, ensuring that she stays sober. James on the other hand wants to be sober and is doing this because he knows he has a problem. However, the one who relapses by the end of the first season isn’t Samantha it’s James. It’s a testament to the series, demonstrating that no matter the intentions or how much you try, alcoholism is complicated and requires a lot of work — even those with the purest of intentions can stumble.
There’s a saying in recovery to “take it one day at a time.” To be honest, that is the hardest part of recovery. Taking it one day at a time is an easy thing to say, but when all you want is a drink, taking it one day at a time can be the hardest thing to do. Showcasing that reality might be challenging, but the show does it admirably. Samantha struggles, she puts herself in situations that don’t help her recovery, but her struggles are authentic to the experience.
While Single Drunk Female might be funny, its honesty and depiction of alcoholism aren’t. It’s never too graphic, but it also doesn’t shy away from the truth — using humour to hide the ugliness is just a defense mechanism many people use to cope. The writers use that to their advantage. Seeing ourselves represented on screen is always something we seek, and seeing your ugly parts isn’t always fun, but it is sometimes necessary. Single Drunk Female might have been what I needed at the time I was getting sober, it was cathartic and its depiction of Samantha and those around her reminded me of my journey.
