Blog Post 4-Kayla

When I was in high school, I was absolutely sure that I was going to grow up to be a part of the medical field. Therefore, I started taking any medical related class our somewhat small high school offered. What I enjoyed about the classes was that every now and again, our teacher would turn on the TV show "House." It was such a fascinating adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, set in a hospital in the modern day. The main character, Dr. Gregory House, had a Vicodin addiction. What I found interesting was that this addiction sounded so similar to what my family always told me about substance addiction: that it was a way to escape reality and avoid the problem. However, there was a difference because House was trying to escape a chronic physical pain in his leg, rather than an emotional pain. Another odd aspect of this portrayal was that this type of addiction was that it seemed to make sense to me the way alcohol, cocaine, tobacco, and other addictions didn't. For all the others, it is possible for the addict to go to therapy for their addiction, sort out the root of the problem, and put their life back in order. For House, there was no possible way to fix the root of the problem, so I could understand better why he would be an addict. I suppose this comes from a very naive perspective, because I do not understand what would drive a person to become an addict. Still, it is odd that there is a situation where the representation of an addiction "makes sense" while other situations do not.