Ever notice how addict characters’ relationships to their substance/process of choice seem to follow one of two progressions? Either the character relapses or else the whole concept that they were an addict is dropped, never to be mentioned again.
To elaborate:
The character relapses into active addiction. It’s foreshadowed heavily; you see them white-knuckling when offered a glass or a needle or a bet. Their inevitable relapse (usually not on the first occasion temptation arises) is a major inflection point. It becomes a plotline of the show (generally not the first season). Their return to active addiction progresses until either they’re caught by another character (Confrontation) or they get into legal, material, or physical trouble (Bad Outcome). They end up superseding it through intervention and soul-searching (Catharsis).
The whole concept that they have an atypical relationship to this substance/process vanishes completely and never comes up again. (You don’t see the alcoholic character drinking, but you don’t see them not drinking in a setting where other characters are drinking.) They proceed with other arcs, none involving their addiction, which is no longer referenced.
Examples of (1): Regina from Switched at Birth, House from House, Booth from Bones, Luisa from Jane the Virgin, James from Single Drunk Female, Amanda from SVU.
Examples of (2): Miranda from Sex and the City in the reboot, Toby from Switched at Birth, Amanda from SVU and Cooper from Southland (after their relapse plotlines).
I’m calling this the relapse-recede binary. The underscoring idea is that addiction in media has to be interesting. If characters aren’t relapsing, their addictions aren’t worth airtime. Nobody wants to watch an alcoholic say, “Oh, you guys are meeting up in a bar? Sorry, no can do.” They want to watch her reluctantly go, grit her teeth, and then take a drink. Or, similarly: Imagine if an addict’s series arc was his integrating into a harm reduction community and learning safe-use techniques. Nope! The audience wants to see him overdose, suitably foreshadowed by Hitchcockian suspense.
I’ve referred to this as “Chekhov’s relapse”: if a central character is revealed to have a history of addiction, it has to become part of the plot, in the form of relapse. Otherwise, addiction status is extraneous information to provide. This is all a specific version of the more general problem wherein disability representation in media has to serve a plot-advancing purpose. You can’t be disabled for no reason. In the case at hand, the plot relevance is clear. Neither harm reduction nor recovery communities get the airtime because addiction is interesting to nonaddict viewers precisely when it is dangerous.