Recovery Boys

My heart is in West Virginia: I love the people, their traditional music and mores, AND, my son's best friend lives in Morgantown.

It's no secret that many of the small cities (and many large ones) that run from coast to coast in America have been decimated by hard drugs, limited work opportunities, and lack of entertainment options.

This documentary is set in a new treatment program, opened by a local doctor/businessman, based on farming and the 12 Steps. Participants stay 6 months, and are then moved to sober living. The film follows the five(?) initial participants through the early months of their recovery.

These sort of services are definitely needed (ideally privately funded), but the service providers sometimes worry about/work harder on the participants' lives than the participants do. (MY definition of "enabling"). Still, they're actually DOING something, and something GOOD.

Elaine and Kerrin Sheldon's compassion for those suffering with substance use disorders in West Virginia is evident in their ongoing dedication to get the true story of struggle and perseverance out to the world. This documentary is visceral and a true portrayal of a group of men working to maintain sobriety and assist others with doing the same. Another amazing film; job well done!

I was incredibly impressed with the sensitivity of these filmmakers. Addiction is a difficult subject to address, particularly when it deals with young adults, yet Elaine and Kerrin's compassion and commitment to the truth shine through. If you want to understand America's opioid epidemic and how we can address it, watch this film.

Hard drugs are just as easy to find as candy so prevention and warnings should be the major point of focus of governments and not imprisonment like it's mostly the case. Because in prison you still can get as much drugs as you want, but you also meet the wrong people and so prison can not be the solution for addicts because addiction is just an illness, an illness that can be cured. Recovery Boys is well done as a documentary but in my eyes a bit too soft to show awareness to young people. It's all nice to show there are places you can go to get help, but it would have been better if they showed the negative effects that happen to your body, the cold turkey, the sickness and diarrhea, the lying and thieving, in short the ugly things. Showing people praying to a God for help and a cure is just a bit too simplistic and typically American. First of all there is no God so just cut that crap, religion is from the ancient time when most of the people had no education and were very gullible. In a modern society, and certainly in those rehabilitation centers you shouldn't talk about a God to solve your addiction problem, that's just insane and it will never work. But the documentary is well done, I'll give you that, and hopeful for some, even though my experience with heroin addicts is that most of the times it's a lost cause, but luckily not for all of them. The life of a junkie is just based on lies and thieving, doing anything they can to get their next fix, and that should have been shown as well in my opinion. So all in all I'm not convinced this documentary would scare any youngster of taking drugs, and to me that should be the focal point of any documentary about hard drugs.

The underlying message is that if more addicts got the 'treatment' they needed, America's opioid crisis can be solved. The facility at Jacob's Ladder is so nice it could probably succeed as a bed and breakfast. The documentary does not delve into the cost of the program at all, but it is clearly not cheap to have nice rooms and employ support staff to help people who have multiple felony convictions. The flip side of providing a place like Jacob's Ladder to addicts is that resources are diverted from other vulnerable people. Is that fair? Is that right?

Watch this documentary to understand why America's opioid crisis will never be resolved. The filmmaker wants to be hopeful but refuses to be realistic. She wants us to hate the addiction but love the addict at any cost. The result is destruction for everyone as whole communities become slaves to the Mexican drug cartels.