Sarah T. - Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic

First up I want to disagree with the poster that said that Sarah T doesnt REALLY hit rock bottom. Towards the end of the movie Sarah has sex in a car with a boy she never met before who agreed to buy liquor for her. That sounds pretty rock bottom to me. SARAH T is a made for TV movie that they dont show on TV anymore...and should...cuz its a good one. It stars Linda Blair as a shy girl whose parents are divorced and she's just started out in a new school. She secretly has been drinking behind her parnets back for about two years. Her mom gets cute boy-next-door Mark Hammel to take Sarah to a party and to loosen up Sarah has a few drinks and sings and dances and has fun. She tells the boy its her first time drinking. After the next few times he sees her drinking he realizes that she doesnt drink like a newbee at all,and suspects she's a serious drinker who may be developing a problem. Of course Sarahs in bigtime denial but as the movie progresses she gets worse and worse until finally she does end up in AA. This movie isnt readily available and I had to get my copy of it through someone on eBay who made me a copy. Its a shame that movies like this,The Late Great Me and Afterschool Specials no longer air. If the networks or cable cant play them shouldnt somebody package them and sell them?

Linda Blair gives an accomplished performance in a challenging and at times awkward part as Sarah, a 15-year-old girl who desperately tries to hide and diminish her increasing alcohol dependency. The film treats alcoholism as an illness, not a symptom, which is rather refreshing considering the year of production. Although, claim the filmmakers, her ailment is also not unlinked to her social life and character traits. The picture offers a fairly satisfactory dissection and portrait, even if Alcoholics Anonymous seem to have had a little too much influence on the production, and the predictable ending isn't quite worth the wait. The early scenes in which Sarah interacts with her classmates and her boyfriend (played by a young Mark Hamill) work generally better than the tussles within her family. Directed by Richard Donner - one year before his major breakthrough with The Omen. Michael Lerner is fun in a smallish part as Blair's psychiatrist.

Please make this movie available to the public either by vhs or DVD it is one of the most memorable movies I have seen in my life !!!! Linda Blair is Amazing in it. This movie has haunted me for 20 years, I never knew the name of this movie until the internet came along. Now I have been in a mad frenzy to find this movie somewhere. Please, Please make it available. I have to have this movie. It is a Classic.

I saw this movie "by accident" as it appeared on TV as "Movie of the Week" back in 1980. I had no intention of watching this particular movie, it was just "on" as I was walking through the room. I was an active alcoholic at the time, and although I was full of denial about my drinking I just couldn't tear myself away. Things went from bad to worse when a friend watching it with me said, "Check it out. She (Sarah T) drinks just like you do", which was of course true but also horrifying as Sarah was clearly an alcoholic.

This movie haunted me for several years, and planted a seed that led me to AA about 4 years later. If you are an alcoholic, or wondering if you might be, see this movie!

I was 14 when this movie was first shown on TV. (The actress, Linda Blair, is a year older than me.) Even though I was not a drinker or a user, I remember feeling like the character of Sarah Travis was the first in movie/TV that I could identify with. I had gone from school to school, and my parents were split up. My Dad was an alcoholic, and I had a hard time fitting in. But like Sarah, I babysat to make pocket money, and I loved music. The Carole King album 'Tapestry' was my favourite album already, which the song 'It's Too Late' is from, (sung by Linda Blair in the movie.) As I lived through the teen years at the same time as this character, and had many similar issues, I feel like for me, the movie was an important one. I have the book again, like I did back then, but I would very much like to see this movie come out in DVD.