[Submitted via press release]
ADDICTIONS: TO HELL and BACK
A six-part docu-reality series on lifestyle addictions
Starts Sunday 28 April at 9pm on SABC 2
Addictions: To Hell and Back follows six South Africans with lifestyle addictions on a 28-day rehab rollercoaster journey of discovery, denial, confrontation, acceptance and hopefully … healing. Uncensored and raw, heartwarming and relentless, this groundbreaking series offers the entertainment and drama of reality TV combined with the depth and substance of a documentary.
With a focus on lifestyle or process addictions, Addictions: To Hell and Back provides intimate insight into the difficult, often uncomfortable life-changing journey back from addiction thus allowing viewers to really understand firsthand the undulation of emotions and experiences people go through during the tried and tested 12 Step Process of rehabilitation used at rehabilitation centres worldwide.
Episode one introduces viewers to the participants, their addictions and the detrimental impact of these on their daily lives, i.e. at work and at home. The episode then ends with the characters arriving at the rehabilitation centre in Hout Bay.
Episodes two to six offer docu-reality at its best with 28 days of real life rehab interspersed with personal reflection and commentary from the addicts and counsellors.
Participants:Armien is a 38-year-old gay Muslim man with a history of drug addiction. He says he’s addicted to sex, love and co-dependent relationships. He has been a sex worker in Cape Town’s upper income bath house scene for years. He says his good looks and charm make it easy for him to manipulate men into giving him whatever he wants.
Ellen is a 36-year-old bulimic who grew up in a township on the East Rand. She won a scholarship and has a degree in Industrial Psychology from UCT. She says she has literally vomited her life down the toilet. She takes 30 laxatives a day and has a drinking problem that began when she was working in hotels in the UK.
Jacques is 52 and works for the Dept of Environmental Affairs as an economist advising on management of the fishing industry. He is married to a lawyer and has three children in their early 20s. He is a severe overeater - emotional, intense and intelligent. His wife calls him morbidly obese and his family is angry with him for being fat. He had a stroke three years ago and was diagnosed with a rare heart condition. Jacques says participating in this 28-day rehab process is his last chance for a healthy happy life.
Hector is 24 and lives in a township on the outskirts of East London. He spends his days and nights smoking huge quantities of marijuana in hubbly bubblies with his friends while playing “21” for money. When he wins he buys clothes, toiletries and more dagga. When he loses he steals valuables from his brother which he sells. He feels his addiction to dagga and gambling are severe and he sees the opportunity for 28 days of rehab as the opportunity to learn what he needs to change in his life.
Lameez is a 38-year-old white woman who converted to Islam when she married her husband who she met 10 years ago when she was a sex worker. She says: “I have been a drug addict for 24 yrs. My life story is a life of abandonment, abuse, prostitution and I have spent all my life being my own worst enemy.” Lameez testified in a two year trial resulting in the conviction of the paedophile who abused her. She says: “I have never had counselling or therapy and i need to face this thing because it has consumed my life since i was eight years old when this man took my body, soul and innocence.
Roland is a 52-year-old coloured man trapped in the cycle of gambling and cocaine addiction. Once a very successful and wealthy businessman, Roland has lost everything – his family, his happiness, his home - moving from one friend’s couch to another every few days so as not to overstay his welcome.
Addictions: To Hell and Back is made by Shoot the Breeze Productions, the award-winning Cape Town-based company renowned for producing FREE SPIRIT that aired on SABC 2 and 3 from 2001 to 2009 and received the 2007 SAFTA for Best Magazine Show as well as documentaries on a range of topics including Love, Communism, Revolution & Rivonia – Bram Fischer’s story that was voted Best South African Documentary at Encounters in 2007.