I love that Reasonable Doubt has chose to highlight addiction, and how addiction can be genetically influenced. Many people are concentrating on the fact that Jax is an esteemed lawyer despite some personal setbacks and failures. Many are wondering how she could develop an addiction to substances. Environmental factors, such as stress, play a key role in the development of substance use disorders, making drug addiction an archetypal gene by environment disorder. Therefore, both genetic and environmental factors contribute to an individual’s susceptibility to addiction following initial exposure to drugs of abuse. (Goldberg & Gould, 2018). It is very important to highlight one scene that I think is so pivotal to episode 6. When Jax’s mom begins to notice changes in her behavior and recognizes the things that her ex-husband used to do, it is so true to anyone who has ever experienced a loved one with substance abuse challenges. Often times we are very aware of the characteristics, the signs, the behavior, all of it. I love that they use Jax’s mom as the person to point out “hey I’ve seen this before “.
Image via X
Now let’s get back to the relationship between Jax and her father. My Mentor told me one time when I made the comment that I didn’t want to be like somebody in my family. She told me to focus on ways to improve myself rather than saying, I didn’t want to be like them. Because when you focus on not being like somebody, you unintentionally can attract traits of them to yourself. Jax and her father have a strained relationship as we saw last season. However, we also saw that Jax wanted to open up to him, but it was not completely genuine on his end. It is very interesting that the very thing that negatively impacted Jax's relationship with her dad is the very battle that she is facing now. I also found it interesting how Jax seemed ready to confront her demons in episode 7 until her father showed up. Despite the revelation of her addiction to pain pills, she still was not ready to put herself in the same category with her father. Specifically, mounting evidence suggests that parental ingestion of abused drugs influence the physiology and behavior of future generations even in the absence of prenatal exposure. (Vasolor, Byrnes, & Pierce, 2013)
This is very common within families because we tend to shy away from the route of addictions, we also tend to judge and not understand the physiology of what addiction does to a person’s body. The ability of environmental factors to promote the epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of disease and phenotypic variation has now been established in a number of organisms ranging from plants to humans, with a variety of environmental exposures (Goldberg & Gould, 2018). Therefore, it is possible that epigenetic modifications due to drug use may result in behavioral and neurobiological changes, and ultimately contribute to drug use and dependence across generations (Goldberg & Gould, 2018)
Now, although Jax and her father have different antecedents for being addicted to substances, their behaviors are aligned. Here is where we see the typical or stereotypical behaviors of those with addiction and let’s be clear. This is just not for addiction to substances, this includes gambling, sex, food addictions, etc. All addictions we tend to see some of the same types of behaviors. These behaviors include lying, making impulsive decisions, defensiveness about choices, grandiosity, sneaking to do things, reframing things to fit the lies, blaming others, etc.
Ok, this intervention chile. WHEW! First let me say, kudos to the writers and Emayatzy Corinealdi for nailing the symptoms and behaviors of battling a substance. I thought Emayatzy’s performance was amazing. The defensiveness, the deflection, the inability to take accountability, the lack of remorse, the blaming of others, the rummaging through the drawers looking for the pills, the withdrawal…. all of it…. OMG. It was perfection. It brought up so many emotions for me. The whole cast killed it... even seeing the hurt and pain of watching a loved one spiral but also knowing there's very little you can do!! *chefs kiss*
Can we also address another elephant in the room? Y’all know I love to do this. But can we talk about how addictions are fine until it’s drugs or gambling or sex related. Why am I bringing this up? Great question! If you look at some of our everyday lives, many of us have addictions. One common one that we don’t talk about enough is food, another common one is shopping, one that continues to develop is social media and now ChatGPT, etc. I’ll even take this a step further in relation to Jax. There is a discourse online about Jax strength and why she would be on substances. But what that conversation fails to include is that many of us who are considered “strong black women” or said to be resilient, or able to bounce back. etc… I loved in episode 7 how Jax said out loud “I’m not okay” and how Ozzy brought up how often she just keeps going despite all the trauma she’s experienced. I also loved when she said "I'm so tired". These are the very things that are the root to our addictions... trying to find ways to cope with traumas and everyday challenges.
Still don’t believe me? Look at how often you shop, look at your caffeine habits, look at how much time you spend on social media, how much you drink throughout the week, etc. Think about those little white lies you tell in regard to how many packages you’ve gotten, how much money you’ve spent on a thing, how much you’re drinking alcohol especially when life is hard. I know what you’re thinking... Well, that’s not as serious as drugs or porn or gambling. Addictions usually start small and people tend to have the mindset that we are in control until we aren’t. So, the next time you are judging someone about an addiction or a dependency and not understanding how they would let themselves fall into a “trap or bad habit”, it’s simply not that simple especially when you have a genetic predisposition to addiction.
One final thing, so many people are upset about Jax’s storyline including a pill addiction and how they feel this makes her story negative. It amazes me that throughout the seasons… Jax has definitely made some questionable choices. But despite it all, this is the thing that makes you judge her? There’s an interview where Emayatzy challenges those who have an issue with Jax’s current storyline to basically dig deep and see what feelings it’s bringing up for you and I couldn’t agree more. Jax’s strength and resilience is the very reason why you should have grace for her and not judgement. To the entire cast, crew, and writers of Reasonable Doubt…. This season has been one for the books. Thank you for bringing something difficult to the screen.
Let me know your thoughts and if this episode brought up any feelings for you!
Sources
Goldberg, L. R., & Gould, T. J. (2019). Multigenerational and transgenerational effects of paternal exposure to drugs of abuse on behavioral and neural function. The European journal of neuroscience, 50(3), 2453–2466. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.14060
Vassoler, F. M., Byrnes, E. M., & Pierce, R. C. (2014). The impact of exposure to addictive drugs on future generations: Physiological and behavioral effects. Neuropharmacology, 76 Pt B(0 0), 269–275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropharm.2013.06.016