The (not so) stereotypical alcoholic father

When I started to think about addiction represented on Netflix shows, my first example was Frank Gallagher from the show Shameless. Living in a considerable not-so-great neighborhood outside of Chicago, Frank has a family of six children (in season 1 their ages range from about 2 years old to 20 years old) that he has basically left to raise themselves. The mother is out of the picture; the oldest sibling, Fiona, stepped in at a young age to take care of the rest of her siblings. We all either have or know an alcoholic father, but Frank makes the rest of the alcoholics look sober. Throughout the eight seasons his alcoholism (along with the use of every other drug out there) is literally a rollercoaster. When the mother of the family dies, she leaves each child a pound of cocaine instead of a will.

Back to Frank however, his alcoholism enhances his rash decisions, like turning in his own family to the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in order to stop his oldest daughter from gaining custody of her siblings. He does not feel entitled to the emotional and physical position as father, but still feels entitled to the legal idea of being a father. The two oldest sons were placed in a boys home, the middle daughter in a crazy foster home where the foster mom forces them into an Americanized form of child labor, and the two youngest boys with a "nice, rich, white family".

His addiction aided by his utter lack of responsibility leads his children to lose all faith in him. Throughout the seasons he finds different places to live, as the kids have kicked him out of the house. Frank is an interesting character because he is extremely intelligent; he has a lot of anti-government rants due to his previously mentioned lack of responsibility, however the viewer can tell Frank's IQ is extremely above average.

The main point behind the show is to portray a struggling and unique lower-class family as well as provide entertainment. However, it's interesting to see how Frank's multiple addictions effect the rest of the family. Lip, the oldest brother, second oldest sibling, goes through a hard time with alcoholism in the later seasons; this can be argued whether it deals with Frank's parenting or Frank's genes, but the portrayal of Lip's alcoholism is different from Frank. Frank is the considered "lost cause", but after a few of Lip's "fuck ups", a professor of his reaches out and gets him in rehab and AA. So far into season 8, Lip is still sober, but is dealing with helping his other AA friends stay sober. There are a lot of relapses, and a lot of moments of enlightenment.

As for Frank, the only time he ever stops drinking is if it is medically necessary or it inhabits his chances to make money. In the middle of the series Frank almost dies from alcohol poisoning, so he stopped drinking for a few weeks before getting back on the horse. In the current season, he finds "religious enlightenment" and starts calling himself Saint Francis. After reading the Big Book in class, I now realize the writers of Shameless were satirizing the original AA process, as by the end of the current season Frank comes back to his old ways.

Okay, so I could write an entire thesis paper on how addiction is portrayed in Shameless, maybe a whole book. But when it comes to specifically alcoholism, the writers covered every corner they could: the shitty alcoholic father and how his addiction negatively impacts his family, the alcoholic son and his struggle to get sober, the multiple complexities and relapses of the other AA members, and just the AA process/idea in general. Taking place in a neighborhood in south Chicago, this family's experiences are not representative of the whole population; but it does, however, represent a type of family that is very different from most of the people who watch the show. So most people that can afford the $8 a month Netflix subscription or whatever people pay for Showtime get a very complex view of addiction in a unique, low income family.