Sharp Objects mental health check in: Vanish

Camille Preaker is undoubtedly an alcoholic. But what does that reveal about her character in Sharp Objects?

Hello there. Are you watching Sharp Objects on HBO? Are you curious to learn more about mental health and addiction? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Sharp Objects will delve into some serious territory when it comes to women and mental health issues. As a therapist focusing on substance abuse treatment for over a decade, my hope is to sherpa us all through this limited series by providing some real-life context for the disorders and behaviors seen on screen. Ready to dive in? Let’s go. This week, our focus is on addiction. 

Seven minutes into the Sharp Objects premiere, and Camille Preaker tosses back a sleek airplane bottle of Absolut vodka. She unceremoniously dumps the contents into her mouth with a practiced move, steeling herself for the road ahead. It’s almost like she’s taking a daily medication.

Based on the novel by Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects follows Camille – portrayed with quietly simmering rage by an always superb Amy Adams – as she returns to Wind Gap, Missouri to investigate and report on the murder of two young girls. While the murder mystery is surely intriguing, the initial episode concerns itself mostly with Camille’s homecoming as she grapples with long-repressed traumas that begin to surface as she reintegrates herself into the community. At points in time, Camille’s memories bubble up unexpectedly. These memories are so vivid with unresolved grief and trauma that they come out and slap her in the face, nearly debilitating her in the process.

So she drinks. She drinks to numb, and she drinks to forget.

From that first tiny bottle onward, we never see Camille alone and not drinking. In a inspired twist from the novel, Camille camouflages her use by filing Evian bottles with vodka, surreptitiously sipping alcohol as if it were water. Booze is her literal lifeline as she navigates her dysfunctional past.

Camille is so resistant to confronting her memories that the excruciating process of avoiding them has morphed her life into something completely unmanageable and, as a result, she’s attempting to wipe her mind clear by self-medicating. But alcohol isn’t actually a medication, and getting wasted isn’t a permanent fix. Memories tend to stay rattling around in the ole noggin until they’re confronted and processed on a more direct level. Camille is a smart, secretive, and wounded woman with deep-seated trust issues, so she’s not yet open to those types of coping skills. So alcohol becomes her crutch. It’s an easy, short-term solution that only hurts one person: Camille.

And Camille is no stranger to harming herself. Her big brown paper go bag is full of goodies that indicate a complete and utter lack of self care. When she eats, she eats candy bars. When she sleeps, it’s because she passed out. Her movements are mostly fueled by booze and cigarettes, and she has very little regard for her body, forgoing food and sleep in order to keep on keepin’ on.

Eventually, the big reveal of the premiere is that Camille is a cutter, with her self-harm taking the form of words scrawled in white scar tissue all over her fair skin. For viewers that aren’t familiar with the source material, this reveal is shocking. We’ll get into the subject of cutting and physical self-harm during discussion of a future episode, but if this scene was a trigger for you or someone you love, please know that there are resources available to you. Check out the bottom of this post for more information.

While our focus here is primarily on addiction, I’m here to say that addiction is never just addiction. In my experience, people who abuse substances often find a necessary and psychic relief in using them. And until those core reasons are addressed, the abuse – or an all-encompassing craving for the substance – will likely continue.

Over the past decade or so, one of the hallmarks of a female anti-heroine in entertainment is the presence of some form of addiction. Alcohol is a popular one as it’s legal, easy to obtain, generally socially accepted, but can lead to bad decisions and sundry chaos. Hard-drinking women are even sometimes seen as respected entities, subverting the expected norm of a lightweight lady and giving cred to the female who can “hang” with the men.

The anti-heroine often turns to drinking and drugs because she is trying to escape something deeper. On FXX series You’re the Worst, Gretchen Cutler (Aya Cash) recently struggled with a clinical depression relapse by attempting to drink her problems away. (Spoiler: It didn’t work.) And on UnREAL – a series also created by Sharp Objects showrunner Marti Noxon – the main character Rachel Goldberg (Shiri Appleby) veers away from her personality disorder diagnosis by diving into work and punctuating her workaholic ways with episodes of binge drinking.

In the U.S., women are under diagnosed and under treated when it comes to addiction, and are, in fact, overall less likely to develop an addiction. According to Harvard Medical School, however, the caveat to that statistic is that when women do become addicted, they develop full blown dependence to the substance far more quickly than men do.

Ideally I’d run down a few diagnostic tools using Camille as an example of an individual in need of treatment, but we don’t know much about her inner life at the present moment. We do know that she meets most of the criteria for Severe Alcohol Use Disorder with flying colors. Check out the entire DSM-5 diagnosis here. And, while don’t know a ton about Camille quite yet, if you’re concerned about your own relationship with alcohol or drugs (or both), you can use the four question CAGE Assessment as a (very) preliminary tool to help you take a closer look at your own patterns of substance use.

1. Have you ever wanted to cut down on your substance use?
2. Have people ever annoyed you by criticizing your substance use?
3. Have you ever felt guilty about your substance use?
4. Have you ever used your substance of choice first thing in the morning?

If you answered ‘yes’ to two or more, you might want to go chat with a professional about your use. One way to look at options is to use the ‘find my therapist’ option on Psychology Today to check out providers in your area.

My own personal opinion is that everyone could use a good therapist but, admittedly, I’m biased. Bottom line – the job of a good therapist is to be an unbiased party that helps you take control of your own behaviors and process issues from the past, present, and future. It may take a few tries to find a therapist you jive with, but, honestly, that’s life. I don’t get along with everyone that crosses my path, and neither do you. Samesies with potential therapists. So don’t get discouraged if you don’t find one you love on the first – or even second or third – try. The right therapist is out there for you. I guarantee it. Keep trying. You’re worth it.

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If we circle back to Camille, she’s certainly a woman in desperate need of a quality therapist. Yet, something tells me she won’t get to see one anytime soon. We’ll be here every week checking in on her though. Things are definitely about to take a dark turn in Wind Gap.

Please Note: If you feel as if you need to reach out after watching a triggering event on TV, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK or the SAMHSA Treatment Referral Hotline at 1-877-SAMHSA7. If you or someone you know are in immediate crisis, do not hesitate to call 911. 

‘Sharp Objects’ airs Sunday nights at 9/8c on HBO.