Case Study

Introduction
This case study is intended to analyze the movie When a Man Loves a Woman, and to provide worst and best case scenarios for treatment. This film depicts a family that is struggling with a family member’s alcoholic dependency. The mother, Alice Green, is a school counselor who has an addiction to alcohol that is causing her to experience problems in her life as a result of her use. Her husband, Michael Green, is an airline pilot that is very protective Alice and often steps in and takes over for Alice, even in her role as a mother. Alice has two children, Jess and Casey, which also bear witness to their mother’s deterioration from alcohol addiction.
This family appears to be living a wonderful life in their San Francisco home, until Alice’s alcohol use is marked by loss of control and inability to abstain. There are a number of situations in the beginning half of the movie that demonstrate this lack of control and inability to abstain. For example, for their anniversary Michael and Alice go out to dinner and dancing. When they return home Alice is intoxicated and when a car alarm begins to go off on the street Alice proceeds to smash eggs all over the vehicle. This is all in good fun and Michael even joins in the egging after Alice’s encouragement to join in the fun.
The first sign of problems begin to immerge when Alice goes out for drinks with a friend after work. Alice doesn’t come home until late that night and she appears to have forgotten that Michael had a trip that he had be on for work that night. Alice is initially irritated with Michael and then breaks down because she misses Michael when he is gone. He attempts to save her and make things better by taking her on trip to Mexico to fix things that are ...

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...er alcoholic mother. Jess takes on the role of scapegoat when Alice deflects her “sick” behavior and yells at Jess to do her homework repeatedly while Alice stumbles around the house drunk.
Casey is the younger of the two children and fits the role of the lost child. She displays some social difficulties in that she has make-believe play in the form of the doll head in the toilet to remove her makeup. She appears to be shy and when she is talking to Michael at the kitchen she has some trouble talking about her feelings with her mother being gone for treatment.
All of these roles can be interchanged by the family members as the need arises to protect the family and its current unhealthy methods of functioning. These roles serve to protect each family member individually as well so that they can buffer the feelings and problems that are caused by the addiction.