reviews
Required Viewing for Gay Men: ‘Rock Bottom’
Crystal meth documentary follows 7 local addicts
Review by Christopher Wallenberg, The New York Blade, Friday, March
09, 2007
For anyone who came of age in the 1980s, First Lady Nancy Reagan’s
reductive, self-righteous rallying cry “Just Say No to Drugs”
has been burned into our brains for all eternity. The ubiquitous
catch phrase became a cliché and then a cultural punch line.
But simplistic slogans and shrill anti-drug crusades such as “Just
Say No” can never make people truly understand the disastrous
effects that drug abuse can have on a user’s life—and
the truly slippery nature of the slope to addiction.
Much more effective are first-hand accounts of struggles with
drug abuse that populate a documentary such as Jay Corcoran’s
crystal meth expose “Rock Bottom,” which should be mandatory
viewing for all gay men. The film is a chilling, realistic, non-preachy
warning about the effects of meth addiction on the gay community.
Since 2004, crystal meth, aka Tina, has been blamed for increasing
the HIV infection rates among urban-dwelling gay men and for fueling
an underground culture of bareback parties, drug-induced Internet
hookups and risky sexual behavior. Meth gives users of a high-voltage
jolt of energy, a feeling of invincibility and makes them horny
as hell—of course, actually getting off is another matter.
Following seven New York City gay men as they struggle with meth
addiction during the course of two years, “Rock Bottom”
is raw and unsettling in its depiction of the insidiousness of the
drug into the addict’s life.
It’s also unflinchingly intimate at times, as it gets up-close-and-personal
with the seven addicts—who talk frankly about their fears,
their dreams, their guilt, their depression, and the illusions and
self-denials that they create to convince themselves that they’re
OK.
“You fool yourself into thinking that you can control it.
Especially with this drug, you have to have reached such a rock
bottom, that your only alternative is dying,” says a bleary-eyed
Raymond as he lays in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, thanks
to a staph infection he got as a result of injecting drugs.
One of the great virtues of the film is its lack of a sanctimonious,
finger-wagging tone. Instead, it shows the realities of drug addiction—the
denial, the anger, the resignation, and the acceptance—and
depicts its addicts as human beings, warts and all. It isn’t
pious or hectoring in its warnings, and it doesn’t try to
hide how rapturous the addicts become when recalling the euphoric
good times and intense sexual pleasures they derived from doing
meth.
The film also addresses the “fear fatigue” of contracting
HIV that has settled in among gay men; the enormous difficulties
of real recovery; the slippery slope that the addicts face; and
the reasons that gay men, in particular, have become so intensely
drawn to the drug.
“These are men who have a difficult time in social situations.
They have a difficult time relating to other people. So the drug
makes them feel uninhibited,” remarks Perry Halkitis, a professor
of psychology at NYU. “People have labeled this the most ideal
drug for gay men—because their identity is built around their
sexuality, in part. Also, gay men as a group experience loneliness
and depression at higher levels than the general population—which
attracts them to this drug and masks those feelings.”
Mark, an up-and-coming playwright and actor who celebrated five
years of sobriety, talks in “Rock Bottom” of the depths
to which the drug took him. He recalls doing meth with his “last
long-term fuck buddy.” The guy smoked cigarettes and chatted
away uncontrollably, while Mark lay strung out on the bed trying
to get himself off. “It was like the perfect paradigm for
people unable to connect and unwilling to try to really connect—both
of us in our own little hells, but pretending to be together.”
Although “Rock Bottom” may not bring anything new
or groundbreaking to the discussion of the meth addiction crisis
that has festered in the gay community, the film is still a powerful,
painful and even harrowing account of the fear, self-hatred, guilt
and depression that haunts the modern gay male psyche.
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