Ghostly Intervention

Promotional still of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past from IGN.com

While I was away on my mini vacation a few weeks ago, I relaxed with some cheesy movie watching. Among the brainless, feel-good flicks I watched was Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which stars Matthew McConaughey as Connor Mead, an alcoholic sex addict trying to turn his life around at his brother's wedding. Well, I don't think the movie actually refers to him as an alcoholic or a sex addict, but given the fact that, in an effort to numb his feelings, he trashes the wedding cake looking for a drink and tries to get the bride's mother into bed, it's probably safe to imply both.

Following the formula of A Christmas Carol, Connor Mead is visited by the ghost of his (sex addicted, alcoholic) Uncle Wayne who informs him he will be visited by three ghosts that night. Mead is then haunted by the ghosts of girlfriends past, present and future, who show him the girl he loved (who is conveniently a bridesmaid in his brother's wedding), the meaningless sex he's had trying to fill the emptiness and his lonely funeral. Predictably (not just for anyone who has ever read A Christmas Carol, but for anyone who has ever watched a good old Hollywood romantic comedy), the ghostly intervention does its trick; seeing what he once had, what he does have and what he will have if he doesn't change are enough to scare him into a new way of life (or at least the promise of a new way of life). He makes his amends, changes his thinking on love and relationships, saves his brother's wedding (after having ruined it in the first place) and gets the girl. (Ordinarily, I'd put a "spoiler alert" in there, but really, you can't be under any illusions that the movie is going to turn out any other way.)

The movie leaves them sitting on an old swing set together and pans away to let us imagine their happily ever after. He's got the girl and now he's a changed man. No more binge drinking or anonymous sex. She was the answer. The emptiness is filled. Of course, those of us in recovery know that no one person can be the answer and that there's no "ah-ha" moment that leads to instantaneous, sweeping change without any work. In real life, the movie's end is the beginning of the story. The intervention is over and now the work begins. But if it were real life, they'd find out soon enough, and sometimes it's just nice to smile and leave them sitting on the swings, in imagined peace.

---

This post was originally published at The Second Road on August 31, 2009.