Steve Martorano 
The Behavioral Corner is produced in partnership with Retreat Behavioral Health -- where healing happens.

The Behavioral Corner 
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano and this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us, as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and wellbeing. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner, please hang around a while.

Steve Martorano 
Hey, everybody, I'm Steve Martorano. And this is the Behavioral Corner, as we've discussed....you know, I forgot to turn my light on. So since we're talking about films...lights...camera...action, and here we are hanging again on the Behavioral Corner, where we talk about behavioral health, which means this is a podcast about everything, because everything affects our behavioral health. And we have a good one for you today one of my favorite series of programs we do on this program, is the Movie Mavens. By the way, the whole shooting match is made possible by our great partners, Retreat Behavioral Health, and not only do they add financial support to this effort, but more often than not, we reach out to their people. And that's what the Movie Mavens are Grace Shober and Maggie Hunt, two executives with Retreat Behavior Health. They are very successful career women. They are mothers and wives, and sisters, and they're just the best people on the planet. We're going to have some fun with movies, we've done a couple of television programs, we're doing a couple of movies. And what we what...we want to do is, you know, have fun talking about movies. But most especially what this is about is we're picking films that have something to do with substance abuse, mental health, and the treatment and how it's depicted in the film. Because the ladies are experts, they are both in long-term utterly spectacular recovery. I mean, I've told you this a million times. They have been there and done that. So their expertise and their opinion on how these movies treat these important topics we think are worthwhile. Hi...hi guys. How are you?

Grace Shober 
Hi.

Maggie Hunt 
Doing well!

Steve Martorano 
Good to see the Mavens again. And we got...we got a good one. It was your choice to do Flight. A Denzel Washington movie. I couldn't agree more that that's a good one to tackle. Real quickly. It is you know, it's an award-winning movie. It was voted you know, one of the best movies of the year. It was out in 2012. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. For those who do not know, it's a Denzel Washington movie. So that makes it a big deal right there. He is supported in the film by a couple of great people Kelly Riley, you may know her from Yellowstone. She's all over Yellowstone now. And Don Cheadle and John Goodman, big John Goodman from the Roseanne show. He's got a very interesting role to play in this film. Briefly, Denzel plays a pilot for a major airline who miraculously lands an airplane that runs into mechanical difficulty, and single-handedly because of his expertise, saves most of the people on this flight and is immediately hailed a great hero. The problem is, that he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol, not only during that flight, but apparently, he has a history of this. And so we're gonna have some fun with the movie in general, but we're going to bore down into how they deal with substance abuse in this movie, Flight. It's worth seeing, by the way. It is worth seeing. Okay, guys, let's begin with the actors. So he's fun. Are you both fans of Denzel? 

Maggie Hunt 
Yeah.

Grace Shober 
Yeah, I like Denzel.

Maggie Hunt 
I don't know why I didn't realize it. Maybe it's because it's been a long time since I've seen the movie. But I am watching Yellowstone and I love Yellowstone. And I didn't realize that Kelly...I just Googled it just now since we were talking. And I was like, Oh my God, I didn't realize that. That's who that was. She looks so much younger in this one, probably because it was like 10 years ago. So...

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, that is the fact that I think you guys would be the experts on this. I think they, you know, they...they messed her up nicely in pursuit of trying to achieve at least the look of a woman with serious substance abuse issues. You agree Grace? Is she scruffy enough?

Grace Shober 
Yeah, she is. Yeah, she's kind of like the stereotypical, you know, drug addict type female.

Steve Martorano 
Wow, you sound jaded. She didn't defend either of you by the depiction of a substance abuser or put you off it? That's not what you're saying. Right?

Grace Shober 
No, and like it didn't put me off at all. Just like that's what I would expect to see. You know, for somebody cast is like a drug addict and a movie.

Steve Martorano 
Well, yeah, it is standard Hollywood fare. That...that's the way they're supposed to look. They're supposed to be pained. They're not supposed to be gorgeous. It's very difficult to take a beautiful actress and convince people she's not really beautiful, but they did a decent job with this. I thought Denzel was terrific. As a guy that's still going too hard. on all levels, so and Denzel Washington we're gonna sit here and critique Denzel Washington? That's absurd. The other characters are not central to what we're going to be talking about, but they're worth mentioning. Don Cheadle is a terrific actor, he plays a hard-nosed, I guess he's the lawyer for Denzel, right? 

Maggie Hunt 
I think so. 

Steve Martorano 
Because what happens in the film is that there's an investigation when it becomes apparent that there's something wrong with their pilot, who's a hero, on the one hand, but on the other hand, has been abusing substances and flying airplanes. A signature moment here, before we get into the depiction of substance abuse, is the -- I don't want to spoil anything for you -- but Denzel does an unbelievable maneuver on a plane that is completely uncontrollable. It has to do with turning the plane over and gliding. It's, you know if you're not a pilot, it wows you. If on the other hand, you have flown commercial airlines, you might have something else to say about that. Your brother is a pilot Grace? 

Grace Shober 
Yep.

Steve Martorano 
And my brother-in-law is. We did the same thing. We both...you said your brother, can you do that? What does your brother say about the maneuver he accomplishes the save those lives?

Grace Shober 
He basically said like there is potentially a way to like save lives and not totally crash a plane completely if there's like a malfunction or something like that was a plane but what happened in the movie in terms of like, a huge plane like that not even like a little jet or something like going upside down and performing that maneuver is really just Hollywood.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. My brother in law who flies for a major airline, and in fact, trains pilots. I didn't even get the whole sentence out of my mouth. I said, "Did you see Flight?" And he went, "Yes, and you can't do that." He said, "You couldn't turn that plane over and back again. But you're right. I mean, we saw the fellow Sullenberger land an airplane on the Hudson River and save everybody's life. So you know, these guys are good. They are good. When I find out there's a plane crash in a movie. I go in gingerly. I don't want to see what goes on inside of an airplane when something bad is, you know what I mean? Grace.

Maggie Hunt 
Yeah, she knows what you mean because Gace also hates flying. We hold hands.

Grace Shober 
Because I honestly think every time that...

Steve Martorano 
Are both of you reluctant fliers? 

Maggie Hunt 
No, I'm fine.

Grace Shober 
Mags doesn't care. She's just like...she's like, "Oh, yeah, it's shaking. Like if it goes down, it goes down. But like, you know, just close your eyes." I'm just like, "Oh my God."

Steve Martorano 
Wow. Advice from Maggie Hunt for fear of flying. "Don't be afraid." 

Grace Shober 
Yeah.

Maggie Hunt 
I think like a healthy, you know, obviously, but I think that I go back on when they say something like you're more likely to get into a car accident and get killed than you...I just kind of go with that because it's more comforting.

Steve Martorano 
We could do a whole show on conquering phobias in terms of mental health stuff. But I hear you, you're 30 times more likely to die on a highway than you are in an airplane. The problem with thinking that as the plane is like bouncing around, is that you're not on a highway, you're in a damn airplane. Now the odds don't count. 

Maggie Hunt 
Right.

Steve Martorano 
So anyways, terrifying, and it scares the bejesus out of me every time I think, but I'm a good fly. I don't care. I'm sort of like bag, just what the hell, let's go jump on a plane and go someplace. And it's just great. It's Denzel Washington. Robert Zemeckis is a great director, it's, you know, you're on the edge of the seat. He's obviously a hero. But now he's got to face some very serious hearing when issues arise as to his substance abuse, which the audience is already aware of. We see him getting high at the beginning of the movie. He's a wreck. Somehow or another that goes unnoticed by his boss but it doesn't at this point. So he has to defend himself, he has to get into rehab and that's where he meets Kelly Reilly. And this is where our main focus is and why we appreciate the Mavens' time to talk to us about what they saw and what they thought about that. How did that strike you? You know, he was very reluctant about doing this. He was doing it to save his job. But I don't think he really embraced how messed up he was. Is that the way you felt about it, Grace, did they get that? Right?

Grace Shober 
Yeah, I mean, definitely, I was always one of those people that like hated to go to treatment, like people, you know, they were like bribing me. And my dad like took me to dye my hair purple before I went to treatment because it was the only way I would go, like the whole nine. I was just like, No, I'm not, you know, it wasn't something I was into. But I think the fact that he went to like, save something like a face, whether that's his job or whatever, it's how it goes. We see a lot of people that come in just because, you know, they have to form an ultimatum whether it's a job or a family member or something like that.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, you're, you know, you're compelled by courts to do that.

Grace Shober 
The legal system. 

Steve Martorano 
Maggie, did you...they get it right, as far as you're concerned?

Maggie Hunt 
Well, I think the most shocking thing for me also about the movie was that they did not talk about addiction at all in the previews. So I was totally caught off guard when I went to go see it. Because like, my mom and I went to go see it. And we just thought we were going to see a cool new Denzel Washington movie. And I was newly sober, not newly sober around this time, but like newly-ish sober. And I was like, I can't believe I'm watching this.

Steve Martorano 
You know, I'm so glad you brought that up because I had been saying that all along. My immediate reaction when it occurred to me what I was watching is that the marketing people had misled the hell out of us. This was a Denzel Washington to rescue movie, right? 

Maggie Hunt 
Yep. 

Steve Martorano 
And...

Maggie Hunt 
You're like, "Oh, he's gonna be a hero." You have no idea anything else about like, that is what's about to happen, which I was fine with. And I do think they did a good job...

Steve Martorano 
These guys went "We can show him as a substance abuser. We can't sell the movie like that. You know, it's Denzel Washington." Which is really ridiculous because he's an actor, right? But you say you were okay with it? Can you imagine a situation where someone is newly in recovery, that goes to see a Denzel Washington movie, and it's about substance abuse, and it is a problem for them?

Maggie Hunt 
Yeah, he's also the perfect example of somebody who is like, "Oh, I don't drink at work. Like I don't drink on the job." But like, you come into work at 5 am or, you know, after you stopped drinking at 5 am came to work at 7 am Like people to hold on to that delusion pretty regularly and justify their behavior by being like, "Oh, well, I'm not like affecting anything at work, and blah, blah, blah, and I'm not drinking on the job." It's the same thing unless you have a clear mind and body like you're under the influence. Yeah. And it just so happens for him that, you know, he has this significant job that, you know, is putting people at risk, and something happened, you know, through no fault of his own, and then he had to fix it. But it doesn't matter that well, you know, the one time.

Steve Martorano 
You know, Grace, where you take him by surprise, the actual nature of this movie?

Grace Shober 
Yeah, I was because just like Maggie said, like, I didn't know, you know, I just watched it at the time. I mean, I wasn't sober. But I watched the movie. But at the same time, I think what's great about it is unlike and we all know about, like my disdain for Euphoria, but unlike Euphoria, it's not glamorized really at all. Except for like, that minuscule part that we all thought the whole thing was going to be about like we had said, where he's like a hero and all that, that's like super short-lived. And then it's like all the consequences that follow. So, I mean, I think even if you go and watch it, there's like certain scenes where you're just like, are maybe a little cringe-worthy, but there's nothing that's like super glamorizing about it.

Steve Martorano 
When we meet the character, that Denzel Washington's playing, he's already a wreck. I mean, we don't know that he...that he can't do his job, but he's a mess. You know, he's fighting with his wife on the phone, he's in the room with a woman. I think he does some cocaine in that scene as well. So we know he's, he's not a Boy Scout, to begin with. This point, though, is about his substance abuse, his role as a pilot, and his ability to just miraculously manage the situation. While we know he's a wreck, as Maggie just said that neither of you got high that morning. He's an abuser, and he's got problems. But in a moment of existential threat, he's able to do these things. Did either of you find that what they were trying to do was convince us that under some circumstances, the true person will be able to emerge, no matter how many drugs they're abusing? I mean, they were trying to make that point weren't they?

Maggie Hunt 
Oh, yeah, and I was just gonna say, I think that they like were also trying to take over like, some of the dysfunctional beliefs and the, you know, the way that he was managing his motions on top of his drinking to kind of like, portray the whole person a little bit.

Grace Shober 
The way that I like kind of look at it or take it is he like you said, it's a delusion that you're able to do like basically anything, you know, if you're on substances, but also the fact that like, when you're in addiction, alcoholism so deeply that you actually need if you're aren't physically detox, you actually need the substances to function. Because my thought is that if he was like, stone-cold sober, and like, was kind of going through it a little bit, he wouldn't have been able to do what he did in the movie. But he wasn't physically detoxing. It's not like he was just like me or Maggie, or like somebody else, like who's in like recovery, and you aren't on a substance to function. I think at that moment, he actually needed to be on something to be able to function at all, which I think is kind of how I took it.

Steve Martorano 
It's a very complicated issue. It really is. But again, since we all agree, the marketing sort of blindsided us, we had to start playing catch up right away and say, "Well, okay, this is about substance abuse, and put that other stuff on the side." You know, at that moment when his life and everyone else's life depends upon him, cutting through whatever substance abuse problems he's having. He does it. He actually does it. Did you think the character did a good job because afterward, he seems to think that's a defense for his behavior? Like, why are you bothering me about what I do? I just flew the airplane and saved everybody. Maggie did you get a sense that they were trying to, at least the character was trying to make that argument, and does it resonate among substance abusers in general going, "Hey, I'm handling it."

Maggie Hunt 
100%. I literally just had a situation with a very close family member who, you know, it's almost like addicts and alcoholics want to be like, I did everything, but I did everything. But I was doing everything right. But, and it's like, I understand all of those things. But that one, but is like, like, really significant. So I think that they try and do that a lot through the movie and try to fight that argument that, I don't know.

Steve Martorano 
It's a monstrous rationalization. I mean, to sum it up, in kind of a metaphor, substance abusers' lives are in disarray, and being destroyed, and everyone else around them is being destroyed. And they are metaphorically speaking a plane that's currently itself into the ground. Right? And in this movie, that character seems to be telling the audience "Yeah, yeah. But I landed the plane."

Maggie Hunt 
Yep.

Steve Martorano 
Grace, do you agree?

Grace Shober 
Yeah. No, I agree 100%. I do also think that he tried to rationalize it and the movie kind of depicted how he rationalized and more with like, they didn't touch a whole lot on his substance use. They touched on her substance use, but they touched on his alcoholism, and how alcohol is legal. And like they were trying to, like rationalize things and like different ways.

Steve Martorano 
You guys, I so appreciate your perspective on this. Because the only value I think we're getting out of the Maven series is that you take a look at how movies are made when they're mad about important topics. I mean, if they're doing a dinosaur movie, who cares, right? When that is when they're touching upon stuff that matters. You can see if you look closely, how Hollywood gets in the way. You know, they can't show us Denzel Washington for an hour and 45 minutes as a loser. They could do it, you know, for 15 minutes when they got to make it kind of heroic. I think that was for me what was wrong with this thing. Mag, what do you think?

Maggie Hunt 
In a 12-step fellowship. There's the thing called the bedevilment. And in the bedevilment, they ask some questions. If somebody's not sure whether or not they're an addict or an alcoholic, I usually ask them these questions, because these questions don't necessarily pertain to like how much you're drinking, how often you're drinking, what you're using all those things. So it says, We were having trouble with personal relationships. And he had that like, estranged family, like in one of the scenes, like when he went back to visit his son, his son was like I hate you know, like, they didn't have a good relationship. We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were prey to misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. We had a feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear. We were unhappy. We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people, was not a basic solution to this bizarre violence more important than whether or not we should see it, and then it goes into this other whole other thing. But these are the questions that like what identify somebody as a national alcoholic, not you know, how little you are drinking or using or any of those things. But it's like, you know, he was having troubles, his personal relationships. He couldn't control his emotional nature. That we couldn't make a living as is not so black and white in the sense of like, well, you just had a situation where like, you're not really, you know, your job is in jeopardy, feeling of uselessness, full of fear, unhappy, like, so all of those things. So I do think that they portrayed that without, and I think that they portrayed the struggle that he had throughout that movie. If that make sense?

Steve Martorano 
I agree. Their goal is to make an entertaining movie. 

Maggie Hunt 
Right.

Steve Martorano 
And so you know, you got to be a little careful about preaching and all of that. Grace, you mentioned that, and you're right, I believe that they paid less attention to his substance abuse or alcohol problems and more to her and her struggle. Did they do a better job with her?

Grace Shober 
Oh, yeah. I mean, like, I think here's what they did. I think what they tried to do is like, this is somebody who, in terms of the female, this is somebody who's like, in and out of treatment, this is somebody who's like an overdose. She's kind of like, got no family, like the whole nine, and she's using heroin. And then we have like, a successful guy who's a pilot who, you know, still has money and like, all that kind of stuff. And his thing is alcohol. So it almost felt like heroin is worse than alcohol. But at the end of the whole thing, you're looking at it you're like, alcohol while legal, you know, and while we're making all these rationalities for it, is just as dangerous if not more dangerous at times than heroin. So I think they did a pretty good job and like switching up the roles in terms of like, okay, she was really, really bad, you know, He was pretty bad. You saw that he was, like, pretty bad. But then she started to get better. And he was declining and did not like following what he was supposed to follow. So that way, like the person that they may look at like, oh, heroin, it's like so bad. It's so, and it is, don't get me wrong, but that everybody always glamorized is like, you don't see a billboard of heroin, you see a billboard of alcohol, you know, and you're like, Oh, well, this stuff that's legal on billboards and sold in grocery stores and gas stations is just as dangerous as somebody who is using other substances.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, Hollywood, in that regard, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, has it almost the same way most of the major extreme public does when it comes to substance abuse issues. They think you can separate them. 

Grace Shober 
Yeah, 

Steve Martorano 
Oh, it's just this or it's no, it's only that, or it's all the same thing. It's all the same problem. So without going into the weeds on what happens to him with this investigation, and how it turns out, there is a character of John Goodman, who this you tell me how you felt the moment he arrives in the story I think the whole thing begins to wobble because I found him to be a completely ridiculous character, and a dangerous one. In terms of what we're talking about. Do you feel that way, Grace?

Grace Shober 
Yeah. I mean, here's somebody who is like a professional guy, right? So they're looking at it that way. I know for sure that I never had somebody, like, just Oh, on the phone come in and bring like a suitcase of like, anything that I ever wanted. And like, oh, it's gonna be great. Like, that would have been great at the time, I'm sure. But like, that's just not reality. So it's just something to cause a little bit of maybe humor, I think maybe is what they were doing, like a little bit of humor, because, in my opinion, I've never been on that side of it. Like I was a homeless heroin addict, you know. So I don't know that side of it. I'm sure maybe that's how it is for, like, famous people or whatever. But that is not how it is in real life.

Steve Martorano 
Mag just to paint a brief picture of Goodman, who is a large man who shows up in, you know, I'm remembering this vaguely, you know, Hawaiian shirt, the cargo pants, boots, and a satchel full of every drug on Earth. 

Maggie Hunt 
Yeah.

Steve Martorano 
His role in this is to get his client and Denzel and his friend in sufficient shape to face the FAA examination, that he's about the thing. Again, from the Maven's unique point of view, how does it resonate with you that this guy shows up with drugs?

Maggie Hunt 
Yeah, it was also not the way that I had...the same as Grace, like, it was not my experience...

Grace Shober 
We were waiting for people in the car for hours and hours. Like we were on other people's time. They were on our time.

Maggie Hunt 
Yeah. But I also was thinking to have, an inner there was an Intervention episode, I saw one time before I really understood what addiction was. And they were like, "Will you go to treatment?" And she was like, "Oh, well, I need to drink to make the decision." Sure enough, as you're watching it, and you're watching her, like, take this first, second, third drink, she's becoming significantly more normal as she's drinking. So like, I get the concept and kind of like how Grace said in the beginning, like he probably needed to drink to, you know, to fly a plane or whatever, whatever. But like, it truly is a brain disease. And your brain is lacking that serotonin that those drugs are gonna give that boost.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, I agree. Well, you know, the premise, the plane is going to crash. We've got to rely upon this guy, you know, a problem drinker or not.

Maggie Hunt 
Right.

Steve Martorano 
And his position when it's all over his world, right, as we said earlier, I landed the plane. And that, you know, one more, hit one more drink, and then I'll go to rehab is pretty common, right? I mean, that...how many times did you say that, Grace? 

Grace Shober 
Every time.

Steve Martorano 
You know, I always tell people, when I work with you guys from Retreat, you know, Retreat will come, and if you can't get to, you want to go to treatment, you can't get there under your own power within a certain radius. And it's a big radius, they'll put a guy in a car and come get you. Well, the drivers that I've interviewed for Retreat, you know, it occurred to me 10 minutes, they may be the most important link in the process of getting treatment because they got to the back of the car, you don't want to go. I'm sure those stories about pulling over one drink, then I'll go the rest of the way here. And these guys, most of you know, are in recovery. "Yeah, no, I don't think so, pal. Let's just keep going. We're almost there." Anyway, it's a wildly entertaining picture. And it's Denzel Washington, you know, the greatest star of his generation. So there's not much to think about, and even under the influence of Hollywood, drug addiction, Kelly Reilly, is hard to look at. John Goodman is a joke. So as the Mavens are here to focus on that issue that we want to focus on when we do our reviews, and that's how well, at the end of the day, does the movie Flight depict substance abuse? And then whatever treatment went on? We haven't even established whether you guys want to give it a grade or a one to 10. So I leave it to you, you want to give it an A, B, C, D, or F? Whatever you want to do to tell us how well did Flight get that done?

Maggie Hunt 
Grace, do you want to go first?

Grace Shober 
Well, yeah, something that I like to like mention also about this movie that I didn't get to, like touch on is the fact that like, he was in for it. And he knew like, there was like stuff going on. And he was trying and looking at it. This like one bottle of vodka and like, didn't was like kind of fighting back and forth in his head, and he starts walking by and you're like, "Oh, he's not going to drink it." And all of a sudden, you see his hand graphs, this bottle. And Maggie was saying what the brain disease is like it's just the power of alcoholism and addiction that like no matter what he was trying to walk by it, and it just wasn't happening. He was grabbing that bottle. I think that minus the John Goodman situation, minus like, maybe totally flying the plane upside down. And like just like a couple of other things. I give it like a solid B+, you know, just because I think that they do, you know, there are like real-life events in it. And like Maggie was saying, like, you can see progression, you can see things that have like fallen apart and all that. So if you haven't seen it, I think it's absolutely worth your time to see make your own conclusions on it. But I would say give it a high B.

Steve Martorano 
Mag? 

Maggie Hunt 
When you asked, well, we're gonna write it I came to mind, and 8 out of 10. I would say an 8 out of 10, I think, is a...

Steve Martorano 
Pretty good. Yeah, so anyway, and this thing works on a couple of levels. If you'd like Denzel Washington, and you know, like the edge-of-your-seat movie, making this picture is good. And if you're struggling with alcohol problems, or substance abuse problems, pay attention. They get a lot of it right. And as both the Mavens said, just you know, just forget about Goodman. I don't know what the hell he's doing in this movie. Listen to the Movie Mavens, and have a couple of their past reviews up on the Behavioral Corner site. They're up there. It's like a library. Please go look at behavioralcorner.com For other shows as well. But go back and take a look at some of the other things the ladies have reviewed. We got a lot of reaction when they did Euphoria, which was wildly popular, but not so much here. So take a look at those. And you know, we'll have the ladies back again soon. Maggie Hunt. Gray Shober from Retreat Behavioral Health, our Movie Mavens. Now, this is the most fun I love movies and love talking to you two about them. So thanks again, guys. 

Grace Shober 
Thank you, guys. 

Maggie Hunt 
Thank you. 

Maggie Hunt 
Thank you all for your time. Don't forget, you know, follow us and do all that stuff on Facebook and like us and check out the website for the previous Movie Maven reviews. Have yourself a good time. Bye-bye guys.

Retreat Behavioral Health 
Retreat Behavioral Health has proudly been serving the community for over ten years. Here at Retreat, we believe in the power of connection and quality care. We offer a comprehensive holistic and compassionate treatment from industry-leading experts. Call 855-802-6600 or visit us at www.retreatbehavioralhealth.com to begin your journey today. 

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