Summary/Abstract

Andrew Tatarsky, Ph.D and Gabor Mate discuss the role of trauma in substance use disorder and present substance use disorder as a psychobiosocial disorder dismissing the Jellinek disease model.

Content

On July 1, 2013 author and filmmaker Charles Shaw (Exile Nation, The Plastic People) awoke to the news that his younger sister, Suraya, had committed suicide at age 40. She had battled severe alcoholism and addiction for most of her adult life, and her death was not entirely unexpected, but it was a devastating blow nonetheless.

Within the next year another close friend and a cherished mentor would both die by suicide. These deaths would begin a dark four-year journey into our deepest personal and collective shadow.

As a 30-year survivor of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from childhood violence and sexual abuse, and coming off the highly dangerous and traumatic Plastic People shoot in drug war-torn Tijuana, Shaw was compelled to explore trauma and PTSD through film as a means of trying to understand what happened to his sister and friends, to hold himself together, and to heal the wounds from so much pain and loss.

For three years he traveled the globe, alone, with a pair of cameras and an audio recorder, meeting with people who told them about their most intimate traumatic experiences. The result of this work is At Home in the Dark: 17 Short Films Exploring Trauma & PTSD.

The series is a highly personal, creative and subjective exploration of one of our culture's most ignored and misunderstood public health crises. This is not a traditional documentary by any stretch of the imagination; this is an experimental approach to a difficult subject. From the streets of Harlem to the jungles of Peru, At Home in the Dark introduces the viewer to a diverse range of trauma survivors, from former slave-holding blue bloods to suffering veterans, and takes their tragedy and turns it into art with beauty and meaning. The intimate settings and absence of a film crew or other intrusive presences makes for a unique and candid interview and storytelling experience.

At Home in the Dark was majority-funded by the Tedworth Charitable Trust of the UK-based Sainsbury Family Foundations. It is a non-commercial project that will be given to the world as a gift and public service from the filmmakers and all the committed artists who contributed their stories, music and footage in the interests of greater public understanding and compassion for this syndrome.
At Home in the Dark was photographed, edited and narrated by Shaw and produced by DJ Turner (The Plastic People), Mikki Willis (Be Brave), Mitch Schultz (DMT: The Spirit Molecule) and Dimitri Mugianis (Im Dangerous With Love)

At Home in the DarK
17 Short Films on Trauma & PTSD

Photographed, Edited & Narrated by CHARLES SHAW
Produced by DJ TURNER & MIKKI WILLIS
Co Produced by MITCH SHULTZ & DIMITRI MUGIANIS
Music by TONY ANDERSON, BATHS, EMANCIPATOR, ENOCH KIM, ESSAY & COMA, ESKMO, FINNEBASSEN, HUNDRED WATERS, ICH BIN, ALEX KOCH, MASTER MARGHERITA, MICHAEL GARFIELD, MEDASIN, MICKY HART, MENIMO TUATI, RANDOM RAB, R. SAKOMOTO, THE CLOUD PEOPLE, THE SAMUEL HALL BAND, TYCHO