I loved how the alcoholics are gathered at the AA meeting to confront their issues with addiction to alcohol... and they're all sitting there smoking cigarettes. Kinda' funny, really. Maybe it was unintentional, or not, who knows? lol
That is one of the funniest scenes ever. I get that smoking wasn't a big deal back then (and some still believed it had its benefits), but it's certainly a funny thing to watch now.
Hey there, Johnny Boy, I hope you fry!
No, it was perfectly intentional. People did not frown upon vices back then like they do today. Yes, they were there trying to kick alcohol because they recognised they had a problem, which is precisely why they were encouraged to substitute alcohol for less harmful (that is, less mind-altering) substances such as tobacco. Note the scene in which Jim introduces himself to Joe, how the first thing Jim does is offer Joe a cigarette. Jim does this in effort to alleviate Joe's suffering without, of course, giving him more of the hair of the dog that bit him. Remember, alcohol is their problem, not tobacco. Tobacco doesn't destroy lives in anywhere near the same way that alcohol can. People seemed to appreciate back then the importance of vices and kept their noses out of other people's business. Alas, times have very well changed.
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Infuriating. So glad I didn't live back then, - and it must have been miserable on an airplane.
Addiction is weird. I've never smoked or used an illegal drug, and alcohol only makes me feel dizzy and warm, like I'm coming down with the flu. I could get exactly the same effect spinning around next to a heat vent, -or by having a sick person sneeze on me! (And that's free.) Yet I'm not entirely free of all addictive tendencies: I certainly love that twenty ounces of hot hazelnut coffee every morning.
I'm equally mystified by Kirstin's speech near the end about how alcohol "makes everything pretty". Really? Vomiting, overflowing ash trays, stale-smelling clothes and rooms, and unshaven sweaty strangers with sour breath? Where's the fun and beauty in that?