Redeeming 6

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence, child abuse, pregnancy termination, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, substance use, addiction, graphic violence, death, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

Drugs play an important part in Joey’s story, and his use of them symbolizes escape, both from his life and the reality of his abuse. Joey started smoking marijuana when he was younger but soon turned to more serious drugs, like heroin. He describes drugs as numbing, helping him drown out the world, and he often turns to them when he goes through especially difficult times. Joey also feels that by taking drugs, he is able to repress his thoughts about dying by suicide. While Aoife knows the drugs are bad for him, she also understands that “Joey had somehow managed to survive his childhood and early teens by replacing the lack of his mother’s affection with the warm, enveloping embrace of ecstasy, and his father’s constant stream of mental gaslighting and physical abuse with the mind-numbing dexterity of opioids” (92).

However, beyond representing escape, drugs also present the main problem in Joey’s and Aoife’s relationship and connect to the theme of Addiction and the Road to Recovery.