Dr. House, Drugs, and being an "Idiot"
We're still addicted to House, MD on TV.
They finally focussed on House's addiction to vicodin last week. He supposedly takes the pills for a pain in his leg--where a muscle died. But the amount he takes is steadily going upward.
Dr. Cuddy, the administrator of the hospital, bets House that he can't go cold turkey for a month. Of course, he can't refuse a bet. So you see him go through withdrawal as the episode unfolds. Naturally, this also means everyone questions his judgement more than usual--he arrives at a meeting, late, sweating, eyes dilated, obviously having trouble concentrating, and says something dramatic like: do this or you'll kill the patient. His young colleagues are practically begging him to go back on the pills.
He turns out to be right about how to save a patient--yet again--but he goes back on the pills. He tells Wilson, probably his closest friend, that he now has to admit he has an addiction, but he doesn't have a problem. Wilson challenges him, saying he has no real relationships. House pretty much just says this is what he was always like--yet, we know his intake of pills is increasing, and we now suspect that being high all the time contributes to his distance from people, his rudeness; he is totally caught up in his own body, moods and feelings. Self-absorbed is an understatement.
Of course, there is his work, and he always emerges as slightly better than the others because he refuses to give up on a patient; he's not always right, but he always thinks and acts as though nothing matters except getting the diagnosis right on this particular patient. He is right that rudeness, etc. shouldn't matter if you are achieving excellence, yet this seems crazy too--too single-minded to be sane. And aren't all these patients going to die anyway?
House likes to call people "idiots." The original meaning of this word in ancient Greek was roughly "someone who takes no part in the community"--a loner. In way there was no necessary suggestion of a low IQ, except that there would have to be some explanation for remaining isolated.
And then tonight I watched most of "Leaving Las Vegas" on TV--Nic Cage as a drunk who is determined to die.
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