Documentary ‘Our American Family,’ Addiction is in the Blood

BEST DOC OF THE YEAR –

Oct. 7, 2022 – “I believe that I was an addict from birth,” Nicole says in the opening of the film. “I’ve lost years. I have no idea who I am.”

As we will soon find out, Nicole — a single mom in her late 20s — is a chronic over-dramatizer and self-admitted pot-stirrer. But she isn’t overstating the depth of her drug problems or the toll they have taken on her and on a family steeped in addiction. Linda’s mother struggled with anorexia, and the household was forever in the grip of her disease. Linda’s first husband — Nicole, Chris and Stephen’s father — was an abusive addict. Chris picked up Nicole’s heroin habit, but while he managed to kick it, Nicole has mostly specialized in relapsing.

When we meet her, Nicole is back in rehab after overdosing in front of her young daughter. This is her 17th stab at sobriety, and no one is feeling particularly optimistic.

“She’s living in hell. What if she had cancer?” Linda asks Bryan, who is becomingly increasingly fed up with Nicole, even as Linda is becoming increasingly adamant that the troops rally around her.