Trinity College lecturer Brian Pennie has the mother of all redemption stories. He discovered drugs at the age of 14 and, by 16, had graduated to heroin. He spent the next decade and a half in the throes of addiction before cleaning up and pursuing a life in academia. He knows what it is to hit rock bottom and to turn things around.
There are many ways of bottoming out, however, and the compelling first episode of Hooked (RTÉ One, Wednesday) reveals that some destructive behaviour is far more insidious than substance abuse. The most ubiquitous, he tells a classroom of students, is the irresistible device in our pockets.
“Every time I have a sniff of boredom in my life ... where’s my phone?,” he says. “TikTok, Twitter – the consequences are long and enduring.”
He is, of course, not suggesting that watching YouTube is the same as injecting drugs. But the message of this thoughtful and empathetic show is that, regardless of our life circumstances, we can be at risk of temptations programmed to hot-wire our cerebellums.
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One of the most destructive is gambling, as Pennie discovers when he visits a residential centre for people recovering from various addictions. “I could have my whole week’s wages gambled during a lunch break,” says one patient, who reveals that the ever-present nature of phones in our society means temptation is always within arm’s length.
Pennie is an intense individual, and it is fair to say he has a special outlook on the world. At home, he has a wall chart marking every week of his life. The first half is ticked off. The remainder is unmarked – a reminder of all the potential he has left to fulfil, but also that life is finite and that we are approaching the finish line faster than we might like. “Most people know they are going to die but they don’t believe it,” he says, pointing to the chart. “It’s one of the biggest guidances in my life.”
Pennie does well in not making the film all about him. There was surely a temptation to do a glorified documentary tracking his early descent into drugs and his long journey back into the light.
There is some of that, but he doesn’t labour the point. Meeting an expert on compulsive behaviour in Cambridge, he recalls undergoing surgery in childhood without anaesthetic. That left him with a long-term feeling of vulnerability, a void he attempted to fill with drugs. “I grew up with a chronic fear of anxiety, panic attacks,” he says. “I found heroin when I was 16.”
One of the most admirable qualities of this documentary is that it doesn’t condescend to the viewer and never resorts to finger-wagging. Instead, it is full of empathy towards people in a difficult position.
“Nobody wakes up wanting to be addicted,” Pennie says at the start. The statement sets the tone for an informative film which paints a stark picture of the predatory aspects of gambling and social media but refuses to stand in judgment of anyone caught in their pincer grip.
