A small town policeman must investigate a suspicious hunting accident. The investigation and other events result in him slowly disintegrating mentally.
A drunken Scottish poet who has not written a word in years feels compelled to regain control of his life and work after meeting a beautiful young woman.
Fledgling comic Benjy Stone can't believe his luck when his childhood hero, the swashbuckling matinee idol Alan Swann, gets booked to appear on the variety show he writes for. But when Swann arrives, he fails to live up to his silver screen image. Instead, he's a drunken womanizer who suffers from stage fright. Benjy is assigned to look after him before the show, and it's all he can do to keep his former idol from going completely off the rails.
Although his alcoholism has been treated, Alain still feels he is deeply unwell and does not feel he can leave the detoxification clinic once and for all. His wife, living in New York, continues to pay for his treatment, but no longer contacts him directly. He intends to commit suicide, but first takes a ride to Paris to catch up with old friends.
A native Briton banished to Australia for murder, and his wife, Henrietta, the disturbed sister of the man he was convicted on killing, set out to help her conquer her demons and return her life to normal.
Once called "Father Frank" for his efforts to rescue lives, Frank Pierce sees the ghosts of those he failed to save around every turn. He has tried everything he can to get fired, calling in sick, delaying taking calls where he might have to face one more victim he couldn't help, yet cannot quit the job on his own.
Based on the autobiographical novel of the same name. Jack London has struggled with alcoholism most of his life. At age five he was instructed to bring a pail of beer to his father and drank some to prevent it spilling over, getting drunk for the first time. As an adult, he goes through cycles of abstinence only to return to hard drinking.
World War I has left golfer Rannulph Junuh a poker-playing alcoholic, his perfect swing gone. Now, however, he needs to get it back to play in a tournament to save the financially ravaged golf course of a long-ago sweetheart. Help arrives in the form of mysterious caddy Bagger Vance.
In 1970s Hollywood, Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.
An ex-convict is tracked down by his estranged teenage son, and the pair try to build a relationship and life together in Seattle.
After long absence, a man returns to his hometown only to find his best friend has become an alcoholic.
After her father dies, a young woman returns to her Yorkshire village for the first time in 15 years to claim the family farm she believes is hers.
A woman who runs a bar with her older sister has her life disrupted when she has a chance meeting with an old lover.
The family of Raymond, his wife Val and her brother Billy live in working-class London district. Also in their family is Val and Billy's mother Janet and grandmother Kath. Billy is a drug addict and Raymond kicks him out of the house, making him live on his own. Raymond is generally a rough and even violent person, and that leads to problems in the life of the family.
Set in a dugout in Aisne in 1918, a group of British officers, led by the mentally disintegrating young officer Stanhope, variously await their fate.
After committing a crime for which he is likely to be jailed, a Yolngu teenager convinces two of his childhood friends to join him on a journey from North East Arnhem Land to Darwin to seek help from a tribal leader.
A group of disillusioned American expatriate writers live a dissolute, hedonistic lifestyle in 1920's France and Spain.
When reporter Jean Craddock interviews Bad Blake—an alcoholic, seen-better-days country music legend—they connect, and the hard-living crooner sees a possible saving grace in a life with Jean and her young son.
The Talbots, formerly one of the Eastern Shore's first families, have gone to seed: Pap is a drunk, soddenly decaying in his ruined ancestral home, and three of his sons (William, Carol, and Ezra) are lazy, shiftless young men. Mulligan, Pap's second son who supports the entire family by oyster fishing, falls in love with wealthy Anna Lee, but when he first kisses her, she calls him "white trash."
Francie and Joe live the usual playful, fantasy filled childhoods of normal boys. However, with a violent, alcoholic father and a manic depressive, suicidal mother the pressure on Francie to grow up are immense. When Francie's world turns to madness, he tries to counter it with further insanity, with dire consequences.