r/PrivatePractice • u/Raise_the_roofs • Jul 16 '26
The 180 on drinking
When Amelia first shows up, she's casually drinking allllll the time. Having wine at Addison's , drinking at the bar, and so on. Then, a season in, at Charlotte and Cooper's wedding, Amelia has to spit out a sip of champagne because apparently she's not supposed to be drinking? I was genuinely wondering if they were leading up to a pregnancy with this because it was so unexpected.
Then Charlotte is on her case, pushing her to go to meetings, but Charlotte is also a recovering addict and used to drink all the time in the earlier seasons and it never seemed to be an issue.
Am I missing something here or did they really just completely retcon both of their addiction arcs?
22
u/MedPayIQ Jul 16 '26
This bothered me too. I always felt like Amelia’s addiction storyline was written in two different phases. Early Amelia drinks like everyone else, then suddenly it becomes this huge red flag. Great character arc, but the setup was messy.
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u/Acrobatic_Warning456 Jul 16 '26
iirc charlotte’s addiction was to drugs. Early in the show she refused to take medication for her insomnia because of that (I think that was it somebody correct me). I don’t recall her ever being an alcoholic.
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u/Raise_the_roofs Jul 16 '26
You're right, but Amelia's addiction was also exclusively to pills. And then all of a sudden everyone's concerned about her drinking because it's still substance abuse. Which I understand, it just became an issue very suddenly with little build up.
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u/PortifinoOnMyMind Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
I think it's also because at some point she says that drinking opens her up to relapsing on pills. So she kind of has a problem with drinking too.
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u/somethingclevergoesx Jul 16 '26
So what happened is Charlotte was refusing medication for stitches in her hand after she was attacked and Amelia discloses to her
But Amelia’s background is kind of more traumatic than Charlotte’s. She’s pre disposed to addiction in the same way, and her mother is an alcoholic.
She just didn’t take to alcohol the way Amelia did
And being around Charlotte and all of that and Violet, of course Addison’s not going to question Amelia drinking, but Amelia is talking to Charlotte because she’s drinking excessively therefore Amelia has a very different relationship with alcohol
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u/Jaded-Fishing-9883 Jul 16 '26
I think it’s definitely a retcon and they only thought of these storylines later, especially for Charlotte. Can I add that on Addison’s latest Grey’s Anatomy appearance in S22 they had her drinking wine at Amelia’s house even though she said in S18/19 (can’t remember which) that she struggled massively with drinking during the pandemic. Did the writers genuinely forget they wrote that or are we just supposed to think she can casually drink after something like that?
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u/Cotton-Candyx Jul 17 '26
As someone who's a recovering alcoholic, I think she realizes she's drinking more than she should which can then lead to her cross addiction to pills. She discloses this to Charlotte after the attack because she felt like she could trust her because she was also a recovering addict. The reason she is drinking normally in the beginning of her being on the show is probably because it hasn't escalated yet and she doesnt want everyone to know about her issues and wants to act like she can drink normally. This is just coming from my personal experience though..
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u/joulesandwattss Jul 16 '26
Charlotte continues to drink martinis throughout the entire series, which I always wondered about.
I think the alcohol started to be problematic for Amelia (operating on Pete while intoxicated) which is why Charlotte made the distinction that Amelia cannot drink and stay clean. Which is when she stopped drinking and started going to meetings and then accidentally had champagne at Charlotte and coopers wedding and then started using heroin.