History Main / RecoveredAddict

* Pete Lattimer in ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}''. Several episodes keep drawing attention to the fact that Pete is a recovering alcoholic by stating it in the recap opening, but they subvert it by making the characters simply think he has when the truth is far weirder.

* Interestingly, in ''TabletopGame/Shadowrun'' you can play as one of these, but throughout your career you may be tempted in a variety of ways.

* In ''Series/{{Bones}}'' Seeley Booth is a recovered gambling addict. It rarely comes up except when their investigations take them to a casino or similar place. He has never fallen off the wagon that we've seen.

* Jacob in ''WebComic/{{Shortpacked}}'' was a sex addict, part of the reason he's stuck working retail is that his addiction interfered with his studying law. Roz abused his addiction to get cheap, relationship free sex, only for him to realize what it was doing to him. Eventually Amber got him out of his slump and he got clean, completing his law degree and moving away.

[[AC:ComicBooks]]
* For most of ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueElite'', Major Disaster kept getting wasted in order to deal with the stress of having to play a supervillain (because supervillainy was a previous addiction that he was still struggling to overcome). After getting so wasted that his powers crapped out on a mission, leading to the death of one of his only real friends, he tried to kill himself. When that failed, he decided retire from superheroics and join AA instead, and as far as we know, never relapsed (well, not on the drinking, anyway; he ''did'' return to being a superhero, but since that was during ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis, and he ended up dying in battle, he can probably be forgiven for it.)
* In ''ComicBook/TheOrder'', Henry Hellrung used to be a nasty drunk, the result of his playing [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] on a TV show and becoming the real Tony's wingman. After his career went down the toilet, he got heavily into AA, and became Stark's sponsor when ''he'' got sober. Incidentally, upon becoming the leader of the Order, California's post-''ComicBook/CivilWar'' official team, he instituted a strict no-alcohol policy.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* Nadia in ''Film/TheDrop'', she cleaned up after leaving a (drug) abusive boyfriend.
* Creator/EwanMcGregor's character in ''Film/{{Trainspotting}}'', at least until his friends forced him to go back to Heroin.
* Played with in the relatively little known and not especially well received Creator/AlPacino film ''Two For The Money'', where Pacino's character is a former [[TheGamblingAddict Gambling Addict]] who kicked the habit after coming down with a heart condition, and appears to stay away from personally gambling even though he owns a business that advises people on how to bet on sports. Throughout the film it's shown, however, that he has done a form of AddictionDisplacement: rather than wagering money on sports teams or dice or cards, he now gambles with his business and his personal relationships instead. This is shown during the film by him doing things like recruiting little known [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicapping sports handicappers]], bringing them to the [[BigApplesauce New York]] where potentially millions of dollars are riding on their picks and seeing if they crack under the pressure, (with potentially catastrophic effects on his business) or if his attractive younger wife cheats with his latest, very handsome recruit...

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* ''Series/BabylonFive''. Garibaldi's BackStory features a drunken past. Then he falls OffTheWagon after realizing he had been {{Mind Control}}led, with his resurgent alcoholism causing trouble for him and everyone around him. A part of the last season is him dealing with it and overcoming it again.
* A group of vampires in the second series of ''Series/BeingHumanUK'' do this under the leadership of Mitchell. They manage to form their own version of AA and go off drinking human blood entirely. Then a group of human vampire hunters bombs their celebration party, destroying quite possibly the only group on {{Friendly Neighborhood Vampire}}s on the planet.
* In ''Series/{{Bones}}'' Seeley Booth is a recovered gambling addict. It rarely comes up except when their investigations take them to a casino or similar place. He has never fallen off the wagon that we've seen.
* In ''Series/{{Cheers}}''
** Sam Malone is a recovered alcoholic who is also a professional bartender. He [[AddictionDisplacement replaced alcoholism with a caffeine addiction.]]
** Towards the end of ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' Sam also realized he's a sex addict and starts going to SA meetings.
* On ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' Sherlock Holmes is a recovering heroin addict and Joan Watson was originally his live-in sober companion before becoming his protege, then partner, then quit to start her own private investigation business.
* As of the start of ''Series/TheJohnLarroquetteShow'' John Hemingway is a recovering alcoholic, having given it up that very day. Going to AA meetings is a regular part of the first season but dropped after that.
* In ''Series/{{Graceland}}'', Paul Briggs is a recovering heroin addict, although given that he makes money selling heroin, it's unclear how committed he is to his recovery.
** In the second season, Jakes goes undercover at a bus company that's ostensibly smuggling drugs. His supervisor proudly talks about how he's been sober for 20 years. [[KickTheDog Later in the season, when their investigation goes south and Paul wants some quick answers, he decides to interrogate the poor guy by waterboarding him with a bottle of whiskey.]]
* Detective Holder from ''Series/TheKilling'' once had a bad drug habit but has six months of sobriety by the time the show's first season begins.
* ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'': Captain Cragen drank like a fish in his back story. His recovered status is repeatedly brought up. Mostly by Cragen himself.
* ''Series/TheMentalist'': Cho is shot during a bust and is given pain medication during his recovery. As the episodes go on we see him popping the pills as needed. Eventually he realizes he's getting addicted to them. Cho [[TheStoic being Cho]], he solves his addiction by flushing the remainder of his pills down the toilet and never takes any again.
* The main characters of ''Series/MikeAndMolly'' met at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, and are often seen attending such meetings in the early seasons. After getting married in the fourth season, that angle of the show was phased out to concentrate on their domestic lives.
* ''Series/{{Mom}}'' is about two such characters, Christy and her mother Bonnie, as they struggle to remain sober and rebuild their lives.
* In ''Series/NecessaryRoughness'', Terrence King developed a bad painkiller habit after getting shot, and spent the better part of a season on a downward spiral. He finally got sober after befriending another addict and then watching him overdose.
* ''Series/NYPDBlue'' eventually became the story of Andy Sipowicz, who as of the first episode is a rude, racist alcoholic and borderline drug addict. Early in the first season he stops drinking, but later falls off the wagon. After he joins AA he remains sober - even going so far as to initially refuse pain medication during a surgery - and generally becomes a much nicer person. He even helps a few others stop drinking.

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC:Webcomic]]
* Jacob in ''WebComic/{{Shortpacked}}'' was a sex addict, part of the reason he's stuck working retail is that his addiction interfered with his studying law. Roz abused his addiction to get cheap, relationship free sex, only for him to realize what it was doing to him. Eventually Amber got him out of his slump and he got clean, completing his law degree and moving away.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' regular drunk Barney Gumbel went sober for one episode. He continued being sober for several seasons (most of which he spent as a "coffee fiend") before [[ResetButton reverting back to form]].

* Jacob in ''Shortpacked'' was a sex addict, part of the reason he's stuck working retail is that his addiction interfered with his studying law. Roz abused his addiction to get cheap, relationship free sex, only for him to realize what it was doing to him. Eventually Amber got him out of his slump and he got clean, completing his law degree and moving away.

The Recovered Addict is a former substance or compulsive behavior addict who has managed to beat their addiction. They have managed to go through the rounds of rehab and withdrawal and come out the other side without falling OffTheWagon immediately after. Then again, addiction recovery, being a long and sometimes painful [[RuleOfDrama and / or dramatic]] road, they might very well have fallen off several times before they figured out how to stay on the wagon.

* Superboy of ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'' had this as a character arc, starting with Lex Luthor giving him SuperSerum to allow him access to full Kryptonian powers, and Conner trying to resist their use, but becoming metaphorically addicted to their use. He eventually gives them up once they prove to cause uncontrolable rage and the favors Lex asked for too great.
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* A group of vampires in the second series of the ''Series/BeingHuman'' UK version do this under the leadership of Mitchell. They manage to form their own version of AA and go off drinking human blood entirely. Then a group of human vampire hunters bombs their celebration party, destroying quite possibly the only group on {{Friendly Neighborhood Vampire}}s on the planet.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* The White Glove Society in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' are a recovered CannibalClan. Their transformation couldn't be more complete, having become high class casino owners and operators. However, [[spoiler: there's a subgroup with some recidivism of late.]]
* Cullen becomes this in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' if you support him during this fight against his [[GreenRocks lyrium]] addiction. If he does, he becomes the role model for other Templars (those who weren't corrupted by Red Lyrium, anyway) to be cured of their addiction, as well.

See also TheSponsor and AddictionDisplacement which frequently accompany this character. See also: OffTheWagon for when they relapse.

The Recovered Addict is a former substance or compulsive behavior addict who has managed to beat their addiction. They have managed to go through the rounds of rehab and withdrawal and come out the other side without falling OffTheWagon immediately after.

* ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'': Captain Cragen drank like a fish in his back story. His recovered status is repeatedly brought up. Mostly by Cragan himself.

The addiction in question may have been drugs, alcohol, gambling, or another compulsive behavior. Weirder fare like sex addiction, cannibalism, videogame addiction, and blood drinking are also possible.

* Sam Vimes on the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' has been on the alcohol wagon since the end of the first book ''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic''. and stayed there, despite considerable temptation, even keeping a tipple in his desk as a kind of permanent test. When his political enemies sneak a bottle of high-end brandy into the desk in ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'', he pours it out and feigns a stupor, then considers charging them with high crimes for making him waste booze. He later considers that he'll have to have the carpet replaced so that he's not haunted by the smell.

The ManipulativeBastard will probably try to get them to relapse by offering or forcing them to do drugs. Friends who are still addicted will probably crawl out of the woodwork asking for money or trying to get them to come back. It's unfortunate, but sometimes they do succumb and relapse, starting the cycle over again.

See also TheSponsor and AddictionDisplacement and OffTheWagon for when they relapse.

* ''Series/BabylonFive''. Garibaldi's BackStory features a drunken past. Then he falls OffTheWagon after realizing he had been mind controlled, with his resurgent alcoholism causing trouble for him and everyone around him. A part of the last season is him dealing with it and overcoming it again.

* On ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' Sherlock Holmes is a recovering heroin addict and Joan Watson was originally his live-in sober companion before becoming his protoge, then partner, then quit to start her own private investigation business.

* The White Glove Society in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' are a recovered ''CannibalClan''. Their transformation couldn't be more complete, having become high class casino owners and operators. However, [[spoiler: there's a subgroup with some recidivism of late.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' regular drunk Barney Gumbel went sober for one episode. He continued being sober for several seasons before [[ResetButton reverting back to form]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' regular drunk Barney Gumbel went sober for one episode. He continued being sober for several episodes before [[ResetButton reverting back to form]].

* Sam Vimes on the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' has been on the alcohol wagon since the end of the first book ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic''.'' and stayed there, despite considerable temptation, even keeping a tipple in his desk as a kind of permanent test. When his political enemies sneak a bottle of high-end brandy into the desk in ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'', he pours it out and feigns a stupor, then considers charging them with high crimes for making him waste booze. He later considers that he'll have to have the carpet replaced so that he's not haunted by the smell.