In
Real Life, breaking free of a drug addiction is a lengthy process—it takes months and requires medical supervision. Going cold turkey in real life can be dangerous. In fiction, however, people routinely overcome their substance habit by going through a single self-imposed (and often painful) withdrawal phase, after which they are no longer addicted. Frequently involves locking oneself up in a room or chaining oneself to a bed.
See also
Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere and
Off The Wagon.
Examples:
- Trainspotting
- The Good Thief: Bob (played by Nick Nolte, who has himself struggled with drug addiction in Real Life), overcomes his heroin habit by chaining himself to a bed.
- Subverted in Kenny Vs Spenny: Kenny had to act like he was going cold turkey because he pretended to be seriously addicted.
- Sabrina The Teenage Witch
- Charlie on Lost. When you're trapped on a desert island, going cold turkey is really the only option, but he seemed to get over his addiction to heroin pretty smoothly, considering, and even throws his remaining stash into the fire. Unfortunately, another plane is found by the survivors that just happened to be full of smuggled heroin. He finally manages to get rid of that, too, though.
- Subverted in Royal Pains: Mr. Bryant insists that he can "detox" from his drug addiction alone, and quits cold-turkey in a painful withdrawal montage. At the end of the episode, though, his son catches him sneaking pills again and takes him to a reputable rehab facility.
- In Real Life, american soldier/actor Audie Murphy became dependent on doctor-prescribed sleeping pills called Placidyl. To combat his addiction, he locked himself in a hotel room for a week and just got over it.
- My Name Is Earl: Earl forces an old woman (and himself) to quit nicotine cold turkey.
- In Dan Simmons' The Terror the main character does this with alcoholism and nearly dies in the process.
- The father in Frequency quits smoking cold-turkey, so far as it is shown.
