Darren McGarvey's Addictions

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Darren McGarvey explores why Scotland is the most addicted country in Europe.

BBC Scotland

Darren McGarvey

Harry Bell

Jack Cocker

Darren McGarvey's Addictions: Series 1: Sex, Sugar and Screens

Sex, Sugar and Screens

Series 1

BBC Scotland - Darren McGarvey's Addictions, Series 1, Sex, Sugar and Screens

Darren asks why Scotland’s obsessions with food, porn, gambling and gaming are killing us.

Addiction doesn’t need drink or drugs to ruin lives. Darren meets the people who are struggling every day with life-threatening addiction to pornography, sugar, gambling and gaming.

How can you be addicted to a behaviour? What happens when you remove the chemical hooks of drugs and alcohol? Darren attempts to answer these questions by going back to where it all started for him: food. He meets Annemarie, who despite beating addictions to drugs and alcohol, still struggles with food, and learns that for many, food is simply another way of coping with trauma. But in a world where fast food is big business, it can be hard to avoid. Darren meets food scientist Dr David Gally to find out exactly why the drive-thru and the chocolate aisle are so hard to resist.

In Livingston, Darren meets Aidan to discuss sex addictions, and has a sit down with psychosexual therapist Pauline Brown to try to understand why sex addictions are on the increase.

Darren learns that our obsession with screens has led not only to a rise in pornography use but in our gambling habits. He meets social scientist Heather Wardle to chart how ‘having a flutter’ has changed over the last hundred years, and joins a march across Scotland with The Big Step as they try to get gambling adverts kicked out of football.

With gambling mechanisms now a normal part of many video games, Darren meets Jonny, who spent thousands of pounds on ‘loot boxes’ as a teenager. But it’s not all bad news as Darren takes to his games console to meet Joe Donnelly, a gamer who found community and therapy amongst the hills of Grand Theft Auto, and in the finale of the series, Darren learns that the opposite of addiction is connection as he joins Govan charity GalGael for their community meal.

Darren McGarvey's Addictions: Series 1

A BBC TV channel for Scotland which will broadcast every evening and will show drama, factual, comedy and news programmes made in Scotland


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Darren McGarvey's Addictions

Series 1

Sex, Sugar and Screens

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