Substance Addiction Theme Analysis

Water by the Spoonful revolves around several characters’ struggle with their addiction to crack cocaine. They are all connected to each other by an online support forum moderated by an individual who goes by Haikumom. Although each character is at a different stage in the recovery process, in each of their cases, the play depicts substance addiction as a destructive force that lingers long after an individual has stopped using drugs, and which can only be overcome through long struggle, honesty, and the support of other people.

The forum members’ personal lives all demonstrate that substance addiction is destructive and very difficult to escape, costing them their personal welfare, their relationships, their careers—even their lives. The arrogant businessman Fountainhead, though once a wealthy entrepreneur, confesses that he wrecked an expensive car, lost his job, and has spent the last two years unemployed due to his crack addiction. His story demonstrates how substance addiction can wreck even the wealthy and lay waste to material success. Orangutan (a young Japanese woman) Chutes&Ladders (an aging IRS worker) and Haikumom (a Puerto Rican custodian) have all lost their familial and social relationships to their substance addiction and now live in isolation, emphasizing the wildly destructive impact of such addiction on one’s relationships with friends and family. The deadly potential of substance addiction is underscored when it is revealed that Haikumom caused her young daughter’s death many years before due to neglect; Haikumom left her daughter alone while she was sick so that she herself could smoke crack. Near the end of the story, Haikumom also overdoses and nearly dies, sending her body into cardiac arrest. Haikumom’s story is a particularly vivid demonstration of how deadly substance addiction can be, both to addicted people and to those who are dependent on them.

As powerful as the ruinous effects of substance addiction are, the forum members recognize it is a self-inflicted burden that can only be truly confronted when they take responsibility for their addiction and honestly call it what it is. Fountainhead, because of his ego, initially tries to convince the forum members that his crack addiction is only a small psychological problem, not a full-blown physiological addiction like heroin addiction. In this way, Fountainhead embodies the natural urge to distance oneself from addiction and not take full responsibility for it. However, Chutes&Ladders sees through Fountainhead’s denial. To break through Fountainhead’s façade, Chutes&Ladders ruthlessly challenges his self-diagnosis. Fountainhead finally breaks and admits to being a “fucking crackhead” like the rest of them. Once he does so, Chutes&Ladders suddenly becomes gentle and sympathetic, explaining that the only way he can deal with substance addiction is to lose all sense of pride or ego and take ownership of what he has become. In Chutes&Ladders’s words: “If you’re eating a shit sandwich, chances are you ordered it.” After finally admitting to having brought his addiction upon himself, Fountainhead admits to Haikumom over coffee that he lied to the group in his introduction: he has actually been a daily crack user for two years. Haikumom sympathizes with his deception and tells him that now he’s ready to start fighting it, again arguing that addiction cannot be fought until it is honestly confronted.

Fountainhead’s learning process and Haikumom’s relapse into crack addiction both suggest that, due to its overwhelming power, substance addiction cannot be successfully fought alone. Fountainhead is ashamed to tell his wife of his addiction and worries that it will worsen her already-severe depression. However, the other forum members warn him that he won’t make it on his own. When Fountainhead tries to insist that he can overcome his addiction independently through his own determination, tenacity, and love for his family, Haikumom warns him that those things are “pitchforks against tanks,” powerless against the ferocity of substance addiction. The group’s reactions highlight that a single individual is powerless to face addiction without the support of others. This message is tragically reinforced when Haikumom, after her son Elliot vindictively takes her computer—thus taking away her connection to the other forum members and leaving her alone in her struggle—has her first relapse in six years, overdosing and nearly killing herself. However, the story ends on a relatively hopeful note with Fountainhead committing himself to caring for Haikumom through her recovery. Although she is hardly conscious, she is no longer alone, and for the first time in years has someone physically watching over her.

At the end of the story, there is no definitive victory over addiction—both Haikumom and Fountainhead are still addicts, and it is implied that Orangutan and Chutes&Ladders will both wrestle with their past addiction for the rest of their lives. The characters’ situations at the end of the play reinforce the destructive power of substance addiction. As Chutes&Ladders tells Fountainhead, “I’m a crackhead too, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.” Even so, Orangutan and Chutes&Ladders’s success in recovery, as well as Fountainhead and Haikumom’s bond with each other, implies that through honesty and interpersonal connection, people can still fight against substance addiction.