The Basketball Diaries deals with it rather well. Matter of fact, we watched and discussed it in a Substance Abuse class I took.
“Traffic” starring Michael Douglas was pretty good. Great portrayal of parent denial and teenage drug abuse. This is an excellent movie and I’d highly recommend it.
“The Salton Sea” starring Val Kilmer wasn’t really family oriented but still a very good portrayal of the insane world of speed addicts. Vince D’Onofrio was scary as hell in that movie.
And I thought “Boogie Nights” really captured the cocaine scene pretty well. Though the only family thing about it was that nobody really had one anymore.
Drugs addicts, and the effect it has on their marriages or families:
Edward José in A Fool There Was (1915); Ronald Colman in The Masquerader (1933); Vincent Price in Dragonwyck (1946); James Mason in Bigger Than Life (1956); Frank Sinatra in The Man with the Golden Arm (1956); Don Murray in A Hatful of Rain (1957); Katharine Hepburn in Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962); Barbara Parkins and Patty Duke in Valley of the Dolls (1967); Erika Christensen in Traffic (2000).
Trees Lounge was pretty accurate.
Naked Lunch the “William Tell Game” scene really happened to Burroughs.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas gives a pretty accurate portrayal of what it’s like to be on drugs.
I really feel that my suggestion does fit your bill. (“A Sensitive, Passionate Man.”
Permanant Midnight with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson (it’s not all funny like Zoolander or Meet the Parents).
I agree with Carm6773 on “The Basketball Diaries” with Leonardo DiCaprio. I also saw that in my Substance Abuse class. It must be required viewing for drug diversion class. I probably never would have seen it if I wasn’t court ordered to do so. Still, a pretty good movie.
I think that When a Man Loves a Woman qualifies. It’s about Meg Ryan being an alcoholic, and how Andy Garcia (her husband) is an enabler without meaning to be.
I have always felt that this was more about suicide than alcoholism.
There’s always “Stuart Saves His Family”.
Robin
Great fuckin’ movie. And DiCaprio was at his best as far as I’m concerned.
The line definitely blurs…
How about “Postcards From the Edge?” I don’t recall how well drugs were dealt with in the movie, but in the book, Carrie Fisher was a drug addict and her mom was an alcoholic. Fascinating book, by the way.
This ones really new, but Walk the Line deals pretty extensively with how his father’s alcoholism affected his family and then how his prescription drug addiction affected his family.
I’m sure everyone with an alocoholic friend or family member has a different sense of what’s realistic.
Still, for me, Dennis Hopper’s portrayal of the town drunk in “Hoosiers” was right on in that it showed how helpless and at a loss his character was when he was sober.
Gene Hackman, the basketball coach, deliberately gets himself thrown out of a game to give the newly sober Hopper a chance to coach the game and regain the respect of his son… but it really doesn’t work, because Hopper (who’s dangerous but very confident when drunk) has no idea what to do when he’s sober.
I’m a teetotaler, so I can’t claim to understand what makes someone choose to drink. But “Hoosiers” gave me some small understanding. For SOME people, drinking seems like the only way the only way to get through life’s ordinary challenges.
Side hijack: I’ve always thought DiCaprio was actually a halfway decent actor–not Oscar-worthy, but certainly not terrible–who got hampered by his teen-heartthrob status post-Titanic. Seriously, watch him in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape or The Aviator.
Then there’s Go Ask Alice, from 1973, with Mackenzie Philips.
Yes. Yes there is. Maybe if Go Ask Alice dealt realistically with drug addiction, McKenzie Phillips might have avoided getting so messed up. (Doubtful, though.)
Seriously, though-- William Shatner and Andy Griffith on the bill, and you mention the girl from One Day at a Time? 
I wuz a geek in the 70’s. 