Unguarded: Chris Herren It appears that Chris Herren's addiction, which is well documented in the ESPN documentary Unguarded: Chris Herren, partly stems from his life in Fall River. To better deconstruct this idea, it is necessary to culturally evaluate this particular suburb of Boston in Massachusetts to understand what aspects of this suburb affected Chris and his addiction. This particular suburb is like many others across the country in the fact that it is affluent. Moreover, Chris was well-known throughout this area and throughout other towns because of his prowess at basketball. In fact the documentary indicates that Chris was a third generation basketball star in this town. Along with the affluence of the area and the acclaim that Chris and his family had as athletes come a certain lifestyle which is frequently associated with success. Success in this particular suburb was not entirely related to the basketball court, but also in recreational activities such as partying and engaging in mind-altering substances. It is not infrequent for individuals in this town to engage in recreational or even social drinking -- with either express approval of the tacit, implicit awareness of their parents. The perception is that succeeding in sports also translates into succeeding in life, both of which are worthy causes of celebration. Chris was a fairly heavy drinker throughout his tenure in high school, and engaged in other recreational drugs while gaining accolades on the court including a three-time selection as Boston Globe Player of the Year and two-time selection as...

Therefore, certain manifestation of the culture of Fall River -- associated with its socio-economic sense of entitlement, affluence, and Chris's celebrity status within the community -- exacerbated whatever innate tendencies the young man might have had to engage in drugs and alcohol.
Chris's family certainly reflected the culture of Fall River for the simple fact that the family and close friends wanted to see Chris succeed on the basketball court. As such, they contributed to the pressure and pain that partly fueled his descent into addiction. People like his brother Mike and his wife desired to see Chris perform well and actually became more of a burden for him in the process (particularly his wife and the children she produced for him). The added pressure of lifelong childhood friends who grew up with Chris as one of the central points of their recreational and drug-fueled lives certainly contributed to the factors that led to Chris's addiction.

There are several aspects of celebrity culture that were influential in compounding Herren's tendency to engage in addiction. One of these are the monetary benefits which frequently accompanies celebrity status, particularly in the case of a multi-million dollar athlete (which Herren was). Some addicts have to struggle to find the money to support their habits and have to turn to doing seedy things which denotes that they have a serious problem with addiction. Because Herren was a well-paid celebrity, he did not have to indulge in such behavior and thus was…