Sex, Drugs, and a Perfectly Curated Playlist: How Media Romanticizes Addiction

We love a good tragedy.

The brooding anti-hero with a cigarette between his lips, the tortured artist drowning in whiskey, the beautiful girl with a death wish and a devil-may-care grin. The kind of characters who suffer beautifully, who spiral in slow motion, all set to a perfectly curated soundtrack.

We eat it up. We call it raw, real, and authentic. But is it?

Because when I take a step back—when I look at what I’ve learned firsthand about addiction, about self-destruction, about what really happens when people chase their vices—one thing is clear: this is not what it looks like.

Dark Romance & the “Broken but Beautiful” Lie

Dark romance thrives on characters with deep trauma, self-destructive behaviors, and just the right amount of substance abuse to make them interesting. They drink too much, pop pills to take the edge off, and numb their pain in ways that are framed as tragic but sexy.

The addict is never just an addict—they’re a genius, a rockstar, a billionaire CEO whose bad habits make them more compelling, not less. The love interest sees the warning signs, but instead of leaving, they save them. And in the end, love is enough to fix everything.

Reality is much crueler.

Addiction doesn’t make you magnetic. It doesn’t make you more desirable. It makes you unreliable, reckless, and sometimes even dangerous. It makes you hurt people who love you. And love? Love isn’t enough to make it stop.

But if books are the setup, TV takes it even further.

Euphoria, Breaking Bad, and the Aesthetic of Destruction

TV shows have mastered the art of making self-destruction look good.

Euphoria is the perfect example. Rue’s addiction is devastating, but it’s cinematic. Her worst moments are draped in neon lights and slow-motion sequences, scored by ethereal music that makes the suffering feel poetic. Even as the show critiques addiction, it still makes it look beautiful, desirable—even aspirational.

And then there’s Breaking Bad. A show about addiction, but from another angle. A man breaks bad and we cheer him on. We watch him ruin lives—his own and others’—and we call it badass. We admire his power. We turn a meth empire into a power fantasy.

These aren’t cautionary tales. They’re entertainment.

And maybe that wouldn’t be a problem—if not for the fact that the music industry is reinforcing the same message.

Sex, Drugs, and Every Playlist You’ve Ever Made

Music doesn’t just normalize substance use. It glorifies it.

Rap, rock, pop, country—it doesn’t matter what genre. Drinking, drugs, getting high—it’s all part of the culture. Sometimes, it’s framed as rebellion. Sometimes, as self-medication. Sometimes, as just a normal Friday night.

We don’t even blink when an artist casually drops lines about doing coke in the bathroom. We don’t think twice when a breakup song equates love lost with getting blackout drunk. We put it on repeat and sing along.

We don’t ask why we romanticize the things that destroy people.

The Reality They Don’t Show You

Because here’s what’s missing from all of this:

Addiction is boring. It’s not neon lights and wild parties. It’s the same destructive cycle, over and over again, until you lose everything or die.

It’s not sexy. The beautiful, tortured love interest with a drug habit? In real life, they’re unreliable, unpredictable, and sometimes even unsafe.

It’s not inspiring. Most people don’t build empires or create masterpieces while spiraling. They lose their jobs, their homes, their families.

But the media won’t show you that. Because no one wants to watch the slow, depressing unraveling of addiction when they could be watching an aestheticized version set to a cool soundtrack instead.

So we keep consuming. We keep singing along. And without realizing it, we get just a little more desensitized to a world that, in reality, is a lot less glamorous and a lot more tragic.