Dexter: A Story on Addiction

Before the now many spin-offs, there was the original show, Dexter. It’s a TV show about a serial killer who through certain childhood trauma becomes addicted to killing. He was ‘born in blood’ as he would put it, which means that he witnessed his mother’s brutal murder and was left in a pool of her blood until the cops showed up. Leaving him forever scarred.

Please do not take this text as an accurate paper on the effects of addiction or its origin. I’m just speculating from what I have learned over my two-century-long life.

Dexter throughout the show is a normal guy to most people. He greeted everyone at work, bought doughnuts at times, and had a fairly decent social life. But deep down he had this ever-persisting urge, this drive to kill. It first started with him killing little animals as a kid, then graduated to hunting. His foster father noticed a sort of ecstasy in him while he put the animals down. He confided in his foster father and they set out to cure it.

I believe he saw a private doctor who dealt exclusively with current and potential psychopaths, and she could see the makings in him. He just wasn’t right and didn’t value the things others did. Other than his urge to kill, he was practically emotionless. This changes later down in the series as he matures but from the beginning, the only person he has a real connection with is his foster father (Which I’ll refer to as just father now, note his real father was never in the picture, even before his mother’s death). Eventually, he grew to love his sister and a few other people.

When the urges graduated to the human stage, his father devised this ‘code’ to help him channel his drive into something he thought was good. His father was a cop and had such morality so he taught him how to go after only criminals. This is the silver lining of the show; the reason most people were able to watch it. He went after the worst of the worst. This is the entire premise of the show. Also after his father passes away he continues to see visions of him and dialogues with him. I do not think he is psychotic in this sense, the show never implies that he thinks the conversations are real.

How does a mass murderer with a code relate to addiction? Well, to start, I feel the author (Dexter was originally a book) wanted to portray Dexter as broken, not evil. I also think being a psychopath is mostly a neurological thing. This means that while it can’t be properly defined by a brain scan, such people do display similar characteristics. Instead of having Dexter simply being born like that, he made him have cause to be that way. The show never signifies if he remembers the night his mother was killed (he was a toddler), but he eventually found out through the police records or his father telling him. Throughout the show, this makes him a more intriguing person. The show has his internal monologue playing so we are constantly aware of his thoughts. He doesn’t always yearn to be normal, he just doesn’t understand it. But the fact that he knows something at birth caused him to feel this way makes him think of the possibility of what could have been.

I find that to be very interesting. His being ‘born in blood’ gives him a known trauma he can point to when he feels out of place. It makes him a victim of his circumstance. I feel deep down we all want to know this, the reason why we are the way we are. For some, it is seen as a thing to blame their life on, for others it is seen as a starting point to begin their healing journey.

I liken Dexter’s situation to addiction also because of the progression, he went from killing little animals to hunting game and then murdering human beings. This progressive pattern is also seen in addiction. The high isn’t the same after a while and you progress to harder forms of the addiction. The interesting and morbid part about Dexter’s progression is that there is some sort of discipline through the code his father gave him. This turns him into a functioning addict, as he can live a normal life while ‘safely’ partaking in his demons.

Speaking of demons he also mentions in the show that he has a ‘dark passenger’. This to him is the part of him that wants to remain killing. He mentally sets apart this part of him that does the killings. I feel people do this to make the perception they have of themselves seem human. Mind you, Dexter works at a police department as a forensics scientist so imagine the cognitive dissonance he would have if he were normal. Being a killer while helping catch killers. On the other hand, his morality, if he even has one, is fixed as he feels he is doing the right thing.

Another thing intriguing about Dexter is that he seems to have sort of an arrested development. Probably due to his addiction, or maybe the fact that he has some form of psychopathy, he fails to perform and understand certain human interactions. This can be seen in his relationship with one of his girlfriends, Rita. Not to go into detail but there were a lot of signs that he was not quite there socially but she failed to see that. And I don’t mean Dexter was socially awkward, he just had these moments where he did not respond to situations as a normal human would.

Even within the show, there is a season where Dexter goes to an AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meeting for a few sessions. He went for anterior motives but it shed some light on how he felt about his need to kill.

Addictions aren’t sustainable. The show highlights this by showing how slowly Dexter’s life crumbles because of his ‘Dark Passenger’. His wife is murdered, he is almost found out by his department multiple times, he has had to break his code by killing to hide his secret life, his sister finds out about his killings, he loses a few friends, and his son is also ‘born in blood’ which he thinks might repeat the cycle he went through. He does have some self-reflection and realizes that these happenings were all his fault but this takes 8 seasons to happen. Even so, what pushes him to stop killing isn’t purely an awareness of his actions but the fact that he is about to be exposed and caught. He eventually fakes his death and goes to live in a different state under a new name. Some might say he did this to protect his son, wanting him to live a normal life, as everything around Dexter crumbled. I would argue it's a bit of both.

I could go on and on about the teachings of this show on addictions but this is getting a bit long. To me, Dexter is a story about addiction. But take in mind that the show serves as a hyperbole to the feeling of addiction. Being ‘born in blood’, having conversations with your dead father, and taking lives on the regular isn’t something the average addict will go through. But one can learn from the outcomes of his tragic life. First, it usually stems from some trauma in life or some deficiency you have. The addiction acts as a coping mechanism. It doesn’t solve the pain, it just delays it. Then it progresses, acting as a pit that grows bigger the more you feed it. You end up losing yourself in this process, doing things that would nauseate your former self. Next comes the rationales, trying to defend your actions by coming up with things to blame. Which in turn helps you continue the addiction while seeing yourself as some kind of sufferer of your circumstances. It’s the only way your mind can reason with continuing such destructive behaviour. Lastly would be the collapse of your world, burning relationships with family members, losing your job, going homeless…When does it end?

In the end, Dexter gets a new life and presumably stops killing. This can be an addict's fate too, though it is easier said than done. Regardless, the damage has been done and one cannot return to the life that once was. This leaves a wound. Time will heal this wound, but the scar will always be there.