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Hello, my name is James and I'm an alcoholic - TV Pilot / episode One

A suicidal alcoholic living with his parents believes he’s found the love of his life in a dazzling blonde he meets at the job center—but when sobriety reveals she’s far from the dream he imagined, his mother’s ultimatum forces him to choose between family and a chaotic romance that leads him to a tent, testing just how low love and addiction can take him.

James, a young and deeply troubled alcoholic living under his parents’ roof, spends his days drifting between hangovers and hopelessness. When he meets Vicky at the job center, his drunken haze transforms her into a dazzling blonde, the woman of his dreams. But the cruel clarity of sobriety the next morning reveals Vicky is nothing like the supermodel he imagined.

As their chaotic romance spirals, James’s mother delivers a sharp ultimatum: kick Vicky out or leave the family home with her. Defiant and desperate for love—or perhaps just someone to share his downfall—James packs up and moves into a tent with Vicky. What follows is a darkly comic yet heartbreaking journey of two misfits clinging to each other while sliding deeper into dysfunction.

Blending bleak humor with raw honesty, the pilot sets the stage for a story about love, delusion, addiction, and the search for redemption in the most unlikely places.

Script Excerpt
Written by:
Format:
Screenplay
In the Vein Of:
Trainspotting
Shameless
Posted:
09/27/2025
Updated:
09/27/2025
Author Bio:
James Kearney is a writer, performer, and student whose life and art are deeply shaped by his remarkable journey of recovery. A dry alcoholic, James has been clean and sober since 10:00am on 18th September 2011, a milestone that marks the turning point from years of addiction to alcohol, crack, and heroin into a new chapter of hope, growth, and creativity.

The dark times of his past, marked by struggle and survival, continue to inspire and inform much of his writing, where themes of pain, resilience, and human vulnerability are met with wit, raw honesty, and sometimes dark comedy.

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