I don't think that there is any hard and fast rule that says that documentary has to be linear at all.

I knew as a young boy that addiction and alcoholism afflict people - good, loving people - in profound ways, and that some people - usually from those rare "normal" families that I longed for as a child and as an adult wonder if they even exist - didn't understand this and sort of looked down their noses at people suffering with addiction.

My grandpa could go days, weeks, even months without a drink but if he took that first drink, he couldn't stop. Once, when I was twelve, my mom and I were driving and we saw my grandpa staggering drunk down the street. I asked if we should stop and help him. My mom sadly shook her head and kept driving.

I don't think that there is any hard and fast rule that says that documentary has to be linear at all.

I felt that if people understood the struggle of recovery, then some of the stigma of addiction might be reduced because the audience would understand in a palpable way that addiction is a disease that tells the afflicted, despite years or even decades of heartbreaking evidence to the contrary, that using will make things better.

We don't see many films in which someone with schizophrenia is the main character.

The visual quality of the cameras now is such that you can shoot with available light, and if people are willing to mount a microphone on the camera and maybe even on the subject, then you're good to go.