Ari

It's like...Could you imagine? Spending several years struggling to cope with a poor home life (Shane remarks his childhood wasn't the greatest and he didn't have much of a family prior to Jas and Marnie), trying to get over your friend's sudden deaths (Jas' parents), suddenly becoming a single "parent" (he's Jas' caretaker), dealing with financial issues (working at a dead end minimum wage job), being an alcoholic.

Then, when you finally go to therapy and work to fix these issues or at the very least learn to deal with these issues better, people claim that SOMEONE ELSE DID ALL THE WORK FOR YOU? I'm sorry, who's choice was it to go to the hospital after the cliff scene? SHANE. Who talked to Harvey about going to therapy? SHANE. Who books his weekly appointments? SHANE. Who's the one going to these appointments? SHANE. Who's the one dealing with withdrawal symptoms? SHANE.

The farmer didn't do shit. We just gave him reassuring words and someone to confide in when things got hard. I especially don't like the implication that one person can be solely responsible for another's mental health / substance abuse issues because it blames the friends and family members for anything that happens to the person that is struggling. It implies that the reason someone took their own life / overdosed is because nobody cared or tried hard enough to "save them". Do you really think that people who have lost loved ones to those things dont already beat themselves up over it? They'd give anything to have that person back.

Yes we as the farmer boost his morale to change, but we as the player do not do anything to stop his alcoholism. And you can even see that when you marry him and have his final heart event where WE and MARNIE assume he's off drinking alcohol, but he isn't, he's drinking Jojacola and is offended we even thought to think he was drinking alcohol because HE knows he has been making progress.