It’s the year of 2009, at 14 rue du Maine in Paris, in the apartment of a woman named Laurence. The main character isn’t at home. Equipped with Polaroid cameras, guests were invited to examine her apartment thoroughly and photograph any relevant evidence in order to discover Laurence’s secret. Signs of a struggle, a suspicious red stain on the carpet, a blood-stained toothbrush, coffee beans in her handbag…. What happened here?
During a month, BETC and Addict Aide invited over 7000 people to come and visit a reconstruction of Laurence’s apartment, follow clues and try to discover her secret, thanks to an Escape Game concept.
Not one of them was able to reveal Laurence’s secret.
No, Laurence is not a murderess, a KGB agent or a vampire. Because Laurence is not a fictional character. The truth is something quite different, yet just as troubling. In 2009, Laurence Cottet was a wealthy woman who had a good career with a senior position in a large French company.
But Laurence was an alcoholic.
In 2016, the “Louise Delage: like my addiction” marketing operation publicized the platform addictaide.fr, an internet portal which centralises support resources for addicts. Once again, AddictAide, its agency BETC and the production studio FrancineFramboise tackle the taboo of alcoholism in women, by demonstrating through a one-of-a-kind immersive experience that it’s difficult to spot the signs of alcoholism in someone close to us.
Unlike the story of Louise Delage, a fictional character created to highlight a case of social yet photogenic alcoholism, Laurence’s story is true. She invites us behind the scenes of her life and tells us her story: her struggle in everyday life as a chronic alcoholic woman, embodied in her former apartment, which has been carefully reconstructed with her own furniture and clothing from the time.
Laurence has now recovered and with Addict Aide she wants to bring a hopeful message: alcoholism is neither a weakness nor an inevitability, it is a disease that can be treated, for those that are ready to accept that they need help.
