Archive for December, 2008
Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich: His God-Complex Indicates Alcoholism
In the latest of a series of scandals emanating from the Illinois governor’s mansion, Rod R. Blagojevich, 51, and his chief of staff John Harris, 46, have been charged with, among other extraordinary acts, solicitation of bribery in connection with an attempt to sell the Senate seat recently vacated by President-elect Obama.
In "How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics: Using Behavioral Clues to Recognize Addiction in its Early Stages" I describe several key early-stage generic clues to alcoholism, including a “Supreme Being” complex and sense of invincibility rooted in egomania. Here are a few of the specific egomaniacal power-seeking symptoms that may be relevant in explaining Gov. Blagojevich’s otherwise inexplicable behaviors:
1) Is employed in ...
Terrorists and con men, foreign and domestic: India, Sunny, O.J. and Henry Nicholas, lll
Runners-up for top story of the month:
The Mumbai, India terrorists, who battled Indian commandos for 60 hours, relied on cocaine and “other stimulants” to stay awake. Drug paraphernalia was recovered from the sites of the attacks, in which almost 200 people were murdered. Officials said, “We found [syringes] containing traces of cocaine and LSD left behind by the terrorists and later found drugs in their blood.” They added there was also evidence of steroids, “which isn’t uncommon in terrorists.” I have suggested elsewhere that terrorism is rooted in alcohol and other-drug addiction, including in an article written shortly after the September 11 attacks available at www.preventragedy.com under “articles and interviews,” as well as the TAR August 2005 Top Story “Tantalizing ...
Alleged con men Bernard Madoff, Greg Manning and Marc Dreier are offered the benefit of the doubt by assuming alcoholism. No excuse, just one possible explanation that fits.
Under watch:
I have long maintained that if 80% of felons are alcohol and other-drug addicts, a similar percentage of those who commit white-collar crime—including those who perpetrate Ponzi and other con artist-type schemes—are also addicts. Charles Ponzi was an alcoholic. The behaviors suggest that those listed below are as well (and if not, they are likely children of particularly emotionally abusive ones).
Unfortunately, the number of celebrities outed as alcohol or other-drug addicts are inversely proportionate to the number of attorneys, businessmen and politicians who are not. Occasionally we run across a non-professional con artist, in whom we are more likely to have a chance at confirming addiction. We might argue there should be no difference in the incidence of addiction ...
We give Esteban Nunez, son of former CA Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, the benefit of the doubt.
Under Watch:
Esteban Armando Nunez, the 19-year-old son of former California State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, arrested in connection with the stabbing death of a 22-year-old student after a night of drinking at a party near San Diego State University. He and his three cohorts (one of whom had a felony record and had been charged in two DUI cases), also charged in the death, identified themselves as members of The Hazard Crew, or THC, perhaps not coincidentally the abbreviation for the active chemical ingredient in marijuana. Nunez and one of the other men were reportedly heard bragging hours before the incident about how they learned to gang up on victims and take turns punching them. They were seen drinking beer ...
Chuck E. Cheese and Rolling Stone: victim and enabler
Victim of the month:
Chuck E. Cheese restaurants, despite billing themselves as a place “where a kid can be a kid,” for becoming popular among disorderly adults. Several of the restaurants, under pressure from locals, have stopped serving alcohol—which some city officials have “pinpointed as the main cause of the fighting.” Of course, we know it’s not the booze—it’s just a few of the people on the booze—but giving up the alcohol is probably a good idea. The non-alcoholics really won’t care, and the addicts, well, maybe they’ll abstain for an evening or take their kids elsewhere, so that Chuck E. Cheese will again become the safe environment for which it is known.
Enabler of the month:
Rolling Stone Magazine, which I favorably ...
Bettie Page: pin-up queen had numerous behavioral indications of alcoholism.
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Pinup queen Bettie Page, dead at 85. Page was famous for the some 20,000 photographs taken by amateur shutterbugs from 1949 to 1957 and for being one of the first centerfolds in a nascent Playboy Magazine (winking under a Santa Claus cap in the January 1955 issue). According to Page, her father, an auto mechanic, “molested all three of his daughters.” There are several clues in her life story suggestive of the idea that she inherited her father’s exceedingly likely alcoholism. First, at 37, she abruptly stopped posing and immersed herself in Bible studies, soon serving as a counselor for the Billy Graham Crusade. She was married and divorced three times and, after divorcing her third ...
“Reversal of Fortune” chronicles a codependent’s fight for freedom. But it required an addict.
Review: “Reversal of Fortune”
“Reversal of Fortune” is billed as the true story of the appeal of Claus von Bulow’s conviction for murdering his rich, socialite wife, Sunny von Bulow. This is as accurate as saying that Al Pacino’s portrayal of Lt. Col. Frank Slade in “Scent of a Woman” was a story about a blind man. Just as “Scent” was a story about an addict (and the greatest portrayal ever of one on the big screen), so is “Reversal,” particularly if we understand that the events would likely never have occurred without Sunny’s addiction.
Many reviewers suggest that Sunny was selfish, yet vulnerable. More accurately, she was an addict and, therefore, selfish. Self-centeredness, along with a belief that one is above ...
Can the “Sister from hell” find her way back because of a stable family life?
Dear Doug
Will she “find her way back” because of a stable family life?
Dear Doug:
I am 19, have wonderful parents and a 15-year-old sister from hell. She disobeys, lies, sneaks out and is flunking classes. Oh, and she does drugs.
My parents have tried grounding her to no avail. Even though they stopped giving her money out of fear she will buy drugs, she manages to procure them from her friends. After having been called by police to pick her up after being caught in a church parking lot drinking, my parents seem to be giving up. They have not punished her. No one in my family of seven seems to know what to do now that a million little punishments ...
He’s a doctor. He wouldn’t try to injure or kill a cyclist…would he?
Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month
“Do you really think that a prominent local member of the community—himself in the medical profession—deliberately tried to cause harm to these cyclists?”
So asked a blogger, “Elishane,” on August 1, 2008 on Steve Hymon’s Los Angeles Times “Bottleneck Blog” in regards to Dr. Christopher Thomas Thompson, 59, pleading not guilty to charges that he intentionally slammed on his brakes, causing two cyclists to crash into his car on Mandeville Canyon Road in Brentwood, California on July 4. Thompson admitted he stopped his red Infiniti, already reportedly well-known to cyclists in the area as one to watch out for, in front of the cyclists to “teach them a lesson.” He faces felony counts for the July 4 incident and another ...
Drunken guest beat up with candy cane
Alcoholic Antic-of-the-Month
“AND THEN, WHAT TO MY WONDERING EYES SHOULD APPEAR? A holiday gathering in Del Paso Heights, Calif., was interrupted when an apparently drunk neighbor crashed the party. As guests were milling around the front lawn, Donald Kercell, 49, allegedly pulled a knife and threatened the guests. When he allegedly started slashing people's clothing, a guest decided to fight back with the only weapon at hand: a 2-ft candy cane Christmas decoration from the lawn, which he used to beat Kercell down. After the intruder was subdued, police arrived and charged him with assault with a deadly weapon. Police ruled the candy man acted in self-defense and no charges are pending against him. (Sacramento Bee) ...Sure Kercell faces felony charges, ...
The recession may increase the incidence of obvious alcoholism–causing an increase in related violence and road rage
Recession, Unemployment and Alcoholism
The last time we discussed the merely hypothetical, the real estate bubble was unraveling. The August 2007 Top Story, “The Mortgage Mess, the Real Estate Bubble and Alcoholism,” suggested that alcoholism helps to fuel manias, including this latest and greatest one. The ability to lead herds is enhanced by alcoholism because alcoholics are, by their own testimony when in recovery, the world’s greatest salesmen. They have a far greater knack than others for being able to disconnect price and economic reality, particularly when they want you to buy what they sell. Impaired judgment and a sense of invincibility increase risk-taking, upping the odds of criminal behaviors, which include the perpetration of fraudulent get-quick-rich schemes. It amplifies stupid ...