Archive for November, 2009
Chremes: “And what vice [is] the vilest?”
Pamphilus: “Drunkennesse, for it makes a Beast of a Man.”
--Nicholas Breton, An Olde Mans Lesson and a Young Mans Love, 1605
Drug-addicted enabler to Anthony Sowell, Lori Frazier—and a slew of drug-addicted victims
The criminal justice system is filled with addicts, who often were arrested by addicts, judged by them and guarded by them. Victims are also frequently addicts. While too often an innocent was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, becoming victim to a stray bullet, a vehicular homicide or a robbery, the number of occasions where the victim is another addict is probably woefully underestimated.
It doesn’t make it any less tragic, as so often addicts of all stripes are decent human ...
Two addicted parents almost kill their children.
Tessa Zelek, 25, found guilty on two counts of cruelty to children, four counts of contributing to the deprivation of a minor and two counts of prescription drug forgery. Zelek, who fed her twins so little that at 13 months they reportedly looked like skeletons and weighed only nine pounds each (more than 50% underweight for their age), blamed the pediatrician for failing to tell her what and when to feed them and give proper parenting advice. The twins’ father, James McCart, also 25, copped a plea and admitted he didn’t “know how many days went by that the kids weren’t fed. I thought like two, but I’m not sure.” What could possible distort the perceptions of parents to the ...
Shoichi Nakagawa, who slurred his speech and dozed off at a finance meeting focusing on the world’s economic mess, messes up his life. One must ask: How many other lives did he mess up?
Former Japanese finance minister Shoichi Nakagawa, 56, found by his wife lying face down in bed in their Tokyo home, dead of uncertain causes but with “numerous anomalies in his cardiovascular system as well as the presence of alcohol,” according to the Tokyo metropolitan police department. Nakagawa was a “runner-up” in the February-April 2009 edition of TAR, having slurred his speech and repeatedly appeared to doze off at a meeting of finance ministers focusing on the world’s economic mess, followed by a bizarre visit to the Vatican Museums in which he touched various exhibits that mere mortals like the rest of us would never dream of getting too close to (take a look at this and you’ll understand why). Oh, ...
Several “accidents,” including one in a La-Z-Boy reclining chair with gas-powered motor (hey, who ever said alcoholics don’t get creative?)
Timothy Willgruber, 56, who took his own life a week after he killed his twin brother Thomas Willgruber in a freak “accident” (see the discussion on Heath Ledger’s death in the March 2008 edition of TAR for my view of such “accidents”) for which he was facing charges of homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence. After both were drinking while driving to the Bethlehem, PA annual Celtic Fest, Timothy was having trouble parallel parking. When Thomas hopped out of the vehicle to help, Timothy backed into the spot and pinned Thomas between their minivan bumper and a sport utility vehicle, killing him. Such antics weren’t new: Thomas had previously pled guilty for DUI in 2000 and Timothy had ...
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik is convicted. Did alcoholism fuel his egomania?
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, pleading guilty to lying to the White House while being vetted for the top Homeland Security post and for income tax evasion. As Commissioner on 9-11, he won glowing reviews for his leadership—all the while filing false tax returns (he has promised to refile 1999 through 2003 and 2005). As discussed in Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse, most crimes, including white-collar crimes such as tax evasion, are committed by alcoholics. Other clues to likely alcoholism include abandoning an illegitimate Korean daughter, accepting undisclosed gifts from firms doing business with New York City while Commissioner, having at least two mistresses, being expelled from Saudi Arabia after ...
No one else points out that Hassan at Fort Hood had pleny of access to drugs. It needs to be said and looked at.
Major Malik Nadal Hasan, an army psychiatrist, who killed 14 and wounded 31 others in a mass murder at Fort Hood, Texas after getting “upset” over being given orders to deploy to Iraq. The tragedy is so well-known only one observation bears mentioning, which other commentators seem to have completely ignored: psychiatrists have access to all sorts of drugs that are capable of causing distortions of perception, egomania and grandiosity, which in rare instances can lead a person afflicted with addiction to commit mass murder. Seven-year-old boys were turned into little killing machines in the Sierra Leone civil war by feeding them drug cocktails containing tranquilizers and amphetamines. Hasan had plenty of access to such drugs. While we may be ...
More on Bernie Madoff and yet another Ponzi heist, starring Florida attorney (shocking, I know) Scott Rothstein.
Convicted swindler Bernie Madoff, accused of financing a cocaine-fueled work environment and a “culture of sexual deviance.” Bernard Madoff Investment Services was known in the 1970s by insiders as the “North Pole” due to the excessive amount of cocaine used in the work place. The complaint, brought by former investors, alleges that Madoff used stolen money for his extravagant spending, which included escorts, masseuses and topless entertainers at company parties.
Florida attorney Scott Rothstein, who according to The Wall Street Journal is being investigated by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office for allegedly selling stakes in phony employment-dispute settlements that could rank as South Florida’s largest-ever Ponzi scheme. Known for lavish spending, Rothstein owns several mansions overlooking the canals of ...
Under watch: a doctor, a philanthropist’s son and his attorney. Alcoholism is the best explanation.
Dr. Christopher Thompson, 60, convicted of mayhem, assault with a deadly weapon and other criminal charges after being arrested for slamming on his car’s brakes on a narrow Brentwood road with two bicycle riders right behind him, seriously injuring them. Thompson, a veteran emergency room doctor, was the subject of the January 2009 TAR Myth of the Month) after a blogger asked, “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?” If he’s an addict, the answer is a resounding “yes!” but, unfortunately as is often the case of non-celebrity professionals, personal information is difficult to find (and in fact was redacted from many web sites, ...
Under watch: Nicholas Cage and some serious overspending. Was it alcoholically driven?
Actor Nicholas Cage, who filed a $20 million lawsuit against his former business manager Samuel J. Levin, alleging that he was reckless with his money, including failing to pay more than $6 million in taxes. However, the actor purchased more than a dozen houses (including mansions in places like Newport Beach, Venice Beach, Malibu, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York and a castle near Bath, England), two Bahamian islands, dinosaur skulls, shrunken heads, two yachts, a Gulfstream jet and at least 50 cars (including Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces and Bentleys). Two mansions in New Orleans have been foreclosed and he recently sold his main home in Bel Air for less than half of the $30 million he paid for it. ...
Under watch: Balloon boy dad Richard Heene
Richard and Mayumi Heene, admitting they perpetrated a hoax when they claimed their 6-year-old son Falcon floated away in a giant balloon, when in fact he was in their Fort Collins, Colorado home while the entire nation watched the drama unfold on national television. Flights in and out of Denver International Airport were rerouted and a farmer’s field was destroyed by would-be rescuers when the balloon landed without the boy and authorities feared the worst. Aside from the obvious (“He’s a great liar,” clue # 12 in the chapter entitled “A Supreme Being Complex,” How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics: Using Behavioral Clues to Recognize Addiction in Its Early Stages), Heene is known for his “extreme” risk-taking personality (“Engages in risky ...
Two innocent kids in a car and 50 cult followers in a sweat lodge ceremony.
Alcoholic victims of the month:
Katherine Willis, 15, and Melissa Elh-Mirra, 5, the two foster children in the care of Genevieve Bethea who died after her daughter, Sheila Bethea, 45, lost control of a van and slammed into another vehicle in Queens. Before pleading not guilty to manslaughter and other charges, Bethea admitted to smoking crack cocaine at 2 a.m., doing heroin at 9 a.m. and drinking “one” alcoholic beverage at noon before the crash at about 5 p.m., where she told a witness she lost control after “driving too fast.” Investigators believe she wrapped a crack pipe in tissue and hid it in a “body cavity” after the crash, which she claimed occurred because a replacement tire gave way at ...
Enablers of the month: Colton Harris-Moore’s Facebook fans and his mother Pam Kohler, along with police in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia
Enablers of the month:
Facebook fans of Colton Harris-Moore, 18, who glowingly describe him as a teenage Jesse James, for being suspected of having stolen at least one boat, at least two airplanes, a thermal imaging camera (giving him night-vision capabilities for living in the woods he often lives in) and necessities. But he may not be the addict. Read on.
Colton Harris-Moore’s mother Pam Kohler, who doesn’t find much wrong with her son’s exploits. “I hope to hell he stole those airplanes. I would be so proud.” Kohler was usually unemployed while raising her son in a reportedly run-down, single-wide trailer in the woods on the south end of Camano Island, north of Seattle, Washington. She sometimes threw her young son ...
Alcoholic disenables self.
Disenabler of the month:
Mary Strey, 49, who called 911, saying “Somebody’s really drunk driving down Granton Road.” When the dispatcher asked, “Are you behind them?” Strey responded, “I am them.” “You am them?” “I don’t want to hurt anybody. I’m drunk.” She admitted to having been “drinking all night long.” With a blood alcohol level of .16 per cent, she was. It’s rare to get an honest drunk who disenables herself, but she is them.
Headline: teen friendship rooted in friendship? Try alcoholism.
Headline of the month:
“Teen Burglary Ring Rooted in Friendship.” So headlined the story reporting a gang of suspects arrested on suspicion of burglarizing Lindsay Lohan and other Hollywood celebrities from October 2008 through September 2009 on www.popeater.com. No it isn’t. The ring is rooted in alcohol and other-drug addiction, along with possible codependency; where alcoholism is involved, friendship is secondary. Most of the group, including Nicholas Frank Prugo, 18, Alexis Neiers, 18 (sister of Playboy playmate Tess Taylor), Rachel Lee, 19, Diana Tamayo, 19 and Courtney Ames, 19, were classmates at a continuation campus for high school drop-outs in Agoura Hills. Prugo pled guilty to possession of cocaine in February and agreed to an 18-month drug diversion program. Lee, reportedly ...
Quotes of the month: a real estate maven and “Full House” star Jodie Sweetin (maybe this time) gets sober.
Quotes of the month:
“I guess all the rumors our parents told us about drugs and alcohol are true. I was just dying an alcoholic death….I had to be putting poison in me 24/7. It went on for quite awhile.” So said Kevin Green, would-be Mammoth Lakes, California king of real estate, now 20 months sober and making amends to those he harmed. On a personal note, back in late 2005 my wife and I traded two of our three overpriced Mammoth vacation rentals for real estate outside the bubble states (Tennessee, to be precise—but the idea was to go anywhere else). We kept the third because it’s very cute (and available for rent), we love Mammoth and I figured, hey, ...
Sometimes, it takes an addict: Dickie Peterson and Blue Cheer
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Dickie Peterson, the bassist and lead singer for the heavily amped Blue Cheer, dead at age 63 of metastasized prostate cancer. Best known for its name (a potent strain of LSD) and a 1968 rendition of the classic “Summertime Blues,” Blue Cheer members were not only enraged over Viet Nam, but “we were outraged at society in general and we were expressing it in a way that had never been done” in a style that The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll says was a “heavy-metal landmark.” While Peterson admits that band members took “a lot” of drugs, he acknowledged that while he still believed “LSD and such drugs have a positive effect…we took it ...
Two very different drunks wonderfully portrayed on Law & Order: SVU, “Hammered”
“Law & Order: SVU Hammered”
Rarely does the small screen accurately portray alcoholism and even less frequently, if ever, does it do so in one show with two very different strains. The episode of “Law & Order: SVU” entitled “Hammered” does so, and does it well.
IMDB.com summarizes the plot: “An alcoholic who fell off the wagon is charged in the brutal rape and murder of an abortion doctor. His defense argues that alcoholism is a disease, but why is ADA Paxton so bitterly opposed to the claim?”
ADA Sonya Paxton, played by Christine Lahti, is bitterly opposed because (warning: spoiler alert!) she turns out to be an alcoholic, although one with a dramatically different style.
Dalton Rindell, played by Scott Foley, wakes up ...
Obvious drunk needs sobriety, not “dialogue.” More rot from Dear Annie.
I have a secret
Dear Doug:
My father and I have always had a terrible relationship. Throughout my youth, he often yelled at me and was frequently extremely rude, boorish, critical, sarcastic and angry for no apparent reason. One time he was so angry he threw me out of a slow-moving car. I attempted suicide in my late teens and 20s three times and Dad refused to visit me in the hospital. He acted the same way to my mother and sister.
He recently developed some life-threatening medical problems, which have me greatly concerned that I will never carry on any meaningful dialogue with him. And, I have a terrible secret I’d like to tell him before he dies. How do I tell ...
Forensic psychologist ignores the obvious. Anything but alcoholism, as usual.
“The fact that they would dirty their own nest, as it were, is peculiar to me and suggests a level of mental illness or sickness.”
So said forensic psychologist N.G. Berrill, director of the New York Center for Neuropsychology and Forensic Behavioral Science, in hypothesizing that mental illness must play a role in the aberrant behavior of a killer like Anthony Sowell, who not only committed atrocities close to and in his home, but kept the trophies there as well.
Perhaps. However, the classic video of a bewildered Jeffrey Dahmer in prison, long sober, is revealing: he could be any John Smith. The common thread is more likely alcohol and other-drug addiction. It may or may not trigger mental illness, but without ...
Yup, electrical substations are dangerous for the untrained…and the alcoholic.
“A power company spokesman said the incident is an example of the danger of [electrical] substations to untrained people.”
So wrote Trace Christenson in an article reporting that a 27-year-old man had been found with burned skin, singed hair and serious internal injuries inside a fenced electrical substation, apparently having been shocked with 46,000 volts of electricity. Trace is merely reporting what someone else said, but still. Several paragraphs later we read what is to the addictionologist obvious: the man “had been drinking.” Reporting myths sends the wrong message. More accurately, the incident is an example of the danger of unchecked alcoholism.
“Just drunk,” and doesn’t remember his child’s birth.
Story from “This is True” by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:”
“FATHER OF THE YEAR: A man was arrested in a hospital in Ogden, Utah, after allegedly groping a nurse. Adam Jay Manning, 30, wasn't a patient at the McKay-Dee Hospital: he had brought his girlfriend there to give birth to his child. Manning looked ‘up and down’ at the nurse and told her ‘how attractive she was, how cute she was,’ said police spokesman Lt. Loring Draper. The nurse ignored him, but he tried to massage her shoulders and then grabbed her breast, Draper said. She pulled away, but Manning kept after her and allegedly grabbed her again. ‘After the second time, the nurse asked what he was doing,’ Draper ...