Archive for May, 2013
Active Alcoholism Isn’t Required to Foment Terrorism…But a Failure to get Sober May Be
(Or, it Could be Amphetamines)
In a piece written shortly after 9-11, “Micro Terrorism and Macro Terrorism May Have Similar Roots,” I suggested the best explanation for terrorism lays in alcohol or other-drug addiction. While dramatically different in scope, I argue that the underlying cause of a man terrorizing his wife and kids is likely the same as for men converting aircraft into weapons of mass destruction: addiction-fueled egomania, creating a need to wield power over others. James Graham, in The Secret History of Alcoholism, made the indelible point that an alcoholic’s circumstances and environment help to determine his occupation and beliefs, which in turn determine how and ...
What do military sexual assaults and a horrific (Ariel Castro of Cleveland, OH) kidnapping have in common?
Runners-up for top story of the month:
The military sexual assault problem, which may be a top story in an upcoming TAR. Let’s just say no one “gets it.” Consider Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, chief of the Air Force sexual assault prevention branch when he was arrested on charges of “drunkenly groping a woman outside a bar near the Pentagon.” Given the fact that Krusinski is 41 and likely triggered alcoholism in his early teen years, he should have been diagnosed with alcoholism long ago—and never have been put in control of a branch of the armed forces that deals almost exclusively with alcoholism-related misbehaviors.
Ariel Castro, 52, charged with kidnapping and imprisoning three young women inside his Cleveland, OH home since ...
Scott and Donald Sterling: if I’m right, addiction simply takes different forms.
Codependents of the month:
Los Angeles Clippers’ owner’s son Scott Sterling, 32, died from a drug overdose. His family released a statement: “Our son Scott has fought a long and valiant battle against Type 1 diabetes.” While the family did not explain what role diabetes may have played in his death, the Los Angeles County coroner said it was caused by a pulmonary embolism and “intravenous narcotic medication intake.” The fact that an injection of ground-up oxycodone (a narcotic) can lead to blood system blockages resulting in a pulmonary embolism suggests addiction as the root cause of his death.
I’ve long suspected that alcoholism is the best explanation for the behaviors of Scott’s father Donald Sterling—a real estate mogul whose smiling face ...
If there’s no alcoholism in a mass murderer, then it’s really close by. The case of Newtown, CT shooter Adam Lanza and his mother, Nancy Lanza.
Possible codependent of the month:
Adam Lanza, 20, who shot his mother Nancy Lanza, 54, several times in the head before launching his rampage and then shooting himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. It’s highly unusual for a mass shooter to be a non-addict, but toxicology reports (surprisingly) show no drugs in Lanza’s system at the time of the attack. While it’s possible that he was on something that wasn’t screened, toxicology exams search for hundreds of drugs, from alcohol and illegal drugs to anti-depressants and anti-psychotics. It’s also possible he took himself off drugs just long enough to clear his head and pull off one of the biggest massacres in U.S. history. On the other hand, his ...
No one drinks addictively as a release. That’s an excuse for biochemistry. To be treated properly we must get the blame right.
Excuse of the month:
An unnamed source claimed that “Reese Witherspoon started drinking to cope with the stress of her parents’ bitter battle in divorce court last year….‘Reese feels she has the weight of the world on her shoulders, and she started drinking alcohol as a release,’ added the source.” So wrote an anonymous columnist for The National Enquirer. Such explanations for one’s ability to consume large quantities of alcohol and resulting misbehaviors are incredibly misleading. If Ms. Witherspoon acts badly as a result of drinking, she has the disease of alcoholism—which allows her to drink large quantities and compels her to act badly, at least some of the time, as she did recently when her second husband, talent agent Jim ...
George Jones and his rider-mowers.
Retrospective find of the month:
I’ve found a number of “alkie antics” news stories involving DUIs and rider-mowers, but none involving a rider-mower without a DUI—until reading up on country icon George Jones (see “Sometimes, it takes an addict,” below). His second wife, Shirley Corley (to whom he was married from 1954 to 1968) thought she made it impossible for him to drive to the nearest town, eight miles away, to buy liquor—whenever she left, she took the keys to all their cars. In his autobiography, I Lived to Tell it All, Jones recalls being unable to find any keys, until he looked out the window. The way he describes it: "There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine ...
Idiots and chutzpah. When you see them together you know there are addicts or enablers or both.
Idiot of the month:
Jarad S. Carr, 37, whose scanner-copier-printer broke after trying to print counterfeit $100 bills. Not only did he try to return the printer to Wal-Mart with one of the sheets of fake bills still in the scanner, but he also picked a fight with the Wal-Mart staff after they refused to give a refund (or even half a refund, which Carr pushed for), prompting them to call police. When police arrived, Carr resisted arrest and tried to run. Unsurprisingly, he was already wanted on two felony warrants for armed robbery and burglary. The police chief noted three fake $100 bills found on Carr weren’t even good fakes, although in a dark bar—no doubt where Carr spends much ...
A serial murderer, enabled by law enforcers all-too-long; a dad and a bartender disenable; the bartender loses her job and “would do it again.”
Future watch:
Samuel Little, 72, found living in a Christian shelter in Kentucky by Los Angeles cold case detectives after matching DNA from a recent arrest for possession of a crack pipe with DNA collected from slayings of three women in 1989. His 100-page rap sheet (!!!) details crimes in 24 states spread over 56 years for a wide array of criminal behavior, including various drug violations, assault, burglary, armed robbery and shoplifting. Incredibly, the former boxer has been incarcerated for a total of only ten years. LA detectives allege he is a serial murderer, killing by delivering a knock-out punch and then strangling prostitutes, drug addicts and “troubled” women (i.e., generally more drug addicts). He pleaded “not guilty” to the ...
Addicts can be heroes. But they are still addicts and act like addicts.
Ironies of the month:
Ex-Compton, California fire battalion chief Marcel Melanson, 37, who starred in the BET reality TV program First In, which followed Compton firefighters on emergency calls, charged with arson and embezzlement. Described as “upstanding” and a “role model,” Melanson is accused of setting a fire at the Compton Fire Department headquarters as part of an elaborate scheme to steal communications equipment from the cash-strapped department. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has since recovered more than 50 of the pricey ($2,500 each) radios “from around the world,” many of which were sold on eBay.
Councilwoman Yvonne Arceneaux said “it’s hard to reconcile that man with the allegations he is now facing.” Whenever we hear of such seemingly contradictory behaviors, ...
Addicts can be great in sobriety, but also adulated when still using. The stories of Jonathan Winters and country music icon George Jones.
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Comedian Jonathan Winters, dead at 87 of natural causes surrounded by family and friends in his Montecito, California home. His ability to create “a cavalcade of charmingly twisted characters,” as the Los Angeles Times writer Dennis McLellan put it, led to Tonight show host Jack Paar to quip Winters was “the 25 most funny people I know.” The son of a down-and-out alcoholic who had trouble keeping a job and often left his young son locked in the car while he got drunk in bars, Winters enlisted in the Marines at 17 in 1943 because, while he wanted to fight, he “mostly…wanted to get away from my parents.” Soon after WWll he met his future wife ...
The movie “Flight”: a terrific portrayal of addiction. At least one reviewer doesn’t get it.
Flight, and a review of Flight
Robert Zemeckis, who directed, produced and/or wrote Romancing the Stone, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the Back to the Future trilogy, Forrest Gump and a number of other enduring motion pictures, has given us in Flight one of the greatest portrayals of addiction ever. Denzel Washington portrays the extraordinarily skilled pilot Whip Whitaker, who has hidden decades of addictive use of alcohol and other drugs from everyone except those with whom he uses or from whom he buys. And he’s a hero.
The movie brilliantly portrays Whitaker’s heroism, drug use and the ability to function and hide such use. We often find early-to-middle stage alcoholism in bed with extraordinary behaviors, both good and bad. That the story ...
He’s already got a love affair with Ms. Booze. He will never be able to truly commit until that love affair ends.
She’s looking for a relationship—but is he?
Dear Doug:
My boyfriend and I have worked through most of our issues over the four years we’ve been dating. The trouble is he lives a “wild” lifestyle—partying, drinking and lots of women. Every time I bring up the topic of commitment he changes the subject. What should I do?
Signed,
Wants to Get Serious
Dear Codependent,
Other columnists might suggest he’s doing you a huge favor in “telling” you, by his avoidance of the subject, he doesn’t want a commitment. They would miss the other unspoken point, however: he already has a relationship with his other girlfriend—booze. Due to a damaged neocortex, you cannot reason with him, nor can you trust him, believe him or predict when his ...
You repeatedly rescue her and expect a different result?
She lies, cheats and steals—and is repeatedly rescued
Dear Doug:
My niece lies, cheats and steals from her family and workplace. Every time she gets into trouble, her family rescues her. We pooled our money to prevent an eviction; when she was caught embezzling, she was terminated but we helped her to avoid arrest; when her car was about to be repossessed, we helped her catch up on car payments. She always cries and promises to do better and the cycle repeats.
We know we’re enabling, but she has a 4-year-old son, an innocent who would be dragged down with her if we stop “helping.” Yet, we don’t want the boy to follow her into a similar life of committing serial misbehaviors, or ...
Texting and smoking and unsafe sex and–oh! binge drinking!–go hand in hand. What causes what?
“In short, teens who [text while driving] engage in a multitude of other risky behaviors.”
So concluded Andrew Adesman, senior investigator of a study conducted by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported in June’s Pediatrics. Adesman, who is chief of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, along with the researchers, fail to link cause and effect: that drinking causes or exacerbates all of the other risky behaviors they studied. While not a myth per se (although some might call it a “half-truth” because it leaves out crucial information), the omission of underlying cause makes the study pointless—unless one understands addiction.
The study found that teens who text while driving are also much ...
How to make sense of running her over and yelling, “I love you baby!” using anything other than the lens of addiction?
Story from “This is True” by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:”
“TRUE LOVE II: Police in Charleston, S.C., were called to sort out a domestic dispute at an apartment complex. As far as they can piece things together, Charles Baker, 33, got into a fight with his unnamed girlfriend, also 33, in the parking lot. It started when Baker pulled up and his girlfriend allegedly opened the door to his truck and punched him in the face. He responded by allegedly running her over, and then calling out ‘I love you baby!’ as he sped away. The woman was taken to the hospital for treatment of minor-sounding injuries, and Baker was arrested when he returned, charged with ‘criminal domestic violence of ...
The General Petraeus affair: everyone involved except for Petraeus shows numerous behavioral indications of addiction. Petraeus may be an unaware codependent.
Gen. David Petraeus’ Biographer Paula Broadwell and Socialite-Friend Jill Kelley:
Possible Alcoholics are Enmeshed in Positions of Power
The story is worthy of a soap opera or “The Real Housewives of New Jersey”: a highly respected General (also former director of the CIA) has a 10-month affair with a woman who, becoming obsessed with him, sends another woman, who she believes is flirting with him, threatening emails. Most people probably think, “it’s not real,” or “whatever.” However, there’s a lot more to this story, which should be taken very seriously by concerned citizens because it’s all-too real—and its likely genesis is all-too common.
A core theme of my work, from Drunks, Drugs & Debits (which we are selling to subscribers for $1 each ...
Internet security company mogul John McAfee and a biker gang. Anyone can be an addict.
Runners Up for Top Story:
Software millionaire John McAfee, 67, who sold his anti-virus Internet security company in 1994, apprehended in Guatemala after his Belizean neighbor, Florida restaurateur and builder Gregory Viant Faull, 52, was murdered execution-style. Belizean authorities claim they simply want to question McAfee, but they likely believe he killed Faull after a long-running feud boiled over into the poisoning of McAfee’s dogs, for which McAfee blames Faull. Considering the fact that the heavily tattooed and reportedly paranoid McAfee is known for violent behavior, engages in odd sexual proclivities, keeps at least a half dozen under-25-year-old girlfriends and has long been suspected of psychotropic drug use (including “bath salts,” an extremely dangerous drug related to methamphetamine), addictionologists wouldn’t be ...
The City of Bell’s former police chief Randy Adams and L.A. County Assessor John Noguez show indications of alcoholism.
Under watch:
In an early 2009 piece on white collar crime, The Economist magazine mentioned something those who have read my books would predict: “Many [Club Fed and other white collar] prisoners suddenly discover, post-conviction, that they had a drinking problem….” I would add that those who don’t figure this out might benefit from greater introspection. In the spirit of The Economist’s discovery, recent stories follow for which the evidence of alcoholism is in the behaviors themselves.
Former city of Bell, California police chief Randy Adams, whose attempt to more than double his yearly pension to $510,000 was rejected by administrative law judge James Ahler, who determined it was never properly approved by the Bell City Council. Adams ran the tiny police ...
Actor Johnny Lewis takes out an 81-year-old, and then himself.
Alcoholic victim of the month:
Catherine Davis, 81, who was bludgeoned to death by actor Johnny Lewis just before Lewis, 28, either jumped or fell to his death from the roof or balcony of Davis’s two-story home. Lewis, who had a long history of drug addiction, was arrested at least four times this year on various charges of burglary and battery. Only on the third arrest was he ordered into a 30-day outpatient program for addicts, but was likely not ordered to undergo random and regular drug testing, which might have saved both lives. Davis died of blunt head trauma and had been strangled; her cat was also killed. Because there were two reported instances in which victims fought back and ...
A “Survivor” star tells us her mother never knew of her amphetamine addiction; lotto winners are told everything they need to do to keep their stash except the part about getting and staying sober; arsonist and meth addict Rickie Lee Fowler finally convicted.
Codependent retrospective find of the month:
“Survivor” competitor Dana Lambert told her mother she was hooked on amphetamines and asked for a rather unusual 21st birthday gift: a stay in rehab. Her stunned mother asked: “you’ve got a problem with drugs?” This lack of awareness, even in close family members, is not uncommon. A great example involves “Full House” child star Jodi Sweetin: she grew up and was married to an LAPD cop for five years, two of which she was a full-on methamphetamine addict. The cop husband didn’t have a clue. Codependents, including parents, are frequently unaware of addiction in friends, co-workers and even family members. Dana, now 32, spent 28 days in rehab and has reportedly been ...
JZ Knight, cultist, likely alcoholic–but I repeat myself.
Video of the month:
JZ Knight, the cult-like head of The Ramtha School of Enlightenment, was filmed making derogatory comments about Mexicans, Catholics, gays and others. Clue # 14 in the chapter (and category) “A Supreme Being Complex” in How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics is “Belittles others.” While belittling others, including entire classes of people, is a subtle way to inflate the ego at others’ expense, I’ve long noted it’s a wonderfully accurate clue to alcoholism, and often the first observable one. But in a wonderful video that has unfortunately been removed we get much more: she’s high as a kite. But then, what would we expect of a cult-like leader claiming to channel a 35,000-year-old warrior? The school is ...
You had to spend other people’s money to prove those who “pre-drink” act more recklessly?
Study of the month:
A Swiss study concluded that students who “pre-drink,” which is drinking alcohol before heading out to an event (such as, in this study, a bar, club or sporting event), are much more likely to have a blackout, unprotected sex, unplanned (other-)drug use or injury. Researchers found that students who pre-drank consumed on average seven drinks in an evening while those who drank only at a bar or event consumed just over four drinks. The difference is night and day: alcoholic vs. non-alcoholic drinking, and alcoholic vs. non-alcoholic behaviors. The addictionologist would have predicted precisely this outcome. The wonder is the researchers even bothered with the study (except why not: they probably used other people’s money). We’ll make ...
The definition of chutzpah: it’s someone else’s fault. Or some imaginary personality.
Chutzpah of the month # 1:
Diana Williamson, MD, 56, once lauded for her AIDS treatment work including the founding of an AIDS hospital, convicted of defrauding Medicaid out of $300,000 in part by writing about 11,000 phony prescriptions for painkillers (purchased with Medicaid tax dollars) peddled on the street. Williamson, who pleaded guilty, blamed “Nala,” one of her “multiple personalities,” for committing the crimes. Defense lawyer Jonathan Marks explained that Nala was “mischievous, irresponsible, reckless and, as we have just discovered, criminal.” Williamson added that Nala “committed these crimes without telling Diana or the other parts of me about them…. Perhaps it sounds incredible that a part of me could be doing something that the rest of me would not ...
Addicts can be heroes: Native American activist Russell Means, actress “Emmanuelle” Sylvia Kristel, Brooke Shields’ mom Teri Shields and “J.R.” Larry Hagman
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Native American and sometimes-libertarian activist Russell Means, dead at age 72 after a “general decline in health” subsequent to a reportedly successful battle with esophageal cancer. In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s he participated in the occupation of Alcatraz, the seizing of the Mayflower ll (a replica of the original), the occupation and trashing of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Washington offices by the American Indian Movement (AIM) and, in the coup de grace, the occupation of the hamlet of Wounded Knee in the Pine River reservation where, in 1890, 300 Lakota Indians were killed by the U.S. army. Means, along with some 200 others, held out through blizzards and machine gun fire against federal ...
Hey Bob Costas, it’s not the gun; it’s addiction. Jovan Belcher was an addict. Without addiction, he’d never commit murder-suicide. The real tragedy: no one forced him to get sober.
Do gun owners or addicts cause tragedy?
"'Our current gun culture simply ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead. ...Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.'"
So said Bob Costas during a National Football League half-time show on national television, channeling Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock after the tragic murder-suicide of Kansas City Chiefs player Jovan Belcher, 25 and his on-again off-again girlfriend and mother of his child Kasandra Perkins, 22. He added, "If Jovan Belcher didn't possess ...
Hey hubby, your wife’s alcoholism is right under your nose. But how can you know? Behaviors. They are everything.
My Wife’s a Drunk, But I Don’t Know it
Dear Doug:
My wife, to whom I have been married for eight months, is making me wonder if we got married too young. She’s just 23 and I’m 27.
She has a habit of going out with friends, getting drunk, and staying the night at her friends’ homes. I don’t want to be a control-freak and tell her she can’t go out, but the fact that she wants to spend the night with her single friends and get drunk is troublesome. What should I do?
Signed,
Un-controlling husband
Dear Codependent,
Other columnists might say your wife is trying to “hold onto her carefree single days.” While they might suggest it’s unfortunate she can’t do that without getting smashed, ...
A mom who makes unreasonable threats is alomost surely on something.
Mother controls via ultimatums
Dear Doug:
My partner’s mother has always been unsupportive and critical of her. Lately, she has given several ultimatums threatening she will refuse to come over for various family holiday gatherings. She “won’t come over” if we adopt two cats to be companions for our dog, or if we invite friends to Thanksgiving dinner, or if I invite any of my family for Christmas dinner. My partner says we should adopt the cats, invite our friends to Thanksgiving and have my family over for Christmas. If we do any of this, I fear we’ll never see her mother again. I feel torn.
Signed,
Torn between families
Dear Codependent,
Other columnists might correctly respond that this is a terrorist-like grab for control ...
Myth: that she needs to get on her meds rather than off. No, it’s almost always addiction. Espcially when she drives onto a runway with a 2-month-old in the car.
“She’s not going to be stable until she gets on medication.”
So said Bebe Anderson in explaining that her daughter, KoKo Nicole Anderson, 21, who had crashed through a gate at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and drove onto a runway with her infant son in the car, suffered from bipolar disorder.
The trouble with this explanation is, as described in Alcoholism Myths and Realities, alcohol and other-drug addiction mimics (and sometimes triggers) mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder.
Police found KoKo in her car with the 2-month-old baby’s pacifier in the mother’s mouth. She told officers she wanted her flip-flop shoe. She was acting so erratically, a drug recognition officer (DRE) was called to the scene. Since a charge of aggravated DUI ...
If we are to prevent Secret Service agents from qualifying for “antic of the month,” they need to be screened and tested for alcoholism
Story from “This is True” by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:”
“STRIKE TWO: After a sex scandal in Colombia, the U.S. Secret Service, which is charged with providing protection to the president and presidential candidates, issued an order prohibiting ‘excessive drinking’ by agents. Weeks after that order, President Barack Obama made a Florida campaign stop at the University of Miami. Shortly after the president left, a police officer found a man lying down at a busy intersection at 7:00 a.m. He told the man, who had a ‘strong odor of alcoholic beverage emitting from his breath,’ to get up, but he refused. The cop helped the man up -- and the man allegedly punched him. The officer called for backup, and ...
What would you do…if you are waiting behind someone you think is taking too long to pick up their food at a drive-thru — and you have alcoholic biochemistry? (TAR Lite # 24)
Would you...
1. Patiently wait your turn, figuring some orders take longer than others?
2. Pull out of the line, park your car and walk into the restaurant to pick up your food?
3. Get out of your car, walk over to the drive-thru window and ask if there’s anything you can do to help move things along?
4. Drive around and park your car in front of the car at the window, get out, walk over to the other car, point your handgun in the driver’s face and yell, “You don’t know who you’re f***ing with!”?
Congratulations if you selected # 4, because that’s what DeKalb County Police Detective Sergeant Scott Biumi, 48, did to the teenage driver he thought was taking too long ...