Negative response to Daily News article on Toby Whelchel
Dear Mr. Thorburn:
I was deeply disturbed by your letter in the L.A. Daily News. It would seem your opinion is that “alcoholics” ar all potentially psychopaths, which at any time can go off on a rampage.
You mention the ‘stigma” of alcoholism and addiction. Thank you, you’ve contributed to the continuation of that stigma.
Do you really know any alcoholics, either “recovered” or still drinking? If you did, you would know that, with the exception of a powerful thirst for alcohol, alcoholics are pretty much like other folks in temperment, noble aspirations, and moral failings.
Finally, are you such an expert on alcoholism that you can correctly diagnose someone without even determining their pattern of excessive alcohol consumption – the primary symptom of alcoholism?
Bill Crane
Mr. Crane,
If you know anything about alcoholism, you know that the disease takes innumerable forms.
Never once do I say all alcoholics act like psychopaths. However, a person behaving like a psychopath is, probably, an alcoholic. Get him clean and sober and, odds on, he will no longer act that way.
You should also be aware of the fact that we cannot predict which alcoholic will go on a rampage or when. Think of Brynn Hartmann. There was no way I know of to predict that she would be capable of murdering Phil and committing suicide.
I know scores of recovering alcoholics. I have asked many of those with at least ten-fifteen years sobriety what they might have been capable of if, while using, they had been in a position of power. The response is almost always, “anything.” Don’t bother asking those with only a couple years of sobriety. They don’t remember enough yet.
My books and work came about largely because of my interviews with recovering addicts. I slowly realized that they were almost always fundamentally good people and that it was the drug that had a particular action on their brains that made them act badly.
And finally, you, like others, are operating under a useless definition of alcoholism. Excessive alcohol consumption is not the primary symptom. If it were, most 200-pound Frenchmen who drink two bottles of wine over the course of a day would be considered alcoholics. If drunk over 12 hours, the BAL ends up at .06 per cent. That is not alcoholism. Instead, a practical definition should recognize that alcoholism provides the observer with behavioral clues long before we see the addictive use.
It’s real simple Mr. Crane: alcoholism causes misbehaviors. Therefore, when we observe misbehaviors, we should be looking for alcoholism. If we find it, we should intervene and get back that person who we may know and even love. My mantra is, early identification of alcoholism can help prevent tragedy. Allowed to continue unimpeded, tragedy will, inevitably, occur.