Top Story: Mel Gibson
Actor-Director Mel Gibson’s Horrific Relapse
In 1947, Dr. William D. Silkworth authored a piece for the magazine of Alcoholics Anonymous, The AA Grapevine, entitled, “Slips and Human Nature.”Silkworth explained the process of relapse, that it is not a mystery and should not be surprising. Yet, when a recovering alcoholic of the stature of Mel Gibson relapses and mouths obscenities and hatred, people are stunned. While we wish it weren’t so, we should not be shocked. Relapses are fairly normal experiences in the lives of alcoholics, particularly when wealth, fame, family, friends and even law enforcers enable by protecting the alcoholic from appropriate and logical consequences. And, as I explain in my latest book, “Alcoholism Myths and Realities: Removing the Stigma of Society’s Most Destructive Disease,” active alcoholics do and say things at which they would recoil in sobriety. They are completely different people when sober.
Silkworth could have been talking about Gibson, who hadn’t even been born, when he wrote, “While it does seem odd that an alcoholic, who has restored himself to a dignified place among his fellowmen and continues dry for years, should suddenly throw all his happiness overboard and find himself again in mortal peril of drowning in liquor, often the reason is simple.”Silkworth explained that human nature causes the same relapses in cardiac patients as in alcoholic ones. A cardiac patient is given careful instructions to obey stringent rules. The frightened patient follows directions for a time, but after feeling good for months or years he may recover from his scare and becomes slack, taking on physical activities for which he isn’t really ready. And here’s the crucial point: “If no serious aftereffects follow the first departure from the rigorous schedule prescribed, he may try it again, until he suffers a relapse.”
This “wrong thinking,”as Dr. Silkworth puts it, precedes relapses in alcoholic patients. The patient simply stops following directions and suffers no immediate negative feedback. As the cardiac patient may experience no serious aftereffects when first departing from prescribed activities, the alcoholic often has a drink or two and thinks, “Well, that wasn’t a problem, was it!”and tries it again. Due to euphoric recall, the alcoholic feels a sense of invincibility that serves only to worsen the relapse and the drinking increases. This may continue for days, weeks, months or even years before bedlam erupts and the relapse becomes obvious to everyone.
Actor-director Mel Gibson, 50, probably began this process several years ago. The celebrity news web site www.TMZ.com reported that he was clocked at 74 mph in a 45 zone on Pacific Coast Highway three years ago and 64 mph a year ago, but was let go both times. Reportedly, he was on his cell phone the entire time he was detained by the deputy during the second near-arrest. Excessive speed and telephonitis (especially talking on the phone while driving recklessly and not hanging up while in contact with a law enforcer) are both excellent indications he had already relapsed and unfortunate examples of law enforcers protecting an addict from proper consequences.
This time, driving at 87 mph near his home in Malibu, California at 2 a.m. on Friday, July 28, he was arrested with a reported Blood Alcohol Level of .12 per cent. While most non-alcoholics would be visibly bombed but ready for bed, he looked terrible and was obviously agitated. A clue as to why he looked the way he did and the reason his behaviors were so revolting can be found in “Under the Influence,” where Katherine Ketcham and Dr. James R. Milam wrote, “When the alcoholic stops drinking, all hell breaks loose. Blood vessels constrict…the blood glucose level drops sharply and remains unstable. The brain amines…decrease dramatically.”This suggests he’d been drinking all night and the BAL was in decline. There may also have been another drug in his system. In any case, by age 50, even tolerance in alcoholics has begun a steady decline.
Gibson, who appears to have had a period of sobriety lasting over a decade (from 1991 into the early 2000s), began swearing uncontrollably using f-word after f-word, resisted arrest, launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements, threatened the arresting officer with revenge and, at the station, made a sexually perverse comment to a female sergeant. The sheriff’s report, written by Deputy Mee (who happens to be Jewish), refers to increasing belligerence and mood swings, along with a denial that the three-quarter litre of Cazadores Tequila sitting in a brown paper bag within “easy reach”of the driver’s position was his. Nothing like the booze talking for a drunk.
Initially on Friday, sheriffs were trying to doctor the real story. Joal Ryan at www.eonline.com reported, “When asked Friday afternoon if Gibson gave deputies any trouble, sheriff’s department spokesman Steve Whitmore said no.”Deputy Mee wrote an eight-page report detailing Gibson’s rampage, which according to TMZ was deemed by the sergeant on duty as too “inflammatory,”largely because of the anti-Semitic tirade. Mee was reportedly told to leave out both the tirade and other aspects of Gibson’s conduct, a classic case of attempting to protect an addict from consequences. As I point out in my first book, “Drunks, Drugs & Debits,” everyone in a position to do so should engage in “uncompromising disenabling”if we are to increase the odds of long-term sobriety. In my book on spotting DUIs before they become tragically obvious, “Get Out of the Way!,” I argue this is especially true of law enforcers. They are in a far better position to impose consequences and enforce abstinence than most family members and friends, who are all-too-often unwilling to offer the sort of tough love the addict desperately needs.
Gibson has said that pain is a necessary precursor to change. He admitted he was “completely out of control”when he was arrested and is “deeply ashamed”for having driven when he “should not have”and for exhibiting “belligerent behavior.”He specifically apologized to the deputies who, he says, may well have “saved me from myself.”He admitted to having “battled with the disease of alcoholism for”his entire adult life and “profoundly”regrets his “horrific relapse.”Without an arrest, Gibson would not have experienced necessary pain. If his horrific behaviors had been covered up, he might not have experienced enough pain. As we can learn from addicts themselves, pain is the addict’s best friend. Let’s hope this is enough. We were lucky”Gibson didn’t kill anyone driving while under the influence at almost twice the legal speed. But we”and Gibson”might not be so lucky next time. As I wrote in the introduction to “How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics,” “For every tragedy that occurs in the life of an alcoholic, there were usually dozens if not hundreds of incidents…for which close persons and/or the law could have intervened but didn’t.”The law, with the help of a vigilant press, has thankfully done its job. Now Mr. Gibson, it’s up to you to do the rest. While some are not rooting for you, they should be, because underneath almost every addict there is a good, decent, kind, generous and un-bigoted human being. My bet is your ultimate amends will go down in history as one of the most generous ever to those whom the addict in you so maliciously maligned.