If it walks and talks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. Behaviors indicate alcoholism, so it’s probably alcoholism.
Under watch:
Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, sentenced to life in prison for murdering two indigent men for financial gain. The “black widows”befriended the homeless men, took out insurance policies on their lives, let a couple of years run and then drugged and ran over them to collect the insurance proceeds. As mentioned in the April-May 2008 issue assuming that addiction explains their horrific behaviors, instead of having been offered the opportunity to get clean and sober a few decades ago, they get to live out their golden years behind bars.
Actor Omar Sharif, 76, announcing through his attorney that he will never pay a dime of a $449,000 award to a valet, Juan Ochoa Anderson, 50, for assault and battery, civil rights violations, commission of a hate crime, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence after punching him in the nose. When Sharif handed Anderson a 20 euro note outside a tony Beverly Hills steakhouse in 2005, Anderson gave him a quizzical look and handed it back to Sharif. According to Anderson, Sharif became enraged and punched. Anderson refused medical attention and police interviewing him after the incident observed no visible injuries. Anderson’s attorney, John C. Carpenter, alleged in court documents that Sharif repeatedly called Anderson a “stupid Mexican”and claimed that Anderson suffered neck, back and head pain, difficulty breathing, a nasal fracture and a deviated septum. A doctor hired by Carpenter claimed the valet needed a $17,500 operation to fix a fracture caused by Sharif (which, if true, would make Sharif one of the hardest-punching 76-year-olds anywhere), while another specialist found no break. The case fills three volumes in the L.A. County Superior Court. Such mass alone is enough to identify everyone involved as a serious codependent (possibly Anderson) if not alcoholic (everyone else). Sharif’s lawyer, alcoholic-celebrity defense attorney Harland Braun, explained that Sharif “was drinking that night.”It may not have been the first time drinking caused problems for him. In 2003, he received a one-month suspended prison sentence for head-butting a French policeman who tried to intervene in an argument he was having with a casino croupier. Omar, while sober people would agree with your feeling that a system awarding $449,000 for a punch is broken, the lawsuit was probably meant as the wake-up call you need to get you to stop drinking.