Great quotes on the value of ultimatums, how awful the behaviors of a practicing addict can be v. their true self, and on paying amends.
Quotes of the month:
“I have never had anyone call me or e-mail me to say they wished they wouldn’t have given someone an ultimatum. But I have a couple of dozen times had some[one] contact me to tell me that they wish they wouldn’t have backed down or waited, because now the person is dead.” So said interventionist Jeff Van-Vonderen matter-of-factly in a newspaper article on whether traditional intervention, in which the addict is given an ultimatum, might have worked on Michael Jackson. This pretty much puts to rest the idea that ultimatums should not be given and that they should, instead, be offered at every opportunity.
“My father was not a bad man. He was a very sick man….He was kind of a testament to what drugs and alcohol—in huge quantities—can do to a person’s priorities.” So said “One Day at a Time” star Mackenzie Phillips, regarding Mackenzie’s admission that her father, Mamas and Papas rock icon John Phillips, raped her when she was 19 and carried on an incestuous relationship for much of the next ten years. More accurately, it’s a testament to what addiction, which allows the person to consume alcohol and other drugs in huge quantities, can do to an otherwise good person’s morality. Kudos to you, Mackenzie: while not perfectly elucidated, you just might enlighten the uninformed that addiction comes first.
“Pain will make a strong man grow. Loss will make you reflect..” So said the first three-strikes lifer in the nation to be pardoned, Stevan Dozier, 47, reflecting on his new-found freedom outside of Walla Walla State Penitentiary after Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire signed his appeal for clemency. Dozier, who joined drug recovery programs while in prison, got a job and began paying restitution to his victims because “it seemed like the right thing to do.” He remarried his former wife while in prison and now works for the Sea of Stars Foundation helping at-risk youths. He says he has nothing bad to say about those who sent him to prison, even though he fed his crack addiction mainly by snatching women’s purses—hardly a reason to be put away for life. He figures he deserved it and asks why get mad? “I try not to have arguments with my wife. No. I do the dishes. I take the trash out. I open the door when she gets in the car. I take pride when I do things like that, because my wife waited [for] me.” Dozier somehow got it, big-time.