A mass murderer is outed (for a change); a 12-year-old disenables her mother; Mike Tyson stays sober (but he needs to go further).
Alcoholic victims of the month:
Two people died and four were wounded before a gunman, Robert Reza, turned the weapon on himself at a fiber optics plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Reza’s live-in girlfriend, who had told co-workers she feared for her safety, was among those injured in what was obviously an extreme case of domestic violence. The unsurprising aspect to the story is Reza’s criminal history included at least two arrests for DUI; the surprising part is this was reported in a newspaper article on the tragedy, albeit in the 15th (and last) paragraph. As I point out in Drunks, Drugs & Debits, stories like this should lead off with “he had the disease of alcoholism, which took form in horrifying misbehaviors leading to death and injury, specifically….”
Disenabler of the month:
Yet another 911 call by a kid, this time from a 12-year-old who reported that her mother, Jamie Hicks, 48, was “not speaking properly” and was weaving into other lanes while she was driving on Interstate 84 in New York, with the kid and a 10-year-old in the vehicle. Hicks was arrested at 6 p.m. and charged with DUI and driving drunk with children in the vehicle— at a BAL in excess of .16 percent. One might suspect she started Happy Hour a tad early, before picking up the kids.
Quote of the month:
Former heavyweight king Mike Tyson, 44, telling Details Magazine, “The first stage of my life was just a whole bunch of selfishness. …I wasn’t half the man I thought I was. So if there’s a big plan now, it’s just to give—it’s selflessness, caring for the people who deserve it. Because I think I’m a pig.” In a case of self-financial abuse orders of magnitude greater than any non-addict is likely to have ever committed, Tyson burned through roughly $300 million in career earnings before declaring bankruptcy in 2003. He admitted, “I think I was the most medicated boxer in the history of the sport. If I was going to medicate, I’d just smoke a joint….I was on f*ing drugs, thinking I was god.” Now, if he’d only realize that a few of his favorite people were also on f*ing drugs and thought they were gods, and get rid of those tattoos of Mao (the barbiturate addict who murdered at least 30 million Chinese) and Che Guevara (the alcoholic who wantonly murdered innocents while helping the likely-amphetamine addicted Castro gain power over his victims in Cuba) he might stay on the right path.