Doug Thorburn on Early-Stage Alcohol and Drug Addiction

“Under watch:” Durkee and CA psychologist Martinez, who faked a rape; the U.S. govt. (continues) enabling N. Korea; Martinez’s husband disenables.

January 19, 2012 at 5:10 pm · Filed under 1 - Top Stories

Under watch: In an early 2009 piece on white collar crime, The Economist magazine mentioned something those who have read my books would predict: “Many [Club Fed and other white collar] prisoners suddenly discover, post-conviction, that they had a drinking problem….” I would add that those who don’t figure this out might benefit from greater introspection. In the spirit of The Economist’s discovery, two recent stories follow for which the evidence of alcoholism is in the crime itself. Kinde Durkee, 58, previously charged with using funds from clients’ accounts to pay her own bills, now charged with practicing accounting without a license. The scope of the embezzlement is likely on par with some recent Ponzi schemes: she controlled more than 360 bank ...

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The courts are filled with addicts vs. addicts. Sports agent Leigh Steinberg is likely among them.

January 19, 2012 at 5:07 pm · Filed under 1 - Top Stories

Addict v. addict v. addict Sports agent Leigh Steinberg, who represented Ben Roethlisberger among many other highly successful NFL’s pros, filing for bankruptcy protection. Steinberg, who was the inspiration for the movie “Jerry Maquire” (“Show me the money!”), admits his alcoholism caused impaired judgment resulting in his financial collapse. What he won’t say—but we will—is that he was likely taken down by other alcoholics. Taking responsibility for the debts, he avoided filing bankruptcy for years after a 2003 incident in which one of his employees, without his knowledge, took a $300,000 loan from one of his NFL clients. Aside from the fact that such loans are specifically forbidden by the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) regulations, apparently the loan went unpaid and ...

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A question for Captain Schettino, a quote by a CIA profiler re: Kim Jong-il and a headline on Kim, who “baffled” the world (not when we understand alcoholism).

January 19, 2012 at 5:06 pm · Filed under 1 - Top Stories

Question of the month: “Just how drunk were you, Francesco Schettino, Captain of the Costa Concordia? And were you a relapsing (and hidden from those that matter) alcoholic?” Several reports on the listing of the ship include clues suggesting the answers to the questions are “very” and “yes.” Clue # 1: Pier Luigi Foschi, the chairman and chief executive of Costa Cruises, reportedly said he believed that Captain Schettino “never drank alcohol.” Yet, a Dutch survivor claimed she “saw him drinking with a woman on his arm at the ship's bar.” Clue # 2: Prosecutors allege he was showing off by sailing past the Tuscan island of Giglio, where his head waiter lived, with some claiming he was piloting the cruise ...

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Obit’s for a number of alcoholics: despot Kim Jong-il, soccer player-philosopher Socrates, author Christopher Hitchens, producer Bert (“Easy Rider”) Schneider and director Ken (“Altered States”) Russell.

January 19, 2012 at 5:04 pm · Filed under 1 - Top Stories

Sometimes, it takes an addict: Kim Jong-il, North Korean ruler since 1994, dead at age 69 or 70. I was a Ron Paul-style non-interventionist libertarian until I began studying alcoholism and realized there’s only one way to deal with an alcoholic sitting on nukes: take him out. (I’m with Paul on practically all domestic matters, as I believe it’s the height of arrogance to suggest I know better how to run your life and spend your money than you do—but not in this case, where his hands-off foreign policy is, I believe, naïve.) Kim is such a classic study of alcoholism and the abuse of power it’s hard to know which example of abuse to mention. However, three prime examples may ...

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I long wondered if I would ever prove Marxism is rooted in alcoholism. Proof at last.

January 19, 2012 at 5:01 pm · Filed under 2 - Movie & Book Reviews

Karl Marx, Alcoholic A historian fails to diagnose the obvious Alcoholics have had an enormous effect on human history, with both positive and negative results. As I’ve argued throughout my work (beginning with Drunks, Drugs & Debits), the effect is so immense it’s impossible to make sense of our past without understanding alcoholism. The great includes the likes of Thomas Paine, Ignaz Semmelweis and Ayn Rand. The horrific includes Jeffrey Dahmer, Ivan the Terrible, Josef Stalin and Kim Jong-il. I’ve long suspected that, if able to dig deep enough, we would find alcoholism explaining the life and thinking of Karl Marx, but until I stumbled upon historian Paul Johnson’s book, Intellectuals, I had been stymied. The book, described by Johnson as “an examination ...

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HOA board from hell? There is at least one addict, if not several.

January 19, 2012 at 5:00 pm · Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...

Homeowner association board from hell Dear Doug: A couple of board directors who are alcoholics have entered into contracts, negotiated with vendors and made decisions regarding maintenance projects while inebriated. They have not recalled signing contracts or conversations and promises made to owners, vendors and management. Other board members have learned about contracts too late to rescind them, but are loathe to confront them because the last time they did so things turned ugly. The irony is the alcoholic members keep getting re-elected because they are generally well-liked, even though everyone knows we’ve been bound by contracts we never should have entered into. How do we tactfully handle this and not get sued for discrimination? Signed, The “other” board members Dear Codependents, Other columnists would point ...

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If there’s a false accusation, there’s an addict. Unfortunately, such accusations in the area of sexual assaults are not rare.

January 19, 2012 at 4:59 pm · Filed under 4 - Alcoholic Myth of the Month

“False reports of sexual assault are extremely rare… [According to the U.S. Department of Justice] only 2.5 percent of reports turn out to be false.” So claimed Beth Hassett, executive director of Women Escaping a Violent Environment, in commenting on Laurie Ann Martinez’s arrest for staging a rape, reported in the “under watch” section above. With due respect to women who have been sexually assaulted, of which possibly 75% go unreported (some sources claim 95%), false accusations are one of the most effective means by which addicts wield power. This is especially true of those who cannot easily physically overpower others, including women. I have written at least twice about such accusations. The Top Story in the first issue of TAR involved ...

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What do you think you’ll find in a teacher selling grades? It won’t be “sobriety.”

January 19, 2012 at 4:58 pm · Filed under 5 - Amazing Alcoholic Antics

Story from “This is True” by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:” “GIVE ME AN A! After a student informed the principal at Charlotte High School in Punta Gorda, Fla., math teacher Jeff Spires was confronted and admitted it: yes, he sold better grades to the kids for cash payments of $40-70. The students would staple or paper-clip the cash to quizzes, and Spires, 36, would increase their grades. Why? ‘Maybe I see the kids as desperate as I am,’ Spires allegedly told a school district investigator, who said Spires ‘went on to say that he was in financial straits due to bankruptcy, arrests, and jail time.’ Charlotte County Jail records show Spires has been jailed three times in the past two ...

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Owning exotic animals is an odd way to inflate the ego, but it’s a way. The tragic case of Terry Thompson, who owned a virtual zoo in Ohio. And there were no doubt countless opportunities to intervene, before tragedy occurred.

January 18, 2012 at 3:17 pm · Filed under 1 - Top Stories

Is alcoholism the best explanation for owning exotic animals, their release into civilization and the suicide of owner Terry Thompson? Terry Thompson, 62, released 56 wild, exotic animals, including lions, Bengal tigers, leopards, monkeys, bears, mountain lions and at least one wolf from his 73-acre Zanesville, Ohio property before committing suicide. Thompson had previous run-ins with neighbors, who had repeatedly complained about animals escaping, and the local sheriff’s office, which had charged him with animal cruelty and neglect. He had been released from federal prison only a month earlier after serving a year for possessing unregistered firearms (133 of them, including a machine gun and several guns with missing serial numbers). He had recently split up with his wife. He owed ...

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Runners-up: Milton Bradley, (the bank of) Denny Ray Hardin and a few DUIs (including two with 9-year-olds in the drivers’ seat).

January 18, 2012 at 3:15 pm · Filed under 1 - Top Stories

Runners-up for top story of the month: Former Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Milton Bradley, 33, arrested after a verbal argument escalated with Bradley swinging a baseball bat at his wife, who then ran out of their home. Bradley previously made TAR twice: once in the “under watch” category of issue # 6 (January 2005), when he pleaded guilty for having yelled at police using profane language for a traffic stop that went “awry,” and in the “runners-up” section of issue # 14 (September 2005), where police responded to reports of domestic violence three times in 33 days. His wife, who was four months pregnant at the time, refused to press charges. In 2002 he was taken to a hospital after refusing ...

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Possible (Sandusky), enablers (many around him and Milton Bradley’s wife), a tragic relapse and a possibly recovering (for now) alcoholic: Ron Artest.

January 18, 2012 at 3:13 pm · Filed under 1 - Top Stories

Under watch: In an early 2009 piece on white collar crime, The Economist magazine mentioned something those who have read my books would predict: “Many [Club Fed and other white collar] prisoners suddenly discover, post-conviction, that they had a drinking problem….” I would add that those who don’t figure this out might benefit from greater introspection. In the spirit of The Economist’s discovery, a recent story follows for which the evidence of alcoholism is in the crime itself. Jerry Sandusky, accused of sexually assaulting several minor male children, both while he was a football coach for Penn State and after he retired from coaching. The accusations are so compelling and the allegations were covered up so fully, Penn State has fired a ...

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We cannot understand all-too-many subjects of biographies without comprehending alcoholism. The stories of Jim Jones (Jonestown, Guyana), John Huston, Van Gogh, “Sybil,” Hemmingway and Spencer Tracy.

January 18, 2012 at 3:10 pm · Filed under 2 - Movie & Book Reviews

Viewing the subjects of biographies through the lens of alcoholism I’ve long maintained that fundamental changes to personality resulting from alcoholism are so all-encompassing we cannot understand an alcoholic’s life without an appreciation for “euphoric recall,” whereby the addict views everything he says or does through self-favoring lenses, and its inevitable result, an inordinately large sense of self-importance. This egomania is fueled by wielding power, taking three main forms: abuse of others, a willingness to take extraordinary risks and overachievement. These behaviors of alcoholics are completely different from those that occur if addiction is never triggered. Further, behaviors committed by any particular early stage alcoholic are dramatically different from those committed later in life, as the addict spirals into the latter ...

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Thanksgiving boor needs an intervention, before he has no friends left.

January 18, 2012 at 3:07 pm · Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...

Thanksgiving boor Dear Doug: For the last few years, my husband has invited a friend of 35 years to our annual Thanksgiving party. From the start, this divorcee bellies up to our bar and, while mixing drinks for the men, entertains them with stories of his conquests, business deals and travels. He monopolizes conversation throughout the meal while ignoring or rudely dismissing any female guests who try to speak. Right after dessert he yawns and, thankfully, leaves. Although he’s ruined the last two Thanksgiving dinners, my husband feels sorry for him and can’t stand the idea his friend might spend Thanksgiving alone if we don’t invite him. What can I do to change my husband’s thinking? Signed, Boored to death Dear Codependent, Other columnists might suggest you ...

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Coach’s mom: alcoholic. Coach: long-suffering codependent.

January 18, 2012 at 3:05 pm · Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...

Soccer mom’s coach’s mom problem Dear Doug, For three years, my daughter has been on a soccer team with a wonderful coach. The coach’s mother, however, is a loud, mean witch. She taunts referees, yells insults to coaches and parents on the other side and screams at girls on our team to play the way she wants, even though we otherwise enforce a no-coaching-from-the-sidelines rule. Would an anonymous note to the coach or her mother be appropriate? Signed, Soccer Mom Dear Codependent, Other columnists would tell you that everyone already knows the coach’s mom is a trouble-maker. It must be adversely affecting the kids and, therefore, something must be done. Such columnists would suggest having a private word with the coach, all the while acknowledging the ...

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But “why” are rude employees those lowest on the totem pole? Because those higher up can use other means of wielding power. That doesn’t make them any less of an alcoholic.

January 18, 2012 at 3:04 pm · Filed under 4 - Alcoholic Myth of the Month

“Our findings indicate that the experience of having power without status, whether as a member of the military or a college student participating in an experiment, may be a catalyst for producing demeaning behaviors that can destroy relationships and impede goodwill.” So found a study, reported by Peter Pappas on his blog, by three universities showing that people holding positions of power with low status tend to demean others. This is a half-truth, since the study appears to completely omit alcoholism as an explanation for their findings. Peter Pappas, a CPA, income tax professional and blogger whose work I have found immensely useful, observes, “I have dealt with all levels of IRS employees in my 20 plus years of tax practice and ...

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