June 22, 2011 at 3:44 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Runner-up for top story of the month:
Amy Winehouse, once again proving that alcoholics don’t go into rehab willingly: in her latest travels to rehab, a “friend” reported that Amy downed a small bottle of Smirnoff enroute. Nor did it “take,” as she checked herself out within the week, went back on tour and was booed and jeered off stage in Belgrade after she stumbled onto the stage an hour late and mumbled through her songs. Part of her tour has been cancelled; we can only hope for her sake the rest of it will be cancelled as well and she heads back to rehab and stays longer.
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June 22, 2011 at 3:44 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Under watch:
In an early 2009 piece on white collar crime, The Economist magazine suggests there may be some truth in 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 couple of recent stories follow for which the evidence of alcoholism is in the behavior itself.
MSNBC talk show host Ed Schultz, who took a week-long unpaid leave of absence after calling a talk show host on the other side of the political spectrum, Laura Ingraham, a slut. While he apologized for ...
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June 22, 2011 at 3:42 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Enablers of the month:
56% of the constituents of Anthony Weiner’s 9th New York Congressional District, who said they would have re-elected him despite what at the time seemed pretty good evidence that he sent sexually explicit messages and photos to at least six women who were not his wife and putting himself into a position in which he could easily be blackmailed and, therefore, corrupted. My hunch is after his resignation, a large plurality if not majority still would vote for his re-election. Consider the former mayor of Washington, DC, Marion Barry, who was elected to a fourth term after being convicted of cocaine possession (and there’s much more on Barry at Wikipedia, which is a classic case of a ...
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June 22, 2011 at 3:41 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Quotes of the month:
“Inside Trader At Nasdaq Had Drug-Abuse Record”—Headline of a June 10, 2011 story in The Wall Street Journal on Donald Johnson, who pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of insider trading, raking in $750,000 in illegal gains while working at Nasdaq’s market intelligence desk. No surprise to those who know that where misbehaviors of either the blue or white collar variety are evident, alcohol or other-drug addiction will usually be found, Mr. Johnson was discharged from the U.S. Army Reserves in 1986 for stealing narcotics and using them while stationed in an Army hospital. Within a year, at a private hospital, he faked medical records 73 times in less than a month to get drugs for his ...
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June 22, 2011 at 3:37 pm ·
Filed under 2 - Movie & Book Reviews
Movies and docudramas are often based on real-life alcoholics and their antics or tragic outcomes
Television and movies are often based on real-life stories. If we didn’t know the background, we’d often smirk and mutter “yeah, right, like this could really happen.” Yet crazy stuff does happen, frequently due to alcoholism-fueled egomania. Truth is often stranger than fiction only because alcoholism is so pervasive and alcoholics have an impact way out of proportion to their numbers. In that vein, here are several movie ideas we expect to see sooner or later based on "believe it or not" events happening now.
The Barefoot Bandit
Culminating in a guilty plea, no doubt heading to theaters soon is the story of Colton Harris-Moore, aka the “Barefoot ...
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June 22, 2011 at 3:33 pm ·
Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...
Daughter from hell
Dear Doug:
I have been a good mother to my 40-year-old daughter. Despite this, about a year ago she accused her 42-year-old brother, with whom I am very close, of having molested her when they were children. She tried to turn me against him, perhaps out of jealousy. Since I do not believe there was any abuse, ever, I refused.
She has had many problems since her father died, including depression and the commission of many mistakes. She has turned her children against me because I won’t take her side. Now she trashes me to anyone who will listen and is trying to turn the rest of the family against me. When I tried to talk to her reasonably about ...
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June 22, 2011 at 3:29 pm ·
Filed under 4 - Alcoholic Myth of the Month
“The most important thing is to find out why she’s been drinking. It’s very likely that her drinking is a cry for help.”
So wrote Stephanie Anderson Ladd, a licensed Marriage Family Therapist (MFT), responding to a letter in her column from a worried mother who found that her 14-year-old daughter has been drinking after school.
As is all-too-typical of MFTs, Ms. Ladd doesn’t grasp the fundamental idea of alcoholism: that the biochemistry of the addict impels the addict to drink. They do not drink heavily and end up as addicts; they process the drug alcoholically, which allows them to drink heavily. Any excuse will do.
Because alcoholism causes “euphoric recall,” which makes those with alcoholism view all they do through self-favoring lenses, ...
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June 22, 2011 at 3:28 pm ·
Filed under 5 - Amazing Alcoholic Antics
Story from “This is True” by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:”
“AT LEAST HER SMILE'S BRIGHT: Should you brush after drinking? Cherie Margaret Davis, 65, seems to have thought so. After a bout of drinking, Davis put the car she was driving in Marlborough, New Zealand, on cruise control and, at 100 kph (62 mph), ‘got out her toothbrush and started brushing her teeth,’ a police spokesman said. The car veered left, she steered right, and woman and car made the abrupt acquaintance of a rock bank -- hard enough that she was treated in a hospital. Her blood alcohol level measured .135 percent. Davis had been banned from driving after a drunk-driving incident less than two months earlier, in which ...
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May 6, 2011 at 10:25 pm ·
Filed under 5 - Amazing Alcoholic Antics
Story from “This is True” by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:”
“MOVIE SCENES III: Sheriff''s deputies in Milwaukee County, Wisc., were called to the scene of a crash. When they arrived the offending driver had already fled the scene. Minutes later, Bridgette Benavides slowed down to drive by the wreck, and a man -- later identified as the crashed driver -- ran up to her car and tried to get in. The doors were locked, so the man jumped onto the roof and started pounding on the sunroof. Benavides kept going, sometimes at freeway speeds, while a passenger called 911 for help. An officer raced after the car while the man kept trying to get inside, eventually smashing a side ...
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May 6, 2011 at 10:24 pm ·
Filed under 4 - Alcoholic Myth of the Month
“Bullying is largely motivated by a desire to climb the social ladder.”
So reported a new study by the University of California at Davis on why bullies bully. As is all-too-common, this half-truth doesn’t get to the root of the problem.
One of the study’s authors, Robert E. Faris, an assistant sociology professor at UC, admitted there may be other factors, including trying to compensate for trouble at home, as many assume. However, he said “our study found that it was about social status, even more than demographics or socioeconomics.”
The question left unanswered is why do these kids, a small minority of children, need so desperately to climb the social ladder at the expense of others? And if there’s ...
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May 6, 2011 at 10:23 pm ·
Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...
In celebration of the end of Tax Season, I thought it appropriate to include several letters involving financial abuse of others.
Dear Doug:
When my 84-year-old mother returned home from the hospital two years ago after hip surgery, I asked my 40-year-old son, who hadn’t had a job for two years, to help her out (I work full-time, so couldn’t do everything she needs). He takes her shopping and to the doctor, but belittles her continuously. She pays all his bills, gives him spending money and even, apparently, bought him a new car. What should we do?
Signed,
Mother of an Elder Abuser
Dear Codependent,
Other columnists might suggest that you contact the National Center for Elder Abuse and talk to ...
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May 6, 2011 at 10:21 pm ·
Filed under 2 - Movie & Book Reviews
If you want to criticize something about the movie, make it the author: amphetamine-addicted Ayn Rand, which explains her personal life.
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May 6, 2011 at 10:19 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Screen legend Elizabeth Taylor, dead at 79 from congestive heart failure. In a larger-than-life tale of alcoholic overachievement combined with chaotic personal drama that makes no sense without comprehending alcoholism, Taylor collected five Oscar nominations, two Best Actress awards and seven husbands (one of whom, Richard Burton, she married twice). There are too many stories relating to her long-standing addiction to discuss here, but one that stands out was her performance and the entire theme of the 1966 film for which she won her 2nd Academy Award, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” George Segal and Sandy Dennis play Nick and Honey, who are dragged into the insanity of alcoholism by Burton’s George and Taylor’s Martha, who throw verbal insults at ...
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May 6, 2011 at 10:18 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Martin Sheen, on his son Charlie Sheen: “He’s not a kid, [but] emotionally he still is. Because when you’re addicted, you don’t grow emotionally…. When you get clean and sober you’re starting at the moment you started using drugs or alcohol [sic]. You’re emotionally crippled.” Great point Martin: where there is addiction, there’s an adult with the emotional capacity of a child. Only addicts are even more challenging because children can sometimes be reasoned with. Addicts need to be dealt consequences and treated accordingly.
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May 6, 2011 at 10:16 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Journalists, who wrote that “a gunman distraught over a friend’s death fired a rifle round into an LAPD helicopter, forcing it to make a perilous but injury-free landing at Van Nuys Airport as his relatives subdued him and held him for police.” Many of us have been distraught over the deaths of family members and friends; I’ll bet that none has ever fired at a helicopter (or anything else) because of such anguish. There was no report on his blood alcohol level or other drugs in the system, but the addictionologist in me doesn’t require absolute proof in such an obvious case where the evidence is all but in.
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