August 13, 2009 at 9:18 am ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Disenabler of the month:
Marina Fanouraki of Crete, who turned herself in to police, asserting she acted in self-defense by setting fire to a 20-year-old Briton’s genitals after repeated advances were flouted. The intoxicated male, Stuart Feltham, had taken his pants down and was “waving” his genitals at women in a bar at the seaside resort of Malia, Greece, which boasts a tad over 6,000 permanent residents and 63 bars. Not surprisingly, Malia is notorious for attracting young people (especially Brits) looking for bacchanalia, but I digress. After he “forcefully fondled” the 26-year-old woman and asked her to take hold of his genitals, she responded by “soaking” them in liquor. Much to his later regret, she claims he persisted. She allegedly ...
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August 13, 2009 at 9:18 am ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Admission of the month:
Kid Rock, telling Q Magazine after being sentenced to anger management classes, “I think that the judge made a mistake when he sentenced me. I think he probably should have sent me to Alcoholics Anonymous because I do have a drinking problem….None of these fights would have ever occurred without drinking.”
Quote of the month:
Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton, admitting to drinking at a bar where compromising pictures were taken last January, explained that if he thinks he can have one or two drinks it inevitably snowballs to 10 or 12. In the words of a fellow alcoholic: “I'm allergic to alcohol. Every time I drink it, I break out in orange jumpsuits and handcuffs.” Hamilton has otherwise ...
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August 13, 2009 at 9:16 am ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
TV infomercial king Billy Mays, dead from heart disease—with “cocaine use” listed as a contributing cause of death. Vicodin, Oxycodone, Xanax, Valium and alcohol were also found in Mays’ system. Mays, who was known for shouting in an abrasive manner while promoting OxiClean, Orange Glo and other household cleaning and maintenance products, had been in chronic pain for more than two years and was about to have his third hip surgery within 18 months. According to his (second) wife, Deborah Mays, prescription pain medications were at doctor-recommended usage levels. However, the labels on pains meds explicitly warn against the use of alcohol which, if ignored, is an excellent indicator of alcoholism. In addition, as explained in ...
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August 13, 2009 at 9:15 am ·
Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...
19-year-old addict
Dear Doug:
My 19-year-old cousin had a rough road through adolescence and a tough time in high school, but graduated. Her graduation party, however, was unpleasant.
She barely acknowledged any of her guests except for several friends she left with to “take a walk.” They returned after at least an hour, laughing, cursing and carrying on, inhaling all the food they could find. Oh, and their eyes were bloodshot and they reeked of dope and booze. Her mother, my aunt, joked about their absence and their having the “munchies.”
For my cousin’s graduation gift, I purchased tickets to an event with the intention of taking her. Now I don’t want to go with her. I’m wondering if I should just give her ...
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August 13, 2009 at 9:14 am ·
Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...
Dear Doug
Worthless bastard
Dear Doug,
I recently married my boyfriend, Danny, with whom I have a 5-month-old baby. Danny has promised to end his ways of partying with friends and to spend more time at home, but nothing has changed despite his many promises.
Danny sleeps until noon and doesn’t help with the household chores. We argue almost every day. I’m trying to keep things together for the sake of the baby, but I think a man who keeps breaking his promises is a liar. Would it be best for the baby if we leave him?
Signed,
Struggling newlywed
Dear Codependent,
Incredibly, other columnists might ask if Danny has a job and is helping to support the family. We know he’s spending any income he might earn ...
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August 13, 2009 at 9:13 am ·
Filed under 4 - Alcoholic Myth of the Month
“Russian man survives drinking 8 bottles of vodka.”
So read the headline about a Russian man who “miraculously” survived drinking eight bottles of vodka, in which it was reported that the percentage of alcohol in his blood was at least twice the lethal dose. Sorry, I thought, but eight bottles is far more than twice a lethal dose. Then I read, “The man’s blood tests showed that he had drunk at least four liters, or eight bottles of vodka.” Ok I figured, at least they were small (roughly 16-ounce) bottles. Still, I surmised, 132 ounces is too much. Reading further, I learned that the “man’s bulk” saved him, since our alcoholic “hero” is “two meters’ tall and weighs over 100 kilos.” ...
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August 13, 2009 at 9:11 am ·
Filed under 4 - Alcoholic Myth of the Month
“It was the custody battle ‘that really made Heath snap.”
So said actor Heath Ledger’s mentor, Terry Gilliam, in a Vanity Fair interview. Gilliam essentially claimed that the unraveling of a romance with Michelle Williams, resulting in a custody battle over their child, led to Ledger’s fatal overdose.
Yes, stress can lead to relapse or heavier-than-usual drug use by addicts. But any addict can overdose. It’s one of the risks associated with addictive use, especially poly-drug addiction, regardless of levels of stress.
The article also asserted that “chronic insomnia may have led to his death,” along with, according to vocal coach Gerry Grennell, who worked and lived with Ledger during the filming of “The Dark Knight,” “a combination of exhaustion, sleeping medication…and perhaps ...
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August 13, 2009 at 9:09 am ·
Filed under 5 - Amazing Alcoholic Antics
Alcoholic Antic-of-the-Month
“ANOTHER FINE MESS HE'S GOTTEN HIMSELF INTO: A conservation officer from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources stopped a boater on the Geist Reservoir at 11:00 p.m. for failing to have working navigational lights. The boater ‘repeatedly’ told the DNR officer he was a police officer and demanded ‘professional courtesy,’ the DNR officer said, but he gave a citation to Adam Goldstein, 37, anyway. Allegedly angered, Goldstein went home, changed into his Lawrence Township police officer uniform -- he was in training as an unpaid reserve officer -- grabbed a squad car from the station, and drove it to the Geist Marina to confront the DNR officer. The officer arrested Goldstein for public intoxication. Prosecutors have added other charges, ...
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July 10, 2009 at 10:47 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Michael Jackson was enabled to his death
In Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse, I wrote: “The higher an addict’s social status, the greater the enabling, because the enablers have more to lose….Enabling is the reason so many talented people—Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Richard Burton and John Belushi—die young; they are ‘helped’ to their graves by those around them.” Close people can’t tell the addict he needs to stop drinking and using if they are to protect their jobs, incomes and, in many cases, positions of status, prestige and power. Underlings can too easily be fired.
Let’s not confuse this with blaming enablers for addiction, a genetic disorder that results in biochemically processing a drug in ...
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July 10, 2009 at 10:45 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Runners-up for top story of the month:
Longtime “Tonight Show” sidekick Ed McMahon, dead at age 86. McMahon, whose life was partially chronicled in these pages in July 2008 edition of TAR, sued his insurer and won $7.2 million in a settlement over mold that allegedly killed his dog Muffin in the early 2000s. That’s one way to get your money back after blowing through a reported $200 million net worth. More recently, he sued Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, two doctors and the owner of the home where he fell and broke his neck some 30 months ago. Like other addicts, he likely triggered alcoholism at an early age and was, therefore, a practicing alcoholic while he served as ...
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July 10, 2009 at 10:43 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Under watch:
In a recent 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 case is presented for which the evidence of alcoholism is in the behavior itself.
Dr. Conrad Murray, the cardiologist who was with Michael Jackson when he went into cardiac arrest. He filed for bankruptcy in 1992. If that were all, he wouldn’t be on our radar. However, this was followed by five tax liens totaling more than $44,000 between ...
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July 10, 2009 at 10:41 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Enablers of the month:
Nutritionist and registered nurse Cherilyn Lee, 56, who said, despite Michael Jackson’s repeated demands for the heavyweight drug Diprivan, which is given intravenously for anesthesia, “He wasn’t looking to get high or feel good and sedated from drugs. This was a person who was not on drugs.” Believing his addict-talk, she quoted Jackson: “I don’t like drugs. I don’t want any drugs.” She explained that he “just wanted more energy.” Lee spoke out in an effort to “protect” Jackson’s reputation from what she considers unfounded allegations of drug “abuse.” Unfortunately, Ms. Lee, given Jackson’s extraordinarily bizarre behaviors, his reputation would suffer if he had not been a poly-drug addict. The fact that you have overlooked the enormous ...
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July 10, 2009 at 10:39 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Disenablers of the month:
Michael Jackson’s nanny, Grace Rwaramba, 42, who was fired in December 2008 for proposing an intervention for Michael. “He didn’t want to listen,” she says. She added, “That was one of the times he let me go.” At least you tried, Grace. But you had to battle the likes of Cherilyn Lee and her cohorts. You didn’t stand a chance.
University of Southern California sociologist Julie Albright, who observed that celebrity doctors may have questionable pasts or significant debts. “Some of these people might not be the most successful doctors, so the money will [not only allow them to make large amounts of money, but also] buy their complicity in fueling a drug” addiction. Elvis had such a ...
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July 10, 2009 at 10:37 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Michael Jackson is not the only star who was likely driven by and succumbed to alcohol and other-drug addiction. Ironically, Jackson kept statues of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe at his Neverland ranch. He bought the publishing rights to the songs of John Lennon’s Beatles. Those whose stars burned brighter after death according to one newspaper report, perhaps because of their early demise, include a whose-who of addicts: “Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Roberto Clemente, Steve Prefontaine, Steve McQueen, Judy Garland, Hank Williams and Barbaro.” Except for the great long-distance runner Prefontaine and the horse, Barbaro, they were all addicts.
Although we can’t be certain when Jackson triggered his addiction, we know that alcoholism usually begins during the ...
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July 10, 2009 at 10:36 pm ·
Filed under 2 - Movie & Book Reviews
Father Joseph C. Martin’s Chalk Talks on Alcohol
Fr. Martin died March 9, which I unfortunately overlooked. He should have had top billing in the April TAR section “Sometimes it takes an addict.” It’s time to make up for that omission.
Fr. Martin’s book, which was originally in hardcover with the title No Laughing Matter, evolved from a series of lectures developed and delivered in the 1970s for business and government, particularly the armed services. He credited Austin Ripley and Dr. Walter Green of Guest House, a Lake Orion, Michigan treatment facility for the clergy founded and operated by Ripley, for teaching him everything he knew about alcoholism. He began studying the subject in 1958, several years after he had been forced ...
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