October 6, 2007 at 11:23 am ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Under watch:
Former Salvation Army fundraiser Timothy Peter Janusz, 44, who pleaded guilty to robbing the charitable organization and four elderly donors of more than $300,000 while he was director of planned giving for the charity in Hawaii. Janusz, who has degrees in law and business administration, previously served time for stealing $2.2 million from an elderly Colorado couple. The Salvation Army, one of the functions of which is to help down-and-out addicts get and stay sober, had not known about Janusz's criminal past. They have revamped their procedures to require criminal background checks for those who deal with the public.
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October 6, 2007 at 11:22 am ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the L. A. City Council, for settling a harrassment and hazing case involving former L.A. firefighter Tennie Pierce. Pierce sued the city for failing to discipline co-workers when they put dog food in his spaghetti, after calling himself "Big Dog" during a volleyball game immediately before the incident. Pierce had a history of engaging in similar pranks with his fellow firefighters. He took away $1.49 million for his success in mocking the system.
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October 6, 2007 at 11:21 am ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Enabler of the month:
O.J. Simpson's girlfriend, Christine Prody, who stood by Simpson in court, reportedly commenting at one point that O.J. could not have committed the latest alleged crime and that he certainly didn't murder Ron and Nicole. However, after a brief break-up six years ago, Prody sold a story to the National Enquirer in which she claimed that Simpson had confessed to her that he killed Ron and Nicole. Theirs appears to be typical of the relationships between co-addicts. O.J. called the police in 1999 after Prody went on a two-day cocaine binge, while Prody accused O.J. in 2000 of breaking into her home, among other rocks in their 10 years together.
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October 6, 2007 at 11:19 am ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Enabler of the month:
Betsy Gotbaum, the New York City's "public advocate" and likely 2009 mayoral candidate who is Carol Anne Gotbaum's stepmother-in-law, said the Gotbaum family believes Carol Anne "seems to have been manhandled" by Phoenix police during her arrest at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport and are contemplating a lawsuit for wrongful death. According to an eyewitness, Carol Anne became irate and out of control while repeatedly screaming "I'm not a terrorist" after she was not allowed to board an airplane for arriving late. Police of course (it's an airport for God's sake!) intervened and handcuffed her. They left her alone for five or 10 minutes in a holding cell at the airport, where she apparently managed to strangle ...
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October 6, 2007 at 11:18 am ·
Filed under 2 - Movie & Book Reviews
Review: "Missed Fortune 101" by Douglas R. Andrew
The mass of evidence in my book, "Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse," shows that financial abuse--as all thug-like behavior--is usually rooted in alcohol or other-drug addiction. A book advancing ideas that could easily result in financial catastrophe for those who implement its ideas could easily be written by a person with the disease of alcoholism. This is particularly true for someone who should know better.
I have no way of confirming such alcoholism. However, when errors are consistently made with the singular goal of selling the mark on one of two ideas--that only an idiot wouldn't hock his home to the hilt and invest the proceeds in ...
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October 6, 2007 at 11:14 am ·
Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...
Problem men
Dear Doug:
At age 61 and in good shape, I am having a terrible time finding decent men to date. After a date or two I learn that many are egotistical, lying, bombastic and pontificating jerks. What happens to men in their 50s and 60s anyway?
I left my marriage of 32 years after giving up trying to fix myself with therapy while my husband drank, as he always did, his fifth of vodka a day, more recently with no worries and no job. What's the story here, anyway?
Signed,
Giving up on men
. . . .
Dear Codependent,
Some columnists might simply comment that not all men are like those you've dated, but you shouldn't need a man to be happy.
True, but that's just ...
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October 6, 2007 at 11:13 am ·
Filed under 4 - Alcoholic Myth of the Month
"He must be stupid"
"He skated on two murder charges, and he managed to get out of other charges of much lesser gravity since then. How did he manage to get himself back in trouble again? How stupid do you have to be?"
So asked former prosecutor Marcia Clark, who was the lead O.J. Simpson prosecutor in the criminal trial a dozen years ago, about O.J. and his recent arrest.
The questions assume that O.J. is not a brain-damaged individual, who is capable of learning from mistakes. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that he never kept his 1989 promise to Nicole, in which he said he would never hit her again, stop drinking and attend A.A. meetings. As a practicing alcoholic, O.J. would be ...
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October 6, 2007 at 11:00 am ·
Filed under 5 - Amazing Alcoholic Antics
Alcoholic Antic-of-the-Month
Story from "This is True" by Randy Cassingham, with his "tagline:"
"STUPID SERPENT SUCKER: Matt Wilkinson, 23, of Portland, Ore., describes himself as a 'snake collector'. Several weeks ago he found a 20-inch rattlesnake and brought it home. After drinking a six-pack of beer, he was holding the snake when his ex-girlfriend, who was over for a party, saw it. "She said, 'Get that thing out of my face'," Wilkinson said. 'I told her it was a nice snake. Nothing can happen. Watch,' he said, as he stuck the snake into his mouth. But 'it got ahold of my tongue,' he said. As his tongue swelled up from the snake's venom, nearly choking off his airway, his former girlfriend took ...
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September 28, 2007 at 9:56 am ·
Filed under General
FYI: This review is posted on this site as well as on http://www.DougThorburn.com because, as the mass of evidence in my book "Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse" shows, financial abuse"as all thug-like behavior"is often rooted in alcohol or other-drug addiction. I cannot find any personal info on Mr. Andrew, so I have no proof whatsoever that what in my opinion is a book filled with erroneous ideas, which may contribute to the financial abuse of others, is rooted in this disease. However, when errors are consistently made with the singular goal of selling the mark on one of two ideas"that only an idiot wouldn't hock his home to the hilt and invest the ...
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September 17, 2007 at 10:54 am ·
Filed under General
Journalists everywhere are asking questions about OJ's arrest. "Does OJ's arrest in Las Vegas tell us anything about anything important?" "What is up with this guy?" "Just what drives him?"
O.J. Simpson's long-standing alcoholism was bound to land him in hot water again. His arrest tells us what a sense of invincibility rooted in alcoholism can do to someone, and how the resulting behaviors can affect others.
Evidence for OJ's alcoholism begins with his 1989 letter of apology to the wife he later murdered, Nicole Brown Simpson. "...I'm not going to blame being drunk [for having struck you] that's (sic) no excuse. (But I have decided to stop drinking and will go to AA)" (parentheses in the original). Everything else that has ...
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September 11, 2007 at 4:39 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
NBA Player Eddie Griffin was Enabled to Death. Will Starlets Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Nicole Richie be Next
NBA forward Eddie Griffin, the seventh overall pick in the 2001 draft, was killed instantly in a fiery collision with a freight train August 17 at age 25. There was no sign of skid marks and his body was burned so badly dental records were required to confirm his identity. While friends and peers alike agreed that a sober Griffin "had the innocence of a child" and "would give you the shirt off his back," all hell could break out when alcohol coursed through his veins--which it often did.
Two public incidents were notable. He was indicted on charges of felony assault stemming ...
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September 11, 2007 at 4:37 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Runners-up for top story of the month:
Trevor Michael Karney, who may prove to be the mysterious "Dietrich" reportedly in the passenger seat of a $1-million Ferrari Enzo that spectacularly crashed on February 21, 2006 and was runner-up and antic-of-the-month in the March 2006 issue of the Addiction Report http://preventragedy.com/pages/TAR/019.mar06.html. Karney was arrested on charges of DUI, resisting arrest and giving false information to a police officer. After the crash, in which former head of the now defunct video game company Gizmundo, Bo Stefan Eriksson, was at the wheel, Karney reportedly fled the scene. The DUI is unrelated to the Ferrari incident, but we might surmise that being a willing passenger in a vehicle driven at 162 mph at 6 a.m. ...
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September 11, 2007 at 4:36 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Under watch:
Former investment guru, author and speaker Wade Cook, sentenced to prison as part of a tax evasion case in which he was found to have repeatedly defrauded the IRS. He was ordered to pay $3.75 million in back taxes on $9.5 million generated from sales of financial books, tapes and seminars in the late '90s. His wife, Laura, previously pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and admitted she created false documents with the intent to understate income. While Cook's net worth was at one time estimated at $200 million, his publicly traded company, Wade Cook Financial Corp., filed under Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2003. Just what were Wade and Laura Cook thinking? As usual, we offer the benefit ...
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September 11, 2007 at 4:35 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Co-Dependents of the Month:
Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who pleaded guilty to felony charges related to a betting scandal in which he provided picks to co-conspirators as to which team they should bet on in games he officiated. Donaghy, who admitted to a severe gambling compulsion, seemed contrite as he told the judge he was seeing a psychiatrist for his problem and taking antidepressants and anxiety medication (which may or may not be psychotropic in its effects). My bet (so to speak) is he is not an alcoholic as we define it, which dramatically increases the likelihood that his co-conspirators, Thomas Martino and James Battista, are. If correct, his codependency will cost him up to 25 years in prison. Martino ...
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September 11, 2007 at 4:34 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Disenablers of the Month:
Georgette and Giles Fielder-Civil, parents-in-law to singer Amy Winehouse, who not only went public about their son Blake Fielder-Civil and Amys addiction to coke, crack and heroin, but also asked everyone to stop buying her CDs immediately. They said fans should send a message to Winehouse, who has been spiraling down the path of late-stage polydrug addiction with Blake, that "her addiction and her behavior are not acceptable" and to stop giving her money with which to buy drugs. They also said Amy shouldn't be rewarded with more MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Awards, explaining that such awards only serve to condone the addiction. Their plea is reminiscent of Lucy Barry Robe's comment in Co-Starring Famous Women ...
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