May 10, 2005 at 1:34 pm ·
Filed under 5 - Amazing Alcoholic Antics
Amazing Antics: Stories of Alcoholism-Driven Behaviors
Smoking as an early-warning sign
Stories from "This Is True" by Randy Cassingham, with his "tagline."
THE DANGERS OF SMOKING: When a woman stepped up to the clerk at a gas station in Washington, D.C. asking to buy some cigarettes, he asked to see her I.D. to check her age. She said she didn't have any, so the clerk refused the sale. The woman then used her cigarette lighter to set fire to several gas pumps. Firefighters put the flames out before the tank caught fire, but the woman escaped. (AP) ...Either way, she wanted to see smoke.
THE DANGERS OF SMOKING II: A man shoplifted three cartons of cigarettes from a convenience store in Lake Station, Ind. ...
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May 10, 2005 at 1:33 pm ·
Filed under 4 - Alcoholic Myth of the Month
Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month: How much is too much?
"Researchers considered any man who averaged more than two drinks per day or more than four drinks per occasion to be an excessive drinker. For women it was more than one drink per day or more than three drinks per occasion."
So said The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a recent study, estimating that 35,000 people in 2001 died from disease linked to drinking too much alcohol. They concluded that "these results emphasize the importance of adopting effective strategies to reduce excessive drinking..."
Studies such as these not only create confusion in the mind of the non-alcoholic, but also cause the uninitiated to take their eye off the ball. By the time physical diseases ...
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May 10, 2005 at 1:32 pm ·
Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...
Dear Doug: Undisciplined son from a prior marriage
Dear Doug:
My wife and I have been married five years in what is for both of us a second marriage. Things have been good, except for problems created by her undisciplined 16-year old son who lives with us most of the time. Due to the fact that she never sticks with her weak attempts at discipline, the stress has been so great I have filed for divorce. While we love each other very much, we cannot live together. Is it ok to date your ex-spouse?
Signed, Wanna-Be Step-Dad
. . . . . .
Dear Wanna-Be,
Other columnists might suggest that you certainly can date your ex- or, for that matter, maintain separate households while married ...
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May 10, 2005 at 1:31 pm ·
Filed under 2 - Movie & Book Reviews
Sideways - fluff with damaged goods
Movie Review: With five Academy Award nominations, L.A. Times reviewer Kenneth Turan writes that Director Alexander Payne's Sideways "turns seven days with scoundrels Miles and Jack (Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church) into a completely satisfying movie that quietly, gently blows you away." Turan says "the film brings emotional reality to a consistently amusing character comedy, making it something to be cherished." How true for those who enjoy seeing a couple of would-be drunks on a last binge before one is due to be married - and if you don't mind the nagging suspicion that the bingeing and prowling doesn't end at the altar.
Miles Raymond is a middle-school English teacher suffering from at least ...
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May 10, 2005 at 1:30 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Michael Jackson: could addiction to pharmaceutical drugs explain the behaviors?
Top Story: Is Michael Jackson capable of having committed the crime of which he is accused?
The trial of Michael Jackson, the extraordinary entertainer who began a bizarre transformation in appearance and behaviors some two decades ago, has begun. It would be shocking that someone who seems so gentle, caring and concerned for the welfare of children could be accused of committing heinous acts of child abuse, were it not for the role that alcoholism may have played throughout Jackson's life.
Alcoholism takes its toll gradually. However, in the case of entertainers and others in the public eye, we need to keep in mind Lucy Barry Robe's admonition that the higher ...
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May 10, 2005 at 1:27 pm ·
Filed under 5 - Amazing Alcoholic Antics
Amazing Antics: Stories of Alcoholism-Driven Behaviors
Can someone be found guilty of DUI for driving a wheelchair while drunk?
The St. Petersburg Times ("Woman's DUI case questions definition of vehicle" by Duane Bourne, December 14, 2004) reported that Cynthia Christensen was barely on the road when she collided with a passing Ford minivan. Christensen, 45, who suffers from degenerative disc disease, osteoarthritis and scoliosis, was charged with DUI after a blood test showed her blood alcohol level was .12 per cent. She had been drinking beer when she rolled into the front yard of her home and, in an attempt to get unstuck out of fine sand, accelerated too quickly, hopping a 4-inch lip onto the street.
The problem is, nobody ...
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May 10, 2005 at 1:26 pm ·
Filed under 4 - Alcoholic Myth of the Month
Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month: "It's the drugs' fault"
"All of the problems I have had are because of my granddaughter's friends, her drug-using friends....It's not her fault; it's the people who sold drugs because they weren't taken off the street."
So said Jack Whittaker, who was the winner of the biggest undivided lottery in U.S. history two years ago with a $113 million lump sum, when his only granddaughter, Brandi Bragg, 17, was recently found dead of a drug overdose.
Whittaker and others said Brandi's instant access to great wealth brought her new friends and dangerous "habits." Yet, Whittaker failed to take into account his own behaviors and genes, along with the warning signs of inherited "habits."
Whittaker, arrested twice in the past ...
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May 10, 2005 at 1:26 pm ·
Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...
Dear Doug: A gentleman and abuser
Dear Doug,
I have been married for three years to an admired member of the community who appears to others to be the consummate gentleman. While the compliments and attention are unending in public, he is abusive to my five children and me in private. He yells at the kids over nothing, monitors my phone calls, hides tape recorders in my car, hacks into my email and harasses me constantly to come inside when talking with my (female) neighbors.
When I finally got him to go for counseling, he smoothly told the counselor exactly what he wanted to hear. After filing a protective order against him for assault and battery, my children and I ...
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May 10, 2005 at 1:25 pm ·
Filed under 2 - Movie & Book Reviews
Every Breath You Take: A True Story of Obsession, Revenge, and Murder by Ann Rule
Book Review: (A "heads-up:" this is a long review, but will be well worth your reading. My intent is to tell the story as it should be told. Students of alcoholism may wish to compare the behavioral clues with those in the on-line Thorburn Substance Addiction Recognition Indicator or in the new Indicator in the appendix of How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics. I'll make up for it with far shorter reviews, probably of movies, for the next three months, since I'll be very busy during tax season.)
While true-crime writer Ann Rule has written numerous biographical accounts of murder, after reading an article by ...
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May 10, 2005 at 1:23 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Robert Blake, alcoholic
Top Story: Could actor Robert Blake have had Bonny Lee Bakley murdered?
The trial of Emmy-winning actor Robert Blake, star of the 1970s hit series "Baretta," began in late December. Despite the fact that Blake is a known alcoholic, many commentators are reluctant to accept the possibility that he may be guilty of hiring someone else to murder his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley. While a court of law needs to make this determination, we are certainly entitled to conclude in our own minds that he may have committed this nefarious deed.
Blake's mother divorced his alcoholic father at a young age and remarried a man who, Blake claims, was physically, emotionally and sexually abusive. This apparently ...
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December 10, 2004 at 5:07 pm ·
Filed under 5 - Amazing Alcoholic Antics, Thorburn Addiction Report
Amazing Antics: Stories of Alcoholism-Driven Behaviors
Follow me anywhere!
Story from This is True by Randy Cassingham, with "tagline:"
"DON'T MAKE ME COME BACK THERE: Police investigating the cause of a single-vehicle accident in Amherst, N.Y., were perplexed by what they found: both occupants, a husband and wife, were unconscious, and both were in the back seat -- no one was behind the wheel. Officers arrested Tiber L. Csapo Jr., 39, after his wife woke up and told them that he was beating her as he drove. She tried to escape by jumping into the back seat but Csapo followed, and the driverless car then crashed. Csapo was charged with driving while intoxicated, second-degree assault and felony reckless endangerment. (Buffalo News) ...And ...
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December 10, 2004 at 5:04 pm ·
Filed under 4 - Alcoholic Myth of the Month, Thorburn Addiction Report
Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month: "Although substance abuse, unemployment and poverty may add fuel to the situation, a desire for control and power over the partner is the real motivator behind [domestic violence]."
So says Jule Klotter in the November 2004 "Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients," citing the American Bar Association's Commission on Domestic Violence and the American Medical Association "Domestic Violence," www.medem.com. This is yet one more instance of confusing cause and effect.
Substance addiction (not "abuse"), which is a genetic disorder causing the afflicted person to process drugs in such a way as to cause distortions of perception and memory that result in destructive behaviors, is usually the fuel behind domestic violence. Addiction, especially to the drug alcohol, makes the addict ...
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December 10, 2004 at 4:59 pm ·
Filed under 3 - Dear Doug..., Thorburn Addiction Report
Dear Doug: I'm raising my sister's son. Help!
Dear Doug,
My husband and I are raising my younger sister's two sons. My sister has many problems, of which drug use is one, and wants to act like a mother to the extent she is able only when convenient. My mother lives down the street and allows her grandchildren to ransack her home daily. While we do not allow our own child to act this way, he seems to be learning some bad habits from the two cousins. What can we do to resolve the problem without losing all the boys, not to mention my mother's good (and well-intentioned) graces?
Signed, Frustrated Aunt
. . . . . .
Dear Frustrated Aunt,
Other ...
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December 10, 2004 at 4:57 pm ·
Filed under 2 - Movie & Book Reviews, Thorburn Addiction Report
Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life"
Movie Review: One of the greatest movies of all time is the holiday classic, "It's a Wonderful Life," staring James Stewart playing George Bailey and a very young and gorgeous Donna Reed, who becomes Mrs. Bailey. The story is one that answers the age-old question, "Why are we here?" by offering a tour of an alternate history of a world in which we were never born, in this case a visit to Bailey's Bedford Falls without Bailey. Upon seeing the calamities befalling his town without his efforts at protecting the drunk pharmacist from filling a prescription with poison, saving his brother from drowning and defending the town against the evil Mr. Potter, a humble ...
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December 9, 2004 at 4:53 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories, Thorburn Addiction Report
Might alcoholism have precipitated the NBA brawl?
Top Story: The destructiveness of unimpeded early-stage alcoholism can take form in many ways, and in varying degrees. An estimated 80-90% of convicted criminals and domestic abusers are alcohol or other drug addicts. Over 35% of inconsiderate on-road misbehaviors such as failing to yield the right-of-way and tailgating are committed by likely alcoholics who are under the influence at the time of the infraction. These same drivers are responsible for an estimated 60% of obscene gestures and 80% of road rage. While some non-addicted children engage in physical violence, threats, or other forms of assault, the odds of a non-addicted adult doing so trend toward zero with age. So do childish and inappropriate behaviors ...
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