May 30, 2013 at 1:46 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Active Alcoholism Isn’t Required to Foment Terrorism…But a Failure to get Sober May Be
(Or, it Could be Amphetamines)
In a piece written shortly after 9-11, “Micro Terrorism and Macro Terrorism May Have Similar Roots,” I suggested the best explanation for terrorism lays in alcohol or other-drug addiction. While dramatically different in scope, I argue that the underlying cause of a man terrorizing his wife and kids is likely the same as for men converting aircraft into weapons of mass destruction: addiction-fueled egomania, creating a need to wield power over others. James Graham, in The Secret History of Alcoholism, made the indelible point that an alcoholic’s circumstances and environment help to determine his occupation and beliefs, which in turn determine how and ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:44 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Runners-up for top story of the month:
The military sexual assault problem, which may be a top story in an upcoming TAR. Let’s just say no one “gets it.” Consider Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, chief of the Air Force sexual assault prevention branch when he was arrested on charges of “drunkenly groping a woman outside a bar near the Pentagon.” Given the fact that Krusinski is 41 and likely triggered alcoholism in his early teen years, he should have been diagnosed with alcoholism long ago—and never have been put in control of a branch of the armed forces that deals almost exclusively with alcoholism-related misbehaviors.
Ariel Castro, 52, charged with kidnapping and imprisoning three young women inside his Cleveland, OH home since ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:42 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Codependents of the month:
Los Angeles Clippers’ owner’s son Scott Sterling, 32, died from a drug overdose. His family released a statement: “Our son Scott has fought a long and valiant battle against Type 1 diabetes.” While the family did not explain what role diabetes may have played in his death, the Los Angeles County coroner said it was caused by a pulmonary embolism and “intravenous narcotic medication intake.” The fact that an injection of ground-up oxycodone (a narcotic) can lead to blood system blockages resulting in a pulmonary embolism suggests addiction as the root cause of his death.
I’ve long suspected that alcoholism is the best explanation for the behaviors of Scott’s father Donald Sterling—a real estate mogul whose smiling face ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:41 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Possible codependent of the month:
Adam Lanza, 20, who shot his mother Nancy Lanza, 54, several times in the head before launching his rampage and then shooting himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. It’s highly unusual for a mass shooter to be a non-addict, but toxicology reports (surprisingly) show no drugs in Lanza’s system at the time of the attack. While it’s possible that he was on something that wasn’t screened, toxicology exams search for hundreds of drugs, from alcohol and illegal drugs to anti-depressants and anti-psychotics. It’s also possible he took himself off drugs just long enough to clear his head and pull off one of the biggest massacres in U.S. history. On the other hand, his ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:38 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Excuse of the month:
An unnamed source claimed that “Reese Witherspoon started drinking to cope with the stress of her parents’ bitter battle in divorce court last year….‘Reese feels she has the weight of the world on her shoulders, and she started drinking alcohol as a release,’ added the source.” So wrote an anonymous columnist for The National Enquirer. Such explanations for one’s ability to consume large quantities of alcohol and resulting misbehaviors are incredibly misleading. If Ms. Witherspoon acts badly as a result of drinking, she has the disease of alcoholism—which allows her to drink large quantities and compels her to act badly, at least some of the time, as she did recently when her second husband, talent agent Jim ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:36 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Retrospective find of the month:
I’ve found a number of “alkie antics” news stories involving DUIs and rider-mowers, but none involving a rider-mower without a DUI—until reading up on country icon George Jones (see “Sometimes, it takes an addict,” below). His second wife, Shirley Corley (to whom he was married from 1954 to 1968) thought she made it impossible for him to drive to the nearest town, eight miles away, to buy liquor—whenever she left, she took the keys to all their cars. In his autobiography, I Lived to Tell it All, Jones recalls being unable to find any keys, until he looked out the window. The way he describes it: "There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:35 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Idiot of the month:
Jarad S. Carr, 37, whose scanner-copier-printer broke after trying to print counterfeit $100 bills. Not only did he try to return the printer to Wal-Mart with one of the sheets of fake bills still in the scanner, but he also picked a fight with the Wal-Mart staff after they refused to give a refund (or even half a refund, which Carr pushed for), prompting them to call police. When police arrived, Carr resisted arrest and tried to run. Unsurprisingly, he was already wanted on two felony warrants for armed robbery and burglary. The police chief noted three fake $100 bills found on Carr weren’t even good fakes, although in a dark bar—no doubt where Carr spends much ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:33 pm ·
Filed under General
Future watch:
Samuel Little, 72, found living in a Christian shelter in Kentucky by Los Angeles cold case detectives after matching DNA from a recent arrest for possession of a crack pipe with DNA collected from slayings of three women in 1989. His 100-page rap sheet (!!!) details crimes in 24 states spread over 56 years for a wide array of criminal behavior, including various drug violations, assault, burglary, armed robbery and shoplifting. Incredibly, the former boxer has been incarcerated for a total of only ten years. LA detectives allege he is a serial murderer, killing by delivering a knock-out punch and then strangling prostitutes, drug addicts and “troubled” women (i.e., generally more drug addicts). He pleaded “not guilty” to the ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:31 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Ironies of the month:
Ex-Compton, California fire battalion chief Marcel Melanson, 37, who starred in the BET reality TV program First In, which followed Compton firefighters on emergency calls, charged with arson and embezzlement. Described as “upstanding” and a “role model,” Melanson is accused of setting a fire at the Compton Fire Department headquarters as part of an elaborate scheme to steal communications equipment from the cash-strapped department. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has since recovered more than 50 of the pricey ($2,500 each) radios “from around the world,” many of which were sold on eBay.
Councilwoman Yvonne Arceneaux said “it’s hard to reconcile that man with the allegations he is now facing.” Whenever we hear of such seemingly contradictory behaviors, ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:30 pm ·
Filed under 1 - Top Stories
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Comedian Jonathan Winters, dead at 87 of natural causes surrounded by family and friends in his Montecito, California home. His ability to create “a cavalcade of charmingly twisted characters,” as the Los Angeles Times writer Dennis McLellan put it, led to Tonight show host Jack Paar to quip Winters was “the 25 most funny people I know.” The son of a down-and-out alcoholic who had trouble keeping a job and often left his young son locked in the car while he got drunk in bars, Winters enlisted in the Marines at 17 in 1943 because, while he wanted to fight, he “mostly…wanted to get away from my parents.” Soon after WWll he met his future wife ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:28 pm ·
Filed under 2 - Movie & Book Reviews
Flight, and a review of Flight
Robert Zemeckis, who directed, produced and/or wrote Romancing the Stone, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the Back to the Future trilogy, Forrest Gump and a number of other enduring motion pictures, has given us in Flight one of the greatest portrayals of addiction ever. Denzel Washington portrays the extraordinarily skilled pilot Whip Whitaker, who has hidden decades of addictive use of alcohol and other drugs from everyone except those with whom he uses or from whom he buys. And he’s a hero.
The movie brilliantly portrays Whitaker’s heroism, drug use and the ability to function and hide such use. We often find early-to-middle stage alcoholism in bed with extraordinary behaviors, both good and bad. That the story ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:26 pm ·
Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...
She’s looking for a relationship—but is he?
Dear Doug:
My boyfriend and I have worked through most of our issues over the four years we’ve been dating. The trouble is he lives a “wild” lifestyle—partying, drinking and lots of women. Every time I bring up the topic of commitment he changes the subject. What should I do?
Signed,
Wants to Get Serious
Dear Codependent,
Other columnists might suggest he’s doing you a huge favor in “telling” you, by his avoidance of the subject, he doesn’t want a commitment. They would miss the other unspoken point, however: he already has a relationship with his other girlfriend—booze. Due to a damaged neocortex, you cannot reason with him, nor can you trust him, believe him or predict when his ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:23 pm ·
Filed under 3 - Dear Doug...
She lies, cheats and steals—and is repeatedly rescued
Dear Doug:
My niece lies, cheats and steals from her family and workplace. Every time she gets into trouble, her family rescues her. We pooled our money to prevent an eviction; when she was caught embezzling, she was terminated but we helped her to avoid arrest; when her car was about to be repossessed, we helped her catch up on car payments. She always cries and promises to do better and the cycle repeats.
We know we’re enabling, but she has a 4-year-old son, an innocent who would be dragged down with her if we stop “helping.” Yet, we don’t want the boy to follow her into a similar life of committing serial misbehaviors, or ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:22 pm ·
Filed under 4 - Alcoholic Myth of the Month
“In short, teens who [text while driving] engage in a multitude of other risky behaviors.”
So concluded Andrew Adesman, senior investigator of a study conducted by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported in June’s Pediatrics. Adesman, who is chief of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, along with the researchers, fail to link cause and effect: that drinking causes or exacerbates all of the other risky behaviors they studied. While not a myth per se (although some might call it a “half-truth” because it leaves out crucial information), the omission of underlying cause makes the study pointless—unless one understands addiction.
The study found that teens who text while driving are also much ...
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May 30, 2013 at 1:21 pm ·
Filed under 5 - Amazing Alcoholic Antics
Story from “This is True” by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:”
“TRUE LOVE II: Police in Charleston, S.C., were called to sort out a domestic dispute at an apartment complex. As far as they can piece things together, Charles Baker, 33, got into a fight with his unnamed girlfriend, also 33, in the parking lot. It started when Baker pulled up and his girlfriend allegedly opened the door to his truck and punched him in the face. He responded by allegedly running her over, and then calling out ‘I love you baby!’ as he sped away. The woman was taken to the hospital for treatment of minor-sounding injuries, and Baker was arrested when he returned, charged with ‘criminal domestic violence of ...
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