Archive for November, 2004
Roughly 80% of what's "news" wouldn't be were it not for alcohol or other drug addicts. So, whenever I hear a news story, I ask, "who's the addict?"
In the case of the recent NBA rumble, I first looked to Ron Artest. He clearly overreacted to the beer tossing incident and he's been required to attend anger management classes. This indicates alcohol or other drug addiction, even if he wasn't high at the time. The fact that he reportedly is a "nice guy" does not innoculate him from alcoholism; quite the contrary, the Jekyll and Hyde aspect to the overall behaviors supports the idea. However, so far, I can find nothing concrete on his drinking or using behaviors.
On the other ...
arrogant, menacing and bullying–or alcoholic?
Here's my response to a recent Highway One section article in the LA Times by Jeanne Wright, who doesn't seem to have a clue to the cause of the misbehaviors about which she writes. You'll figure out what she wrote by my comments:
To Ms. Wright,
A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study linked DUI to tailgating 50% of the time. You use the word "arrogant" and "impatient" to describe such drivers. Alcoholics are usually "arrogant" and "impatient," like Freud's infant who wants what he wants and will do anything to get it--NOW. In a day and age of MADD, there are almost no non-alcoholics who drink to a .08% BAL and get behind the wheel of a car. Your description ...
Heroes
Note the comment in the last post:
"women tell me I'm their idol," Jameson, 30, said in a recent interview
When you think about all the addicts we have turned into heroes, one is inspired to ask, "are we nuts?" Elvis to Clinton, Jean Paul Sartre to Rand; Ty Cobb to O.J., Monroe to Jameson. And TWO films about addict Sid Vicious: "The Filth and the Fury" and "Sid and Nancy" (referring to co-addict Nancy Spungeon).
We don't disenable by turning an addict into a hero.
The link between porn stars, insanity and mob violence
Jeff Laurie of Sex News Daily included several seemingly unrelated news reports in a recent issue. Because of the length of the reports, my response is first:
"I've long hypothesized that most porn stars are either addicts or children of addicts. Jameson is both. I'd also theorize that men who chop off their penises, mistaking them for chickens, are under the influence and, at age 67, long-time alcoholics. And same for leaders of mobs in Nigeria."
Here are the reports:
Annals of the Bizarre
Mob kills politician for stealing man's penis
You could understand this contemporary African phenomenon if it'd happened, say, 10,000 years ago, when belief without science ruled the minds of early humans. But in the present century, you'd think a ...
identifying alcoholism without using the term
As many know, I often use the phrase "the behaviors are indicative of alcoholism" when identifying likely alcoholics. As much as I wouldn't mind the publicity connected with being sued over defamation of character for calling someone an alcoholic (my defense would be, calling someone an alcoholic is giving the benefit of the doubt--since if the person is not alcoholic, he or she is fundamentally rotten), I'm not quite there yet. Here's another phrase, recently used when a reader of a friend's newsletter showed envy, resentment, anger and convoluted logic:
"His envy, resentment, anger and twisted logic suggests the possibility you are responding to someone whose neo-cortex has been damaged and with whom, therefore, you cannot carry on rational discourse." Or, ...
rave review from a recovering alcoholic–Dr. Gene Steiner’s radio show
Dr. Gene has had me on his show (9pm KRLA 870am Talk Radio in L.A.) four or five times over the last few months. Here's a letter from one of his listeners:
"I was driving home last night and heard your show. I'm an alcoholic and when I heard your guest and determined that he wasn't an alcoholic ( I'm such an arrogant nut)...I was ready to switch over to Phil Hendry or KABC...and something got me stuck.....
this was about the most amazing interview I've heard on this subject.
I'm so struck by what he said. diagnosing alcoholics by behavior rather than by drinking. I'm 16 + years sober that this just bowled me over. I absolutely fit the stereotype he portrayed, ...
New book endorsed by Michael Shermer
No sooner had I made the last entry than I received this rave testimonial from Skeptic publisher Michael Shermer. You'll also see it on the book's cover:
"My father died of alcoholism. His father died of alcoholism. Three generations of alcoholism is enough. Now is the time to abandon superstition and pseudoscience, to debunk the myths surrounding alcoholism, and to apply science to solving this problem. Doug Thorburn's book is a model example of how this should be done. Read it and be prepared to change your thinking on this important topic. When enough of us understand what is really going on with alcoholism, society can make the shift from treatment to prevention and early intervention.â€
Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, ...
A marine, Abu Ghraib and alcoholism
NOVEMBER 2004
Amazing Antics: Stories of Alcoholism-Driven Behaviors
You'd better vote "right" or else!
Story from This is True by Randy Cassingham, with "tagline:"
"DEBATE TACTIC: Steven Soper, 18, tried to convince his girlfriend Stacey Silveira that she should vote for George W. Bush but, then he couldn't get his point across, police say, he grabbed a screwdriver and held it to her throat. Police in Boynton Beach, Fla., say he threatened that she "won't live to see the next election" unless she changed her voting preference. Police, called by a neighbor who heard the ruckus, arrived to find him holding the screwdriver to her throat, and refused to drop it. They Tasered him to subdue him. Soper, who recently enlisted in the ...
Is it bravado–or is alcoholism?
NOVEMBER 2004
Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month: "This defendant's actions are another tragic example of what can occur when bravado and machismo overtake judgment."
So said Deputy District Attorney Tom Rubinson, after sentencing Pete Marron, 20, found guilty of shooting 25-year-old Marc Antenorcruz to death in a Dodger Stadium parking lot after an argument in September 2003. However, it's also what can happen when confronted by an alcoholic.
Rubinson described Antenocruz as having been drinking and belligerent the night of the shooting. Marron may simply have overreacted, after words were exchanged between the two. On the other hand, it may have been a classic case of alcoholic v. alcoholic.
In research I conducted for the section on probabilities of alcoholism in convicted criminals in my ...
If alcoholic, you’ve already lost her. Now, bring her back.
NOVEMBER 2004
Dear Doug: Drunk daughter loses privileges
Dear Doug,
After our 17-year-old daughter Mandy came home from a party drunk, we grounded her. She now complains she will lose all her friends, tells us everyone thinks we're rotten parents, says she hates us and limits her conversation with us to monosyllabic responses.
We can't trust our own daughter. Mandy has repeatedly lied to us. However, while we know we must be firm, we are afraid of losing her. We are in counseling but wonder if there is anything else we can do.
Signed,
Suffering Parent
. . . . . .
Dear Suffering Parent,
Other columnists might say that the punishment is fair and discipline must be offered with love ...
Adolf Hitler, amphetamine addict
NOVEMBER 2004
Book Review:
The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, by Leonard L. Heston, M. D., and Renate Heston, R. N., with an introduction by Albert Speer, published in 1979. Available used, unfortunately out of print.
Book Review: Adolf Hitler was variously diagnosed as bipolar, schizophrenic and paranoid schizophrenic. He was also diagnosed as having had Parkinson's disease, which Yasir Arafat reportedly suffered from. Yet Hitler had none of these disorders: he was an amphetamine and barbiturate addict.
This marvelous little book, which reads like a medical mystery novel, slowly dismantles every other explanation for Hitler's increasingly reckless behavior. We can conjecture that he may have triggered barbiturate addiction long before amphetamine addiction. However, the reader is left with no doubt that ...
Yasir Arafat, amphetamine addict
NOVEMBER 2004
Could addiction explain the life of Yasir Arafat?
Top Story: Entire texts have been written about alcohol or other drug addicts without mention of any drinking or using. A friend who grasps the concept of using behavioral clues to identify the possibility of early-stage alcoholism told me that as he read Mary Wilson's 1986 autobiography Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme, he kept thinking the behaviors of fellow Supreme Diana Ross had to be rooted in this disease. Yet, her drinking and using was never mentioned. The fact that Ross went into rehab long after the book's publication is just one more example of the power of this idea.
Biographers are almost uniformly unaware of the relevance of drug addiction ...