Archive for September, 2010
Serial Murderer Elias Abuelazam: Alcoholic? (but of course)
Serial murderers are often charming and almost always alcoholic: the case of Elias Abuelazam, a classic Jekyll and Hyde alcoholic.
Elias Abuelazam, 34, was considered God-fearing by his mother, who told reporters he would always assist those needing help. A neighbor commented Abuelazam was “really quiet and real nice. You wouldn’t even know he was there.” The manager of a store next to a market he worked at said, “He was very nice to the ladies and walked them to their cars at night.” A former class-mate called him a “nice guy” and an ex-mother-in-law said he was “such a nice person as far as we knew.” A co-worker at a behavioral health center ...
Retired JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater, Actor Randy Quaid, Florida attorney Scott Rothstein and Seattle attorney Anne Bremner make public their (likely) alcoholism.
Runners-up for top story of the month:
Flight attendant Steven Slater, 38, who was described by his attorney, friends and family as a likeable sort who did his job well, until he didn’t and used a JetBlue plane’s emergency chute to leave his job—permanently, with two cans of beer in hand. Slater claimed a gash on his head occurred during the flight, but several passengers said the gash was there before the flight took off and told reporters he spoke rudely and used expletives during the flight. As clues 4 and 7 under "Supreme Being complex" ("regularly uses foul language" or, in this case, uses such language in an entirely inappropriate setting, and "has a 'rules don't apply to me' attitude") ...
Victims to alcoholism: those on the tarmac, but for those in the plane it could have been worse.
Alcoholic victims of the month:
The thousands of passengers who were delayed while the JetBlue plane’s emergency chute was put back where it belongs, along with the likely extensive maintenance it had to go through due to flight attendant Steven Slater’s inconsiderate actions. (You might think “hundreds,” but consider how many planes are readying for take-off on the typical tarmac.)
Alcoholic could-have-been serious-victims of the month:
The passengers aboard the JetBlue flight, starring flight attendant Steven Slater. As a number of observers pointed out, deploying the emergency chute could have caused a panic, ground personnel could have been seriously injured or killed had they been in the way and can you imagine how inappropriately he might have handled an emergency occurring during the ...
California’s taxpayers continue to pay host as co-dependents.
Co-dependents of the month:
California taxpayers, who according to radaronline.com, are or will soon be supporting “Octo-Mom” Nadya Suleman by giving her welfare checks. Having become a tabloid sensation after giving birth to octuplets in January 2009 (and for which California taxpayers already paid an estimated $1.3 million plus), she pitched her story to publishers and television executives, who have apparently lost interest. In the February-April 2009 top story, she is quoted telling NBC’s Ann Curry she was “not seeking a public handout.” As I said then, she is the center of her universe, and of ours. While she was spending her money on lip and breast augmentation, she was spending ours having children—and now “raising” the octuplets, along with the ...
What do Facebook users and protestors have in common?
Enablers of the month:
The 100,000 or so people who joined a Facebook page supporting the actions of flight attendant Steven Slater, who slid down the emergency chute of a JetBlue airplane after instigating at least one confrontation with a passenger. We’ve honored many famous addicts to their deaths, from Marilyn Monroe to actor Health Ledger; I suppose it’s only fitting an unknown becomes known for his alcoholic antic and that we honor and enable him. As pointed out in "Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse," we need to learn to “uncompromisingly disenable,” before tragedy happens.
Some 300 protestors at the LAPD’s Rampart Station, along with a similar number at a community meeting the next night, ...
Steven Slater’s enablers enable and Castro displays tiny bit of ego-deflation.
Quotes of the month:
Steven Slater’s boyfriend Kenneth Rochelle, who called Slater a “lovely, classy, beautiful person,” and Slater’s ex-wife, Cynthia Susanne, who called him a consummate flight attendant who would always act in the most appropriate manner. “I can’t believe he murdered someone!” is a common remark about a “nice guy” committing homicide. Yup, nice guy, until he isn’t, due to brain damage stemming from alcoholism. As pointed out in the chapter on "Beauty, Brains & Success" in Alcoholism Myths and Realities: Removing the Stigma of Society's Most Destructive Disease, being nice, successful, smart and charming are entirely consistent with alcoholism, except when Mr. Hyde rears his ugly head.
Fidel Castro, reported by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic as saying, ...
So long to two rock stars, Richard Lopez of Cannibal and Richie Hayward of Little Feat.
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Richard “Scar” Lopez, a founding member of Cannibal & the Headhunters whose claim to fame was the mid-‘60s hit “Land of 1000 Dances,” dead from lung cancer at age 65. Although the band was a one-hit wonder (“na, na-na-na-na”), they were among the first popular Mexican-American musical groups, appeared on “American Bandstand,” “Hullabaloo,” “Shebang” and other popular TV shows in 1965 and opened for the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and the Righteous Brothers. However, Lopez didn’t appear with the Beatles because he quit the band after the late Eddie Davis, Cannibal’s producer and manager, found Lopez gambling with the Beatles and “started yelling at me in front of everyone. I’m from East L.A., and I don’t ...
Taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidize alcoholism.
Public Policy Recommendation of the Month
Section 8 Housing
Section 8 is a government program that subsidizes rent for low-income households.
It also subsidizes a lot of drinking and drugging.
A recent report in The Wall Street Journal (“Real Estate Bust Opens New Doors for Subsidized Tenants,” August 8, 2010) reported that many neighbors “have long contended that government-subsidized tenants increase crime and depress property values,” even while admitting that having a house occupied is better than leaving it vacant. Still, in a lesser-of-the-evils attitude, with mixed emotions they ask, “Which poison do we choose?”
They shouldn’t have to choose. Section 8 tenants have brought big changes to many, including the now-depressed town of Antioch, California on the Sacramento Delta near Stockton. “Fights, loud parties ...
It could be antisocial personality disorder. But it’s more likely alcohol or other-drug addiction.
“Bernstein…suspects that she suffers from a psychiatric illness. For someone with such symptoms, antisocial personality disorder is a likely diagnosis.”
So wrote an anonymous journalist writing for AOLHeath.com citing the comments of Dr. Neil I. Bernstein, commenting on a woman, Ashley Anne Kirilow, 23, who shaved her head, plucked her eyebrows and starved herself to look like a cancer patient—when she wasn’t. Her father was even scammed, admitting on the show “Good Morning America” that it sickened him when he ‘found out she was taking people’s money and it wasn’t going to the University of Alberta” for cancer treatments, as she claimed. She took in more than $20,000 from her victims while accumulating more than $30,000 in credit card debt and ...
Excessive charm is not a good thing. The reason proves elusive, even to the “experts.”
A brief bonus Myth-of-the-Month is appropriate this month due to the Abuelazam story:
“It is really not a matter of ‘Jekyll and Hyde.’ It is a matter of who the person is trying to charm and who they don’t care about charming.”
So spoke Dr. Park Dietz, who has given court testimony or consulted on numerous serial killer cases, including Jeffrey Dahmer, regarding Abuelazam’s classic style. Dietz got it partly right: it is about who the person is trying to charm and who they don’t care about charming. He’s also correct in stating it’s a huge red flag and that this is one “of the least misunderstood signs” that the person might have ulterior motives. He explains that “charm is not a ...
Losing a home after 22 years is an indication of excessive spending fueled by alcoholism. But you need to look for it.
Losing my home and my mind
Dear Doug:
Due to the weak economy, we are being forced from our home of 22 years. Our grown children have no idea about our financial travails. I’m angry and disappointed with my husband, who I blame for this circumstance. I think we need counseling, but all the local therapists are friends or acquaintances of ours. What should I do?
Signed,
Financially and mentally disabled
Dear Codependent,
Other columnists would tell you the obvious: you took on too much debt to support your lifestyle, implying you used your home as an ATM without explicitly saying so. It needs to be said.
Other columnists might also mention the fact that because you didn’t say it, you must not have lost your jobs. ...
Alcoholism or meth-head? The crazier the story, the more likely it’s meth.
Story from “This is True” by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:”
“SURE-FIRE OUTCOME: Sheriff's deputies in Dona Ana County, N.M., found a man along a highway wearing no clothing trying to hitchhike a ride to a hospital -- he was suffering from severe burns. When deputies asked for his story, the 47-year-old man said he had lost a bet with buddies, and had to honor it by letting his friends set him on fire. They started with his prosthetic leg, he explained, which then set his clothes on fire so he took them off. The bet, he said, was over who could drink the most beers. He lost when he drank the fewest -- six -- and confirmed to deputies that ...