Witting and unwitting codependents
Co-Dependents of the Month:
The six nations attempting to control Kim Jong Il’s North Korea qualify for codependents of the month, and perhaps the decade. Like any other addict, Kim makes numerous promises he never keeps. Like other codependents, those dealing with him try negotiation, logic and reason. As pointed out in Alcoholism Myths and Realities: Removing the Stigma of Society’s Most Destructive Disease, “Attempting to negotiate with a brain affected by alcoholism is like trying to be rational with a reptile….The brain of the practicing alcoholic, soaked in acetaldehyde, is not a rational one. The addict cannot see that his troubles extend any further than your toes, which he will crush if given the opportunity.”
Aside from the countless behavioral indications of alcoholism in this despotic control freak and despite the secrecy surrounding his regime, there are several pieces of evidence of actual addictive use: 1. Japanese women invited to attend one of Kim’s numerous parties report that he drank heavily. 2. One of the biographies of Kim, North Korea Through the Looking Glass by Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig, reports that he relies on a “kitchen cabinet”of friends and family members, “especially trusting a few close relatives and drinking buddies.”Having “drinking buddies”at any age much over 30 is a classic sign of alcoholism. 3. “The New Yorker”described the farewell lunch at the 2000 summit in which he had at least ten drinks and said, “As far as drinking goes, I’m a better drinker than Kim Dae Jung,”South Korea’s leader. Ten drinks in four hours would put his BAL at about .18 per cent. There’s much more on Kim in the October 2004 issue of www.ThorburnAddictionReport.com. I continue to maintain that Kim is the most dangerous man who has ever lived: an alcoholic despot with nuclear weapons who is attempting to develop the means of delivery, or who may sell them to terrorists in order to fund his totalitarian regime.
E. Pierce Marshall, son of oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall ll, who married former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith, dead from a brief and extremely aggressive infection at age 67. Last month’s “Runners-Up”discussed the younger Marshall’s battle with Smith over his father’s oil fortune, where I asked, “Who else but an alcoholic could link the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, the IRS and a Playmate all in one story?”Now the younger Marshall’s heirs get to take over, further complicating matters. (Some may inquire how this would make Marshall a co-dependent. The term as I use it describes someone in a committed relationship or connection with an addict, which does not require enabling.)
Actress Hillary Swank, who said her divorce from actor-husband Chad Lowe was partly a result of his “substance-abuse problem.”She explained, as do so many codependents: “I knew something was happening, but I didn’t know what. When I found out, it was such a shock because I never thought he’d keep something from me.”That, Ms. Swank, is what addicts do. According to Swank, Lowe is sober now, but, as is so frequently the case, it’s apparently too late to salvage the marriage.