The story of Idi Amin, horrific addict and his codependent doctor, (relatively) benign alcoholic
“The Last King of Scotland”
An extraordinary contrast of relatively benign and extremely non-benign addiction
Somewhere in my first book, Drunks, Drugs & Debits, I remarked that it’s impossible to understand history and current events without comprehending alcoholism. The history of the Dark Continent is perhaps the shining example where this couldn’t be more true, yet for which we have little hard evidence. Where evidence of actual use does exist, it consists of a ten-second scene in a partially fictionalized two-hour account of a despot and his enablers.
Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, magnificently played by Forest Whitaker, is accurately portrayed as a monster with numerous behavioral indications of substance addiction. He was mercurial, charming, narcissistic and charismatic, a combination of attributes common among high-functioning addicts. When he overthrew his predecessor-tyrant, Obote, he made a hyperbolic speech and said, “I am a simple man. I know who you are and everything you are.”Who else but an addict could feign humility while imparting the idea he is all-seeing? And while many are capable of reading people (iNtuitive Feelers in particular), only an addict will do so and use it against them in terrifying ways.
Unfortunately the masses fall for the oratory, while we hear the truth through Dr. Nicholas Garrigan, a fictional character inspired in part by a Scottish doctor who briefly served Amin. Garrigan is told that the speech was “just like Obote’s first speech and everyone loved him until they realized he used the government treasury like his personal bank account.”While beginning the massacres and purges that would end in the death of some 300,000 Ugandans during his eight year reign, Amin takes a liking to Garrigan. He asks him to be his personal physician, pointing out it will be an easy job because he’s in “perfect health.”Sensing what every doctor must feel tending to the medical needs of a dictator, Amin reassures Garrigan that he needn’t fear making a mistake, since he was told in a dream that he will die in the distant future.
At a state party, he brags about Garrigan’s skills, telling everyone “he saved my life”when all he did was tend to a strained wrist. Such exaggeration by putting another undeservedly on a pedestal serves to control in a style not dissimilar to manipulating for the purpose of sexual conquest. He has the typical addictive need to win at any price, even in something as unimportant and mundane as a swim competition; he jumps the gun at the start, wins and brags to everyone that he’s won; nobody argues. He puts others down in subtle ways, calling his two closest advisors, Garrigan and Dr. Junju, “Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”He says of Dr. Junju, “even his suits look silly.”Forebodingly, as Dr. Junju walks away Amin comments to Garrigan, “I do not like the way that man looks at me.â€
Among the most extreme behavioral indications of alcoholism is grandiosity, which is exemplified in Amin’s title: “His Excellency President for Life Field Marshal Al Hadji Dr. Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, King of Scotland, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.” Addicts frequently identify other addicts in deprecating ways, as Amin did when he caught a would-be assassin, a supporter of Obote, and asked, “You want to kill me for that drunk, silly man?”Addiction frequently mimics narcissism, as when Amin was showing off his body double and asks, “Is he as handsome as me?”Somehow, we know by this time that no one would dare respond “yes.”Addicts frequently twist and lie about what others say for their own purposes, as when Amin explains to Garrigan after he asks to go home, “You cannot [go home]. You promised me you would help build a new Uganda.”He did not; he only swore an oath as a doctor. And nothing can top the combination of charm and manipulation put on by practicing addicts. “You are like my son,”Amin tells Garrigan; “your home is here….You are my most trusted advisor.”Yet when Garrigan pleads for the Asians, capriciously expelled from Uganda, Amin remarks, “You are nothing but a doctor. You are a nobody.â€
I asked a dozen or so people exiting the theater with purposeful vagueness, “So, what was Amin on?”Six responded they hadn’t thought about it that way, including one who said, “He was drunk on his own power.”After I gave her my two-sided “Behavioral Indications of Early-Stage Alcoholism Include/Sobriety Can be Characterized by”card, she came back and admitted that my suggestion got her to reconsider. Three said knowingly, yes, he must have been on something, but couldn’t say what. Three responded, “Amphetamine.â€
Perhaps this was a highly intelligent group. Aside from his sometimes profuse sweating and paranoia, common among amphetamine addicts, there were only ten seconds that provided the crucial clue, one that reminded me of Dr. Morrell giving “multi-vitamin”injections to amphetamine addict Adolf Hitler. Perhaps not coincidentally, Amin admired Hitler and was a friend of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the head of which was amphetamine addict Yasir Arafat. Ten seconds may have given away the secret: Amin tells Garrigan, “Give me a booster”something to make me feel strong again.”The next thing we see is Garrigan sticking him with a syringe.
Amphetamine addicts not only take enormous risks; they also become paranoid. In a small-scale version of Stalin’s purges, while much of Uganda’s budget was diverted from civilian to military spending, an estimated two-thirds of Uganda’s small 9,000-man army was executed in just the first year of Amin’s reign. Like the early version of Hitler, many in the West considered Amin’s outlandish statements to be a joke and viewed him as a buffoon. I doubt his victims saw it that way.
But then, addicts are frequently victimized by addicts. The fictionalized Garrigan, along with at least some of those who inspired his creation, are probably no exceptions. Nicholas Garrigan, M.D., gulped a toast with his father, also a medical doctor, as he was being welcomed into the family business. Another reviewer said, “This drinking, pot-smoking free spirit is terrified by his suffocating future of being a family practitioner in business with his overbearing old man.”Yes, addicts can’t stand being suffocated and frequently look for adventure. After smoking in bed, he recklessly decides to spin a globe and go to the first place his finger lands on. After hitting Canada, he spins again and heads to Uganda.
Garrigan, played by James McAvoy, has a one-night stand and is depicted sharing what looks like a pint of vodka with a villager in broad daylight en route to his remote post, where he hopes to put his new medical degree to good use. Once there, he immediately begins attempting to seduce the pretty wife of the doctor-in-charge, Sarah Merrit, played by Gillian Anderson (formerly of “The X-Filesâ€). Garrigan then does something that seems inexplicable for the uninitiated: he has an affair with one of Amin’s wives. Reviewer Todd McCarthy of Variety.com, comments, “No matter how impudent Nicholas is capable of being, and no matter how drunk at the time, his rash decision to get it on with a Mrs. Amin is ludicrous…”While it would be unimaginable for a non-addict to engage in such extraordinary reckless misbehavior, it is not ludicrous, because it is not inconsistent with alcoholism. Practicing addicts do truly crazy things.
A review of the reviews found all wanting. Instead of being an early clue to addiction, thinking he’d been poisoned becomes “an early indication of his paranoia”(Ruthe Stein, The San Francisco Chronicle). Instead of being an addict, Amin is “a charmer,””A psychopath,”a “childish chief of state,”and “mercurial”(Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal). According to David Denby of The New Yorker, Amin is a sociopath, with no mention that addiction might explain his horrific behaviors. Marjorie Baumgarten of AustinChronicle.com naively says that Amin was a “probably well-intentioned president who was ultimately undone by his raging paranoia and violent impulses,”rather than “he may have been a decent guy until he triggered addiction, which caused untold grief among his countless victims.”Not one reviewer identifies addiction in either Amin or Garrigan. Yet, addiction explains the behaviors of both, in an exemplary tribute to the multi-faceted variations of the disease.