A state senator, an actor, an Olympic gold medalist, several more sports figures and a fan. Alcoholics come from all walks of life.
Runners-up for top story of the month:
Hawaii State Senator Ron Menor, 52, arrested for DUI while “weaving in a snake-like motion”20 miles under the speed limit. The arresting officer saw that Menor’s eyes “were red and watery, and he emitted a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage…[and his face was] flushed and he appeared extremely tired.”While failing to mention drinking, he told the officer he was “on pain medication”and later said the medication “might”have been Vicodin. Menor, in a feigned mea culpa to the public, admitted he had “one to two glasses of wine”with dinner after a Chicago concert ended. He may have forgotten about his consumption at the concert preceding the late-night dinner, but his sons, ages 17 and 11, both of whom were in the back seat, apparently did not. One of them later told the officer his father “was drinking a lot”at the Chicago concert. The .14 per cent Breathalyzer reading might help jog his memory, since it shows he drank the equivalent of 10 shots of 80-proof liquor over a four-hour period (assuming he weighs in at 200 pounds). Menor refused a standard field sobriety test, explaining he was wearing an old contact lens and had a fractured foot. He also refused to respond to a reporter’s question of what that had to do with the amount of alcohol circulating in his blood. There is no report of anyone asking why, if he couldn’t see well with the old contact, he was driving a motor vehicle. He also refused to respond directly to a reporter’s query as to whether he had consumed any alcoholic drinks at the concert. When asked if he has a drinking problem, Menor replied, “I definitely don’t.”No Senator Menor, you won’t until you’ve attended a few months’ meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Actor-comedian Bill Murray, 57, whose wife Jennifer Butler Murray has filed for divorce after more than 10 years of marriage, saying he is addicted to marijuana and alcohol. The complaint alleges that Murray “travels overseas where he engages in public and private altercations and sexual liaisons.”It also states he physically abused her and last November “hit her in the face and then told her she was `lucky he didn’t kill her.'” The former “Saturday Night Live!”and “Ghostbusters”star said through his attorney, John McDougall, “he is deeply saddened by the break-up of his marriage.”How about this, Bill: your addiction has caused you to engage in idiotic, adolescent-like misbehaviors that caused the break-up of your marriage and if you get clean and sober the opposite in terms of behaviors and results will follow as day follows night.
Perhaps in anticipation of the Summer Olympics there were a surprising number of professional athletes and their relatives and fans who qualified for Top Story this month. Briefly, in no particular order:
Olympic gold medalist Tim Montgomery, 38, sentenced to 46 months in prison for his part in depositing $1.7 million in bogus checks. He has a child with former track superstar Marion Jones, 29, who is now in prison for lying about the check scam, which has turned their child, the most helpless of all their victims, into a temporary orphan. Montgomery still faces drug-dealing charges in Virginia.
New York Yankees fan Ivonne Hernandez, 43, charged with murder and DUI for allegedly striking and killing Boston Red Sox fan Matthew Beaudoin, 29, after a child-like argument over “which team is better”spilled outside a bar. Apparently, after some Sox fans sneered at a Yankees sticker on her car, Hernandez got into it, turned the key and accelerated “at a high speed for about 200 feet”before hitting Beaudoin and another fan who suffered minor injuries. I swear you just can’t make this stuff up.
Former NFL center Curtis Whitley, 39, who played for three teams during six tumultuous years in the 1990s, found face down and dead in his trailer home in West Texas. His history of obvious substance addiction included two suspensions for violating NFL drug policy, an arrest for DUI and a 26-day stint at the Betty Ford Center. His drug of choice was crystal methamphetamine. His life was boring for about a year after the Betty Ford stay; too bad it didn’t remain that way.
Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid’s son, Garrett Reid, 25, pleading guilty to smuggling drugs into his jail cell, which is where he landed after injuring a motorist in a heroin-fueled car crash last year. His brother Britt Reid, 23, is in a county drug-court program after pleading guilty to drug and gun charges. Andy and Tammy Reid have three other children who we never hear about, because they don’t engage in behaviors worth reporting.
Former Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding, 37, offering an account of why she didn’t report her then-husband Jeff Gillooly for attacking her then-rival Nancy Kerrigan during the 1994 Winter Olympics. Harding says she planned to go to the FBI, but (she claims) Gillooly and two other men kidnapped her, held her at gunpoint, raped her and told her they would kill her if she didn’t help them lie about the incident. Harding was arrested for DUI at a .16 per cent blood alcohol level in 2002. We’re supposed to believe who?
Former NBA player Latrell Sprewell, 37, losing his $668,000 Milwaukee home in a foreclosure on his $320,000 mortgage. Perhaps best known for threatening to murder and then choking head coach P.J. Carlesimo during a December 1997 Golden State Warriors practice, in 2003 Sprewell made NBA history after making nine of nine attempts from the three-point arc. When the Minnesota Timberwolves offered him a three-year $21 million contract in 2004, “substantially”less than what his then-current contract paid him, Sprewell vented his outrage at the insult declaring “I have a family to feed”(just when we thought that egomania had its limits). This was followed by the worst season of his life in the last year of his old contract, after which Sprewell’s agent, Bob Gist, told Sports Illustrated his client would rather retire than take a drop in salary from $7 million to $1 million, which he called a “slap in the face.”In 2006, a 21-year-old woman alleged that while having consensual sex aboard his 70-foot yacht Sprewell began to strangle her; in a common alcoholic twist, Sprewell is now seeking a restraining order against the accuser, along with “civil remedies.”In 2007, Sprewell’s long-term companion sued him for $200 million for ending their relationship, claiming Sprewell agreed to support her and their four children, apparently in style and for the rest of their lives. In August 2007 Sprewell’s yacht, on which he owed $1.3 million, was repossessed. He reportedly owes more than $72,000 in unpaid taxes and his company hasn’t paid credit card bills in several months. Do any among us doubt that alcoholism is at the root of Sprewell’s amazing arrogance and personal, professional and financial problems?
And finally, in a truly supporting role, a former Woodland Hills, California swim coach, David Johnson, is being sued by a former student for having seduced her when she was 16 and he was in his 30s. Dagny B. as she is known in the suit, now 20, is also suing the Los Angeles Unified School District for negligence because, she claims, head swimming coach Steven Kalan and other school officials suspected what was going on and should have stopped it. In an unusual twist, Johnson admitted to having a “drinking problem”and that Dagny’s mother’s drinking “habits”bothered the girl. How about instead explaining that the mother’s alcoholism “affected her adversely,”made her feel like she was “psychologically and emotionally abandoned”and her destructive reaction to the alcoholic parent is just one of many fairly normal manifestations in a child?