President of homeowner’s association authorizes improper expenditures
Dear Doug,
I’m on the board of directors of my homeowners’ association. Receipts from our management company for which reimbursement was requested included a $20 bottle of tequila. I showed this to the board and told them there was no way should we pay for this. The president of the association joked, “Tequila is best with lime, so we should add a bit so they can buy some limes, too,” and authorized the reimbursement.
It’s not the first time the president has authorized questionable reimbursements. Looking at past records, I found authorized reimbursements of over-the-counter drugs, candy, cigarettes, party supplies and pet food.
The management company claims the board authorized all these purchases and, therefore, they must ...
Does being forced to do something together during childhood cause animosity–or might it be alcoholism that does this?
“The brothers' animosity may have derived from being forced to sing together during childhood.”
So wrote Ray Connolly about the Everly Brothers’ famous, nearly life-long feud in a The Daily Mail piece, “Why DID the Everly Brothers hate each other?”
Fighting, feuding and animosity go hand-in-hand with alcoholism. As kids, they may not have liked being forced to sing together, but if sober they would have grown up, grown out of their child-like attitudes and might have learned to love making beautiful harmonies together. Connolly is yet another unaware journalist with no understanding of the subjects of his piece. The brothers’ animosity derived from their substance addiction, from which nearly all irreconcilable animosity in its nastiest forms stems.
Woman goes to a bar and, later, behind bars. The kids, ages 6 and 10, were alone at home.
Story from “This is True” by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:”
“Gimme My Keys: Jennifer Grooms, 29, called police from a Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., restaurant. She complained that parking valets refused to give her car keys to her because they thought she was drunk. The responding officers agreed with the valets, but Grooms insisted she was OK to drive. She refused offers of a taxi or calling friends, and allegedly told the officer he was obligated to drive her home because she had left her two children there alone. Despite warnings, Grooms allegedly got into her car, daring the officers to arrest her, which they did. Once they got Grooms to the station, someone was dispatched to her apartment, where ...
PTSD doesn’t kill; alcoholism does. The Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis kills 13. “Army 2020: Generating Health & Discipline in the Force: Ahead of the Strategic Reset Report 2012″ shows bad behaviors are rooted in alcoholism.
Another Shooting Spree, Another Addict: Aaron Alexis Kills 13, Including Himself, at the Washington Navy Yard
Aaron Alexis, 34, who went on a shooting spree at the Washington Navy Yard in September, was known by friends and neighbors as a personable guy who was rarely angry. He began attending a small Buddhist temple in 2010 and became a “model” tenant and employee of one of its members, Nutpisit Suthamtewakul, owner of the Happy Bowl restaurant. Suthamtewakul reported Alexis paid his rent on time and was “always very quiet and smiling.” A pastor, Jason Williams, 37, who knew Alexis through the Happy Bowl, described him as “one of the most polite people I’ve ever met.”
However, several mental health “experts” say he exhibited ...
A drunk heads up a military sexual assault program and–surprise!–assaults a woman.
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, previous chief of the Air Force sexual assault prevention branch, arrested on suspicion of “drunkenly” groping a woman outside a bar near the Pentagon. While charges of sexual battery were dropped, he still faces charges of assault and battery, which carries the same punishment but requires a lesser standard of proof. The fact is, if he was drunk and the trial proves he assaulted the woman, by my definition of alcoholism first proposed in Drunks, Drugs & Debits and refined in How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics (a genetic disorder that causes afflicted people to biochemically process alcohol in such a way as to cause that person to act badly some of the time), Krusinski clearly ...
A study in contrast between two military members with PTSD: one alcoholic, who kills, and one non-addict, who succumbs as victim.
According to Rorke Denver, a reserve Navy SEAL team lieutenant commander, former SEAL teammate and military sniper Chris Kyle, 38, worked “with other veterans, folks with PTSD, trying to help them get better.” Kyle was known to take such troubled veterans to gun ranges, shooting and hanging out for therapy. It was one of these, unemployed Marine veteran Eddie Ray Routh, 25, who shot and killed Kyle. While officials couldn’t confirm whether Routh suffered from PTSD, Denver fielded questions from civilians who “couldn’t understand why Kyle would have taken someone with PTSD to a shooting range.” Routh had been in mental hospitals twice during the year preceding the murder and told authorities he has PTSD. However, he was first taken ...
The transformation from not yet having triggered addiction to addiction is obvious in some. Still, many ignore the signs. An Australian college athlete is tragically murdered.
In the “we cannot predict how destructive a practicing addict may become, or when” department, three youths (allegedly) murdered Christopher Lane, an Australian college athlete in Duncan, Oklahoma because they were “bored.” James Francis Edwards Jr., 15, and Chancey Allen Luna, 16, are charged with murder; Michael Dewayne Jones, 17, faces lesser counts. Edwards’ sister, Danielle Crudup, 20, watched him change for the worse: his “sweet demeanor” turned sour about six months before the tragedy, as he began unleashing a “vile stream of braggadocio, sexism and racism” over social media. “I don’t understand. God, I wish I could have just got to him. I tried to talk and talk and talk to him, and it just seemed like he wouldn’t ...
Beanie Babies billionaire Ty Warner, guilty of tax evasion, likely alcoholic.
Beanie Babies billionaire Ty Warner, 69, who reached an agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to federal tax evasion in connection with undeclared Swiss financial accounts. He went to great lengths to conceal the accounts, including holding $94 million under another name. While unreported income totaled more than $3.1 million and unpaid tax on the account came to $885,000, Warner has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $53.6 million,* the largest publicly-reported civil penalty ever in the U.S. crackdown on undeclared offshore bank accounts. Warner also faces up to five years in prison and additional criminal tax fraud penalties.
Thinking that one is more powerful than the U.S. government is a symptom of alcoholism. Tax evasion in general, but ...
Thugs were enabled until they (allegedly) murdered an innocent Australian college athlete in Duncan, OK.
Codependents of the Month:
Danielle Crudup, whose brother James Francis Edwards Jr. was charged with the murder of the Australian college athlete in Duncan, Oklahoma, qualifies. However, so do most of the youths’ friends and relatives. Michael Dewayne Jones’ girlfriend’s mother said, “He seemed like nothing more than a regular kid.” Yet some friends feared he was using meth; his weight had recently plummeted. Chancey Allen Luna’s mother became so concerned he was using meth she purchased a drug-testing kit. Luna’s aunt and uncle, with whom he was living for a time, forced him out for smoking pot. Yet Luna, who had a history of fighting, “was raised with God and went to church when we went, four times a week,” ...
Studies show no correlation between military members committing suicide and combat; drivers of fancy autos are last in road manners. No surprise for the addictionologist.
Studies of the Month:
Since PTSD is caused by traumatic events, especially those with a high risk of death, suicides among members of the military “should” be linked to combat. In a study published by the American Medical Association that at least partly debunks this idea and, therefore, the belief that PTSD causes suicides, data show 52% of troops who committed suicide while on active duty were never assigned to combat operations. A Los Angeles Times interview of relatives and friends of five service members who committed suicide found that none had ever been in combat, but four were involved in marriages or romantic relationships that were over or nearly so. Crumbling relationships are often rooted in alcohol or other-drug addiction, ...
Recovering alcoholic and, therefore, good dad, Sir Elton John.
Good Dad of the Month:
“I was a monster. I’m a better person now that I’ve got children.” So said Sir Elton John, revealing that being a father helped him overcome his “infamous” temper. No, Sir John, being a father helped keep you sober, which you’ve been for 23 years. Staying sober and improving on your sobriety by further deflating your ego turned you from Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll and helped you consign your temper tantrums to a past, drunken life.
Bad moms, bad cops–when “bad,” it’s almost always alcoholism.
Bad Moms of the Month:
Lisa Rosales, 43, and Lisset Llauro, 39, for variations on a theme. Rosales blew a .18 percent* after police were summoned to the parking lot of Richards Middle School in Fraser, Michigan for blocking traffic and allegedly attacking another parent for asking her to move her car. She was going to pick up her 13-year-old daughter but was instead whisked away in handcuffs on charges of DUI and possession of a controlled substance.
Llauro was stopped by an officer in Miramar, Florida, who saw her run over plastic lane markers in the student pick-up line at Silver Lakes Elementary School. She appeared disoriented, reeked of alcohol, had slurred speech and (allegedly) failed sobriety tests. Judge John “Jay” ...
A mayor does and sells meth long after the signs should have prevented him from ever becoming mayor; a “friend” enables O.J.
Enablers of the Month:
Montebello, California Mayor Christina Cortez, whose husband Ruben Guerrero, 44, was booked on suspicion of selling meth and narcotics near a school. After his arrest Cortez said she was disappointed and shocked. However, she shouldn’t be: there were three publicly-known clues to the idea that Guerrero was capable of anything. First, he was convicted of DUI in 1999. Second, arson investigators examined a “suspicious” fire last year that burned Cortez’s Chevy Suburban, which Cortez said was mostly driven by Guerrero. Third, Montebello Councilman Frank Gomez sought a restraining order against Guerrero, saying Guerrero had threatened him. For every public behavioral clue to substance addiction, there are likely dozens if not hundreds of hidden/non-public ones. Ms. Cortez, you ...
Tony Robbins, iNtuitive Feeler, likely innovated in “self-help” because of his severely addicted mother. He turned lemons into lemonade.
Retrospective Find of the Month:
Alcoholism authority George E. Vaillant brilliantly analogized what living with an alcoholic is like: “Outside of residence in a concentration camp, there are very few sustained human experiences that make one the recipient of as much sadism as does being a close family member of an alcoholic.” As sick as the family may appear in terms of observable behaviors (as I put it in Alcoholism Myths and Realities), some good can come of it, as Tony Robbins has proven.
Tony Robbins’ “Powertalk” audiotapes were an enormous aid in 1996 in helping me to recover from having lived with an alcoholic fiancée. At the time I figured Robbins was simply a brilliant iNtuitive Feeler, a personality type that ...
Trayvon Martin was likely “robotrippin'” and pigs can get drunk and go on a rampage.
Retrospective Look of the Month:
I’ve never had such difficulty in writing a top story as the last issue’s piece on the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman controversy. Only afterward did I realize it was the only Top Story I’ve written that was in “real time;” along with grotesque omissions and outright lies by the media, this made research and coming to definite conclusions difficult at best. I found additional support for Martin’s addiction shortly after TAR went out: his corpse was found with skittles and watermelon juice. These are two of three ingredients for an intoxicating beverage; the third is Robitussin cough syrup containing codeine and/or promethazine. A non-prescription version contains Robitussin with dextromethorphan (DXM); both versions are commonly “abused” by teens. ...