Archive for August, 2007
A journalist asks, "Aug. 27 is the 40-year anniversary of Beatles manager Brian Epstein' s death. How would we analyze his life, assuming that his personal life was in disarray and yet he was obviously an extraordinary over-achiever?"
Epstein was a raging pill-popping alcoholic. This would explain a paradox common to the lives of addicts: the personal life is often in disarray, yet they frequently excel in their professional lives. This seeming contradiction is explained when we recall from my book, "Alcoholism Myths and Realities" that alcoholism causes egomania, which requires the wielding of power over others. Addicts exercise such power by abusing family, friends and other others with whom they come into contact and also, perversely, by overachieving at work. ...
What is the common theme that underlies most murderers?
"Is murder mainly a function of demographics, economics, or broken families?"
Murder is usually, when we get right down to it, driven by a need to wield power. Wielding power capriciously (which murder is nothing but) almost always is rooted in alcohol or other-drug addiction. Such addiction happens to markedly increase the rate of broken families.
Then how do we know that alcoholism and not, say, broken families, is the cause of most murder? For one, we know that alcohol (or other-drug addiction) is the only attribute shared by almost all murderers. Second, long-recovering addicts tell us they were capable of "anything" while using. Third, there is no difference in psychopathologies of children who later become alcoholics and those who ...
What attracts sexual predators to college?
A reader asks, "What makes colleges such a hotbed of sexual crimes? What can students do to protect themselves?"
I introduce evidence in my book "Drunks, Drugs & Debits" that almost all crime is due directly or indirectly to alcohol or other-drug addiction. I also explain that the form alcohol or other-drug addiction takes is a function of circumstances and environment.
Early-stage alcoholism causes egomania. Egomania compels the alcoholic to wield power over others. Rape and assault are crimes not of passion, but of power. Ergo, rape and assault are rooted in alcoholism. College campus environments encourage both drinking and the wielding of sexual power, ranging from the relatively benign (serial Don Juanism) to the horrific.
Students who want to be safe should ...
What is the role of adolescent psychology and drunk driving by teens?
Addiction causes changes in psychology and behaviors, not the other way around. To understand DUIs, we need to understand addiction, as that drives everything else (and most DUIs are addicts). Underlying psychology is irrelevant.
This is true for young DUIs as well as older ones. The typical recovering alcoholic informs us he or she triggered addiction during the first drinking episode--average age, 13. Actress Drew Barrymore tells us she drank addictively at age 8. Most alcoholics are in the throes of functional early-stage alcoholism by the time they are licensed to drive.
Non-addicts have a difficult time functioning at high blood alcohol levels. They don't think they're God or act recklessly while under the influence; they may act silly and loosen up ...
Should I get back with my ex-? I’m over 40 and don’t want to goof up the 2nd half.
Since roughly 40% of divorces involve an alcohol or other-drug addict on one side or the other, the first and foremost issue is to determine if the ex- is an addict and, if so, is he sober and for how long. If he's not sober, forget it. If sober for only a year or two, tread very carefully. Date. Watch to see if he's going to meetings. If he's not, figure he runs a high risk of relapse and act accordingly.
I can't speak as directly to the other 60% of divorces. However, in many cases a child of an alcoholic learned some bad behaviors from the alcoholic parent that may have contributed to the domestic strife. Alcoholism, therefore, has a ...
The Mortgage Mess, the Real Estate Bubble and the Role of Alcoholism
The Mortgage Mess, the Real Estate Bubble and Alcoholism
This may seem a stretch, but humor me while we celebrate our third anniversary. We'll get to plenty of real life stories in which alcoholism is proven in the "Runners-Up" and other sections below (rarely have alcoholism-fueled antics so filled the news). This month's top story is based on theory, anecdotes and understanding how the mind of the alcoholic works and the consequential behaviors. While theory comprises proven hypotheses and anecdotes are real-life stories, extrapolating theory and individual stories to herd psychology hardly meets the criteria of scientific proof. However, this is a good time to make the attempt because it's becoming obvious that we are witnessing the hissing sound from air ...
Loads of runners-up: two politicians’ progeny, four celebrities, two sports stars and one now infamous mother
Al Gore lll, arrested for possession of marijuana and illegal prescriptions, including the opioid (synthetic opiate) Vicodin, the sedative-hypnotics Valium and Xanax, and the amphetamine Adderall. His brush with the law, which resulted from being pulled over for driving at 100 mph in Orange County, California at 2:15 a.m., was not his first. In August 2000 he was ticketed by the North Carolina Highway Patrol after doing 97 mph in a 55-mph zone; he avoided a charge of reckless driving by agreeing to a suspension of driving privileges in that state. Moving over to Virginia, military police arrested him for DUI in September 2002. He slipped into Maryland, where he was arrested for marijuana possession in 2003 and later ordered ...
Under Watch: Att’y Stephen Yagman and NFL pro Michael Vick
Civil rights attorney Stephen G. Yagman, 62, convicted of 19 felony counts of tax evasion, bankruptcy fraud and money laundering. Yagman, a pioneer in police brutality cases, brought hundreds of suits against law enforcement agencies and broke legal ground by holding Los Angeles City Council members personally liable for damages stemming from the actions of bad cops, who readers will note are usually alcoholics. (Unfortunately, he didn't focus his energy on making it easier to fire such civil servants.) However, the justice system frequently pits addict v. addict. Police accused him of making false accusations against officers, supporting their contention by pointing out he won very few cases. Yagman was twice suspended by the California State Bar for charging clients ...
You wouldn’t want to be involved with this flight attendant!
An unnamed flight attendant on a Continental Airlines flight operated by Express-Jet, who forced Kate Penland and her 19-month-old son off the plane because the toddler kept saying, "Bye-bye plane." The attendant told Penland "you need to shut your baby up!" and, when Penland protested, said "It's called baby Benadryl." When Penland said she wasn't going to drug her baby, other passengers stood up for her, including one who told the flight attendant, "You're overstepping your boundary." The attendant replied, "This is my plane," and reportedly told the pilot that Penland had made a threat. Penland filed a complaint with Express-Jet and went public only after receiving no reply for a month. Symptoms of alcoholism include power trips and making ...
Nancy Miller doesn’t understand her own character in Saving Grace
Nancy Miller, creator of the new TNT show "Saving Grace" and its lead character Grace, an obviously alcoholic detective played by Holly Hunter. According to columnist John Jergensen of iThe Wall Street Journal, Miller says the character "isn't an alcoholic, though she concedes ‘there are times when she drinks too much.'" The pilot episode portrays Grace as an erratic, misbehaving, promiscuous tramp who pours whiskey in her morning soda. If Ms. Miller reverses cause and effect and fails to identify the driving force of her own character's egomania, writers might deal only with symptoms rather than the underlying cause and help perpetuate the myth that "the pressures of the job made her turn to alcohol" and similar nonsense. At least ...
NASA enables drunk astronauts; OK Magazine enables Britney
NASA, the space agency. An independent panel, created after Astronut Lisa Nowak ("Myth-of-the-Month" and "Antic-of-the-Month" in the February 2007 edition of the www.addictionreport.com) drove 900 miles to attack her romantic rival, found "heavy use of alcohol" by an unspecified number of astronauts within 12 hours of take-off. On two occasions, flight surgeons and other astronauts warned NASA that astronauts were so drunk they posed a safety risk yet were allowed to fly, again showing what functional alcoholics are capable of and what they can get away with. NASA will likely "protect" the offenders as they may have done decades ago with Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr., who was plastered (hence, "Buzz")until two days before lift-off for his lunar mission. This ...
Time Magazine’s “How We Get Addicted”
Time magazine's cover story on addiction,
"How We Get Addicted"
The cover story in the July 16, 2007 edition of Time ("The Science of Addiction," by Michael D. Lemonick, a recovering addict, with Alice Park) provides evidence that something goes haywire in the brain of addicts as a result of use, which supports the idea of addiction as a brain disease. While the story combined a number of non-substance addictions with the drugs, because of the role of dopamine in driving the reward circuits in non-substance compulsions I won't quibble. It explained the reason why "90 meetings in 90 days" works as well as it does to put the addict on the road to long-term sobriety (this appears to be "how ...
Elder helper abused by siblings. Alcoholism?
Dear Doug: Elder Helper Abused by Siblings
Dear Doug:
For 10 years I was the main caregiver for my elderly parents and had no life of my own. While I spent many sleepless nights by their bedsides, my siblings pursued their careers, built retirement nest eggs and purchased mansion-sized homes. Because our parents did not need to go into a retirement home, we all received a substantial inheritance.
When our folks died, my brother and sister demanded that I move so the house could be sold. My sister screamed abusive invectives at me when she couldn't get her hands on Mother's dining room set and lied that I had stolen our Mother's collectibles, which were later found in my sister's home. While ...
Al Gore lll doesn’t have a drug problem. Huh?
"Al Gore lll may not have a drug problem...If Gore lll does not have a drug problem, he should not be forced into treatment."
So said Tony Newman, communications director at the Drug Policy Alliance, in a piece entitled "Lessons learned from Al Gore lll" in which he thanked California's Proposition 36 for allowing treatment rather than imposing jail time for the first two nonviolent drug offenses.
Sorry Mr. Newman, but the odds that Gore lll does not have the disease of addiction are remote. He was caught driving at about 100 mph at 2:15 a.m. without a prescription for drugs found in his possession. Marijuana possession, for which he was arrested in 2003, and Adderall, which is used for attention deficit ...
An 11-year-old alcoholic.
Story from "This is Trus" by Randy Cassingham, with his "tagline:"
"CAN'T CATCH ME EITHER: A patrol officer in Orange Beach, Ala., saw a speeding car, but it sped up when he tried to pull it over. The ensuing chase exceeded 100 mph until the fleeing driver sideswiped another car and flipped. The cop's patrol car camera captured what happened next: he cautiously approached with his gun drawn, unsure of what sort of desperate felon he was dealing with. Then, "you can see his reaction on the video," Police Chief Greg Duck said. "He was expecting someone else." What he found was a drunk 11-year-old girl at the wheel. Duck refused to specify how drunk, but the girl was beyond even ...