Archive for October, 2008
Presidential Contenders: Sons of Alcoholics
Presidential contenders Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain may be members of different parties, hold opposite views on many subjects and have very different ancestral backgrounds. They have, however, one key similarity: they are both sons of alcoholics.
Barack Obama Sr. met Ann Dunham while both were studying at the University of Hawaii in 1959. In 1962, a year after their son was born, Barack Sr. won a graduate scholarship to Harvard and left, never to return. Sen. Barack Obama was abandoned by his father before he was old enough to remember him.
While earning a masters degree in economics at Harvard, Obama Sr. became a fixture in bars, chain-smoking and ordering scotch straight up by the ...
O.J., Kwame, Dhaliwal and Shannen Doherty get their due
Runners-up for top story of the month:
O.J. Simpson, 61, who finally got his comeuppance by being convicted on all counts of armed robbery in a trial involving, as I wrote in the October 2007 edition of the Thorburn Addiction Report, a cast of characters consisting solely of other likely alcoholics. Most commentators were amazed when he broke into the hotel room to "take back"his memorabilia from sports collectors. I wrote that if one is to understand O.J., one must grasp the concept of alcoholic egomania, which compels the addict to wield power over others. This accounts for O.J.'s success on the playing field and as an actor, because success facilitates the use of power. It also sheds light on a ...
Con men Raffaello Follieri (Anne Hathaway’s ex-) and Daniel Heath: both appealed to religiosity and both are likely addicts, along with one Charles Ponzi
Under watch:
Con man Daniel Heath, 51, sentenced to 127 years in prison on 400 counts, including grand theft, elderly abuse and filing false tax returns, for running a $180 million investment scam that bilked many of at least 1,800 elderly investors of their life savings. In classic Ponzi-like fashion, Heath, along with his late, possibly codependent, father John Heath, and Dennis T. O'Brien, 53, funneled money from new investors to pay off early investors. The scam dated to the early 1990s, when Daniel W. Heath & Associates lured clients to "free lunch"seminars where they were told their money would go into fixed income investments with little or no risk. Instead, it went into high-risk real estate and small business projects.
I ...
Jobless, despondent over financial losses…kills his family…and, oh yeah, alcoholic too (high probability)
Headline of the month:
"Jobless dad kills 5, himself"; also, "Father kills family and himself, despondent over financial losses"
We may as well get used to headlines like these which refer, in this case, to the murder-suicide by Karthik Rajaram, 45, as the unwinding of the great credit bubble proceeds. Unfortunately, they will be mostly misleading and thereby fail to help prevent future similar tragedies.
As regular readers know, almost all crime"especially murder"is rooted in alcoholism. Many suicides also have their source in this disease. Readers of "Drunks, Drugs & Debits" (with thanks to James Graham's "The Secret History of Alcoholism") also understand that desperate measures are sometimes taken to compensate for a deflating ego. As wealth contracts, leaving the alcoholic less able ...
Co-alcoholics Ed McMahon and Britney Spears. Alcoholic harms alcoholic.
Co-alcoholics of the month:
Ed McMahon, who had trouble selling his home partly because it's just off Mulholland Drive near an area where photographers wait for shots of one of his neighbors, pop singer full-blown poly-drug addict Britney Spears. McMahon purchased the home in 1990 for $2.6 million. He listed it near the peak of the housing bubble for $7 million and only recently reduced the asking price to the approximately $4.6 million he owes on the home. McMahon, who plight is recounted in the July 2008 issue of TAR is yet another example of an alcoholic harmed by another alcoholic.
Enablers: Donald Trump enables a former star and the Chinese government enables a former despot
Enablers of the month:
Donald Trump, who announced he will purchase Ed McMahon's home and lease it back to him. That's very sweet, Donald, but you don't seem to understand what you're doing. How do we know this? Because you asked, "How could this happen?"Donald, Ed McMahon dug himself into this hole because of his alcoholism. He's reportedly been sober for a decade, but recent history suggests otherwise. He won a lawsuit with his insurer over mold and lost THAT fortune after squandering millions from being Johnny's sidekick. He borrowed an additional $250,000 in July 2006 at an annual interest rate of 15%, suggesting there were serious financial problems before he injured himself so badly he couldn't continue to work"at age ...
Jill Ishkanian disenables actress Heather Locklear
Disenabler of the month:
Paparazzi Jill Ishkanian, who reported Actress Heather Locklear, 47, to 911 after observing her acting strangely and driving erratically while maneuvering her car in a Montecito, California parking lot. Ishkanian told authorities that Locklear, who left a treatment facility in July after receiving four weeks of treatment for "anxiety and depression,"stopped shortly after exiting the parking lot, stepped out of her car and stumbled into a traffic lane. A California Highway Patrol officer found her shortly after inside her vehicle stopped in a travel lane nearby and booked her on suspicion of driving under the influence of a controlled substance. Wow, a paparazzi doing the right thing"not just reporting the alcoholic antics of her subject, but actually ...
Thomas “Bud” McDonald got sober and changed the world in good ways.
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Thomas "Bud"McDonald, who appeared as the freckled and big eared Buddy in several "Our Gang"movies in the 1930s and later co-founded what are now called the Southern California Alcohol and Drug Programs, dead from congestive heart failure at age 85. McDonald began his movie career at age 8 but moved to Oregon with his mother and two brothers after his parents divorced during his mid-teen years. He eventually moved back to Southern California and became a Los Angeles police officer. After four years on the force, he "left"the LAPD in part, according to his son, because of alcoholism and "running with a bad crowd."His alcoholism-induced misbehaviors obviously worsened, as he was quickly convicted of armed robbery. ...
Maybe Ayn Rand knew something when writing “Atlas Shrugged”: the case of James Taggart
Review: "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand
I read "Atlas Shrugged" almost four decades ago, long before I understood alcoholism. Although I was never enthralled with author Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism, her cult-like behaviors or her personal life, I delighted in her understanding of the wealth-enhancing benefits of free markets and grasp of the idea that capitalism's fiercest opponents were often those who only pretended to be capitalists. I knew from Gabriel Kolko's "The Triumph of Conservatism" that businessmen, under the guise of "consumer protection"or similar pretext, frequently seek favors by getting government to impose regulations that are good for them and bad for their competitors. Rand described such crony capitalists in her books, but I couldn't possibly have understood then ...
Racism…sexism…alcoholism…
Offensive friend of boyfriend
Dear Doug:
My boyfriend Jake and I each have friends the other doesn't really like, which is normally ok with both of us. However, the most recently befriended"Tyson"is very offensive. He not only makes comments I find racist and sexist, but also drinks heavily.
Although I've told Jake my feelings, he's hanging out with Tyson more frequently than ever"and worse, Jake seems to be trying to keep up with Tyson's drinking. Jake said I should lighten up and just get to know his friend because he can be a "nice person."What should I do?
Signed,
Jake's"not Tyson's"girl
. . . .
Dear Codependent,
Other columnists (even Carolyn Hax) might suggest that you've made your point and should just wait and watch. They might tell ...
Neighbors at a “neighborhood watch” meeting shout me down, asserting “Non-alcoholics commit plenty of crime!”
"Non-alcoholics commit plenty of crime!â€
At a recent neighborhood watch meeting, your faithful correspondent responded to complaints about recovery homes in the neighborhood. "You should be concerned about group recovery homes in your midst"but only if the recovering addicts aren't being tested regularly and randomly, because practicing addicts"not recovering ones"are responsible for most crime."The response, "No they're not! Non-alcoholics commit plenty of crime!"was almost deafening. My neighbors truly had no idea that alcohol and other-drug addicts commit at least 80% and probably closer to 90% of crime.
This is important because parole officers don't test every day. There are plenty of hours between tests, during which addicts can relapse. And 12 hours after an alcoholic hits a blood alcohol level of .18 ...
Alcoholic drinks Wite-Out
Alcoholic Antic-of-the-Month
Story from "This is True"by Randy Cassingham, with his "tagline:â€
"YOU GONNA DRINK THAT? Juan Briceno, 33, was arrested for drunk driving in Omaha, Neb. As he waited at the police station for a breath test to establish his blood alcohol level, when arresting officer John Neaman stepped out of the room, Briceno picked up a bottle of Wite-Out from the table -- and drank it. The quick act was captured by a video surveillance camera, which then shows an evidence technician pointing out Briceno's ultra-white lips when Neaman returned. Neaman canceled the breath test and took him for a blood test, which came back at .28 percent -- well over the .08 limit. Briceno was convicted of fourth- offense ...