Archive for November, 2008
Runners-up for top story of the month:
Brian Nichols, found guilty of murder, armed robbery and kidnapping after launching a courtroom rampage in 2005 that left a judge, a court reporter and two law enforcement officers dead. Nichols was on trial for rape when he broke out of a courthouse holding cell by overpowering a guard and seizing her gun. After committing mayhem in the court he hijacked a car and fled to the apartment of a young woman, Ashley Smith Robinson, forcing himself in at gunpoint. She calmed him down by giving him drugs"the first and only mention of which was in the 14th paragraph of the article reporting the jury's finding"and reading to him from pastor Rick Warren's A ...
Under watch: Skylar Deleon and a former hedge fund manager
Under watch:
Skylar Deleon, 29, convicted in the gruesome murders of Tom and Jackie Hawks, who thought they were dealing with a prospective buyer of their yacht when they took Deleon and his pregnant wife Jennifer on a cruise to show the vessel in 2004. After being forced to sign over ownership of the boat, the Hawks were tied to an anchor and tossed overboard somewhere between Long Beach Harbor and Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California. While Deleon's ex-friends and family testified that Skylar did not "abuse"alcohol or other drugs, there's little question that his behaviors were addiction-related. His father abused him, left his mother when he was five and was sentenced to three years in federal prison ...
Victims of the month: the Hudson family and Florida’s 16th district
Alcoholic victims of the month:
"American Idol"star Jennifer Hudson's mother Darnell Donerson, brother Jason Hudson and nephew Julian King, who are believed to have been murdered by William Balfour, the estranged husband of Jennifer's sister, Julia Hudson. Balfour, who was on parole since May 2006 after serving seven years on charges of attempted murder and carjacking, was kicked out of Julia's home in May because of alleged drug dealing. Furious, he vowed to Julia that he'd kill her and the rest of the family if she "didn't stop messin' in his life."He threatened to kidnap Julia's son Julian and kill him. While it's true that we generally shouldn't believe addicts, there is one exception: if they threaten you, believe them. The ...
Disenablers: Caylee Anthony’s grandfather and Robert Conrad’s daughters are our heroes of the month
Disenablers of the month:
Casey Anthony's father, George Anthony, who has reportedly admitted to police having grave doubts about Casey's innocence over the disappearance of his granddaughter Caylee. He seems shaken over the fact that he has caught his daughter in lies that border on the delusional, including her telling a friend her father had suffered a stroke, was divorcing his wife Cindy and was turning over their home to Casey. Armed with fabricated work sheets, phony emails and dummied-up date books, Casey convinced her parents she was an event planner at Universal Studios, when in fact she hadn't worked in two years.
LaVelda Conrad's daughters, Kaja, 25, Camille, 23 and Chelsea, 21, who reported LaVelda for cocaine possession to authorities, which ...
Sometimes, it takes an addict: DeWayne McKinney, alcoholic, and his ATM machines
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
DeWayne McKinney, 47, killed when he crashed his moped into a bus stop sign and utility pole in Hawaii with a BAL of .22 per cent. McKinney had been released from incarceration in 2000 after being wrongly convicted of a 1980 robbery-murder at a Burger King in Orange, California and, amazingly, expressed no anger or bitterness. Instead, he spoke at churches about the faith that carried him through his years in prison and even met the judge who sentenced him and the prosecutor in the case, accepting an apology and a hug from the judge and endorsing the reelection campaign of the prosecutor. He won a $1 million settlement in 2002 and parlayed it into a ...
A review of Rolling Stone Magazine’s piece on David Foster Wallace–polydrug addict
Rolling Stone, which is mostly a pseudo-liberal mouthpiece (spoken by a practically life-long libertarian with no affinity for either so-called liberals or conservatives or their political parties), occasionally has an article that makes a subscription worthwhile for the addiction-aware. Its recent expose of Senator John McCain's troubled past shed light on behavioral indications of alcoholism that couldn't be found elsewhere in concise format (even if we still can't be sure whether the behaviors are best explained by his own alcoholism or psychological, emotional and intellectual abandonment by his alcoholic father). Along similar lines, I'd read a number of obituaries on writer David Foster Wallace mentioning his struggle with depression, but never alluding to what turns out to have been long-standing ...
Un-invite the party animal, and don’t apologize.
Party animal
Dear Doug:
We live in a nice neighborhood and are immediately adjacent to a community park. Once a year, on "community day"at the park featuring rides for children, ethnic food and fireworks, we open our home to family, friends and neighbors. We provide food and refreshments, including some adult beverages.
Each year, one of the neighbors, John, tries to set a new personal drinking record. He begins drinking early in the day (starting with his own bottle) and by afternoon he is slurring and staggering. He openly pops prescription pills with the booze. He eventually embarrasses everyone by becoming rude, obnoxious and obscene. We've asked John to behave, but to no avail. We think we'll never hear the end of it ...
Sorry, but you don’t “turn to alcohol” because of horrors. If Jews had done this in Hitler’s death camps, they’d all be addicts.
"Considering the horrors McKinney endured in prison…
it's not surprising that he turned to alcohol.â€
So said Nancy Clark, an Orange County woman who runs treatment programs for recovering addicts. She had been touched by the story of DeWayne McKinney's wrongful conviction, reported under "sometimes it takes an addict"in the Top Story section, and let him live in an apartment rent-free after his release from prison.
No, Ms. Clark"and you should know better. While stress, including the stress of horrors, can trigger relapses, they do not cause alcoholic biochemistry. Excusing an addict for drinking due to the stresses of life invites a relapse. If we are to reduce its likelihood, the disease must be described as one that causes a loss of control ...
huffers blow out the windows–and live
Todd Mellon, 34, suffered second-degree burns to his hands, face, legs and neck after attempting, according to Officer Steven Burroughs, to "light a cigarette."He wrote in his report, "The chemicals in the air exploded, causing all the door windows to blow out."His friend Brian Kelly, 19, with whom he had been huffing five aerosol cans of computer cleaner, suffered second-degree burns to his chest, neck and face. One of the police officers was taken to a nearby medical center after breathing some of the fumes at the incident scene. Imagine, the fumes, after the windows were blown out, after waiting for police to arrive, were still potent enough to adversely affect the officer.
The huffers win the Antic-of-the-Month award because they ...