Enablers include sheriff’s deputies and those close to well-known celebrities. Disenablers include non-celebrity scared kids–and a great judge.
Enablers of the month:
Orange County, California sheriff’s deputies, who allowed fellow Deputy Allan James Waters, 36, to keep driving his Mercedes-Benz after one accident—only to be called to another incident 30 minutes later in which he injured another driver. This time, they arrested him for DUI. Message to cops: you don’t do anyone favors by offering “professional courtesies”. As is true throughout the field of alcoholism, helping only hurts and, sometimes, kills.
Singer Whitney Houston’s sister-in-law Pat Houston, who told reporters, “Whitney is doing fine. Some people have said cruel things, but she’s happy just to have rested in [London’s Dorchester] hotel” after a hospital stay with an “upper respiratory infection” and “allergies.” A month earlier she was seen “partying” with ex-husband Bobby Brown, with whom she used to smoke crack cocaine. One anonymous close person admits, “She’s exhibiting the telltale signs of an addict. One day she’s upbeat and even-keeled, and the next day she’s a mess—sweating, shaking, disoriented and mumbling incoherently.” Memo to Pat: if you care about your sister-in-law, please get honest and dispense with the idea that identifying active addiction is in any way “cruel.” It’s the most caring and loving thing you can do for the person short of conspiring in an intervention.
Similarly, the publicist for “Heroes” star Hayden Panettiere, 20, who denied the actress drank and caused a commotion at a party in which she was reported by one party guest to be “a complete drunken mess,” in part because she was sobbing uncontrollably on her hands and knees on top of a pool table with “her boobs hanging out of her dress.” Protecting the addict will kill her, Ms. Publicist. If the report is true, you might want to risk getting fired by doing what you can to get her sober, rather than thinking only about your paycheck.
Recovering addict of the month:
Baseball great Darryl Strawberry, 48, who reportedly asked to be fired by Donald Trump because, as one of the celeb’s on “The Celebrity Apprentice,” he was afraid he’d give in to temptation and relapse. According to one insider “there was a lot of alcohol flowing all of the time” once the cameras stopped rolling. Anyone with an understanding of addiction who watches reality TV should not be surprised. Good for you, Darryl, even if your “official” explanation was that you missed your family.
Disenablers of the month:
An unnamed Detroit high school girl who refused to get into a car with her 53-year-old mother, who was arrested shortly after for a third offense DUI with a BAL of .28 per cent, driving with a suspended license and possession of marijuana; an unnamed Winnepeg 14-year-old boy who stabbed his 31-year-old mother in an apparent effort to keep her from drinking and driving after taking her keys (alright, that’s going too far—just report her next time, kid); and Judge Marsha N. Revel, who ordered actress Lindsay Lohan, 23, to wear an alcohol monitoring bracelet and undergo weekly random other-drug testing. We need more Judge Marsha’s, who may actually save a life.
Headline of the month:
“U.S. will pay $2.6 million to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.”