Archive for November, 2010
Charlie plays Charlie: the Misadventures of Charlie Sheen
“How can you live with yourself, you horrible evil man?”
“He drinks.”
In a 2008 episode of “Two and a Half Men” (“A Jock Strap in Hell”), one of Charlie’s many jilted ex-lovers, Delores Pasternak (played by Alicia Witt) asked Charlie Harper/Charlie Sheen how he could live with himself after he dumped her years earlier. Charlie’s teenage nephew, Jake, tells us all we need to know: “he drinks,” by which he obviously means “he drinks alcoholically.” Alcoholism causes euphoric recall, which makes Charlie/Charlie view everything he does through self-favoring lenses—meaning he doesn’t (and can’t) remember anything he did as horrible and evil. Yet, as your classic Don Juan type alcoholic, he is horrible ...
A con artist, a Saudi prince, a flight attendant, Jennifer Lynn Petkov (a must-see) and a comedian. Alcoholics end up in all walks of life.
Runners-up for top story of the month:
Rebecca S. Parrett, 62, who fled Ohio two and a half years ago after being convicted on a number of charges involving the nation’s largest fraud of a privately held company, National Century Financial Enterprises, arrested while on the lam in Mexico. She was one of the founders of the company, which financed accounts receivable of small hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. The company failed after executives loaned millions to providers without formalizing the loans and spent millions on lavish lifestyles for themselves. While fraud alone isn’t proof of alcoholism, committing fraud is compelling evidence that one is afflicted with the disease. However, she wouldn’t have made it to “runners-up” were it not for ...
A Canadian hero–not, and U.S. Rep. Laura Richardson–again.
David Russell Williams, 47, who:
•commanded the Canadian Forces Base Trenton (the country’s largest and busiest airbase),
•was a decorated military pilot who had flown Canadian Forces VIP aircraft for Queen Elizabeth ll, Prince Philip, the prime minister and other Canadian dignitaries,
•was considered a “model military” man with degrees in economics and political science,
•served for two years as an instructor at the 3 Canadian Forces Flying Training School,
•obtained a Master of Defense Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada,
•was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and commanding officer of the 429 Transport Squadron at CFB Trenton, Ont.,
•was commanding officer of Camp Mirage(a secret logistics facility believed to be located at Al Minhad Air Base in Dubai, and
•has been described as an elite ...
Investing in Walgreen’s may be dangerous to your financial health.
Alcoholic victims of the month:
The shareholders of Walgreen’s, who could suffer as a result of an alcoholic Chief Financial Officer, Wade Miquelon, arrested on suspicion of DUI for the 2nd time in little more than a year. While the company can’t comment on “personal” matters, DUI is a material factor in whether or not a person can be trusted. We really want to be able to trust a CFO. If I hadn’t already sold my Walgreen’s stock, I’d sell it now. (I’ve long felt the ideas promulgated here and in my books could be used in buy and sell decisions of publicly-traded companies, but it’s rare so far for CFOs or CEOs to be outed and hence not particularly helpful ...
American Idol and Steven Tyler could make for an interesting season.
Co-dependents of the month:
The fans, producers and everyone else involved with “American Idol,” which announced that Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler will join Jennifer Lopez and Randy Jackson to form the three-judge panel for the upcoming season. According to The Washington Post, Tyler “seemed somewhat dazed” and “looked as though he had unhitched his brain to let it rest a spell” during the press conference in which the new judges were unveiled. Tyler was “fresh out of the Betty Ford Center.” Considering the risk of relapse is so high for addicts in early recovery, the upcoming season could be particularly interesting.
Judge Clarence Thomas, Judge Jack T. Camp and Anna Nicole Smith
Enablers of the month:
Virginia Thomas, who left a phone message for Anita Hill, asking her to apologize for testifying against her husband, Clarence Thomas, 19 years ago during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Hill told reporters she has no intention of apologizing for accusing Thomas of making lewd and harassing comments when they were colleagues in the 1980s because she simply “testified to the truth of [her] experience.” Considering the fact that according to Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker (November 12, 2007) Thomas admitted in his memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, to “using alcohol to deaden the pain and anger that dominated his life” until he “stopped drinking cold turkey during his tenure at the E.E.O.C.” (where he and Hill ...
Warnings about bad things: unchecked alcoholism leads to tragedy, eventually.
Quotes of the month:
“He had been warned of the dangers of drinking and driving by a court, by friends and by family.”
So wrote a reporter on the conviction of Andrew Gallo, 23, in the death of the Los Angeles Angels’ promising young rookie pitcher Nick Adenhart, 22, in a crash that also killed two others. The trouble is, once an addict gets high he thinks he’s invincible. Countless addicts have told themselves they’d never (again) drink and drive, only to (yet again) get behind the wheel while under the influence. Gallo, like so many before him, didn’t plan on driving, but after a night of heavy drinking, like so many other alcoholics, he did. He even had a designated ...
Tony Curtis, Eddie Fisher, Gregory Isaacs and Greg Giraldo all had something in common: alcoholic-fueled success.
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Actor Tony Curtis, dead from cardiac arrest at age 85. Curtis’s screen credits included “Houdini,” “The Boston Strangler,” “The Defiant Ones,” and two of my favorite movies ever, “The Great Race,” and “Spartacus.” Curtis, married six times, was scared into sobriety after almost dying in 1984 of liver cirrhosis, after which he went to the Betty Ford Center and, reportedly, stayed sober for the rest of his life. My appreciation goes out to him for having helped teach me that alcoholism can take form in countless ways, including those that pit addict v. addict: Curtis was infuriated over having to gnaw on a chicken leg 42 times in 42 retakes of one scene in “Some Like ...
Workers’ comp should not be awarded to those who act recklessly. We need to test everyone who acts recklessly so the dots can be connected.
Workers’ Compensation awards should not be given to those who act recklessly.
Illinois state trooper Matt Mitchell was on his way to a traffic accident.
Along the way, he lost control of his patrol car and jumped a median, colliding head-on into a car in which Kelli and Jessica Uhl, ages 18 and 13, were killed.
Tragic and sudden adverse events, commonly called accidents,* can occur despite careful thinking unclouded by a damaged neo-cortex, or human part, of the brain. However, they are far more likely to occur in individuals with such damage, since the impulses and instincts of the basal ganglia, or pre-mammalian brain, can and often do impel the person to act recklessly when unimpeded by the rational part of ...
“House” gets it wrong: being drunk DOES change who you are, IF you have alcoholism.
“Being drunk doesn’t change who you are; it just reveals it.”
So said Dr. Remy Hadley in the 5th Season episode of “House,” entitled “House Divided.” Many reviewers loved the episode, which was described by one (who thought it was the best “House” ever) as “House” meets “X-Files” meets “Twilight Zone.” Unfortunately, it contained one of the great myths of alcoholism.
Olivia Wilde’s character Hadley, also known as “Thirteen,” repeated what most non-alcoholics believe, because the statement is true for non-addicts. However, for that 10% of the U.S. population with the disease of alcoholism, the statement is a myth: the effect of the chemical on the brain fundamentally changes the personality (think: Jekyll and Hyde). And that small fraction is by far ...
Be blunt about alcoholism and set him up for a DUI.
My friend, the doormat
Dear Doug:
My friend has been married for 11 years to a man who drinks daily and comes home and picks fights with her. She used to verbally take him on, but now seems numb and acquiesces to his every demand. I’ve suggested she leave him and offered her a place to stay, but she refuses and instead only complains about him. Is there anything else I can do?
Signed,
Concerned friend
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Dear Friend of Codependent,
Other columnists might tell you that you cannot compel your friend to change her life, but should continue to offer to help her break her free of the abuse. They’d suggest you offer to attend an Al Anon meeting with her. Such columnists would be ...
Accidents are not accidents when a drunk jumps out the window–from the third floor.
Story from “This is True” by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:”
“DEADBEAT DOLT: Ronald McIntyre was such a deadbeat father that a warrant was issued for his arrest for failure to pay child support. He had accumulated a bill of $5,979.66, and sheriff's deputies in Chicago, Ill., heard he was staying at a friend's apartment. They went to serve the arrest warrant but McIntyre, who goes by the nickname "Boobie", wasn't inside. A child pointed to the window, and a deputy looked out to see that McIntyre had jumped out to avoid capture. There were two problems with the tactic: the apartment is on the third floor of the building, and the landing area, while it looks like grass, is actually ...