Runners-Up for July ’05: Russell Crowe, Michael Lohan, Michael Jackson and plenty of others
Runners-up for top story of the month: Russell Crowe, whose wife Daniell Spencer had already asked him to stop drinking because it “seems to make him so aggressive,”assaulting a New York hotel employee with a phone and blaming it on “jet lag, loneliness and adrenaline.”He explained that he was trying to call his wife to let her know that “I’m at home, I’m in bed, I haven’t had too much to drink and, primely important, that I’m alone.”At 4 a.m. He wore very dark sunglasses as he was escorted out in handcuffs. At 4 a.m. (A week later he was spotted joking about the incident — while drinking at a Canadian pub.) Nineteen-year-old Sydney Simpson, following in her famous father’s footsteps, reportedly seen partying “hard”during spring break. Lindsay Lohan’s father Michael Lohan, sentenced to prison after pleading with the judge to send him to rehab; it’s unfortunate that the two are rarely combined. Pop singer Michael Jackson, acquitted on all charges of child molestation, back to the business of preventing his finances from falling into further disarray with the help of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, attempting to negotiate with lenders on his behalf.
Known gang member Jose Luis Orozco, allegedly murdering Deputy Jerry Ortiz at point blank range while while he was searching for Orozco. (The tragic story is detailed below in “Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month.â€) Former nanny Jimena Barreto, sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for running down Troy Pack, 10, and his sister Alana, 7, while under the influence. Previously convicted four times for DUI, she was seen drinking the day of the crash. Barreto, who got down on her knees in court and begged for forgiveness, sobbed as she read a two-page apology to the parents, in which she admitted taking a prescription painkiller and a muscle relaxant the day of the tragedy, but denied she was drinking. Based on averages, Barreto, who is 46, was legally under the influence while behind the wheel of a car about 2,400 times. Therefore, there were 2,400 instances of misbehavior for which the law could have appropriately and uncompromisingly intervened, but didn’t. Marcus Wesson, convicted of the March 2004 murders of nine of his children in cult-like fashion in Fresno, California and sentenced to death. The son of a known alcoholic, Marcus worshiped both Christ and vampires and consummated “marriage”with some of his children. The possible culprits in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway after a night out at Carlos’n’Charlie’s on Aruba, particularly the “hard drinking, violence-prone”Joran van der Sloot, who is reported to party every weekend and pick fights while drinking “for no reason at all.”Unfortunately, if there are tracks, alcoholics can be superb at covering them. Toby Whelchel, who had a history of volatile misbehaviors for which close people and the law were given numerous opportunities to intervene but didn’t, killing himself after a murder spree through Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, California, in which three others were murdered. His 1 1/2 page rap sheet began in 1990 with an arrest for assaulting a police officer and disorderly intoxication. Investigators, “trying to figure out what set him off,”said he went on the rampage for “reasons that remain a mystery.”They didn’t seem to grasp the idea that alcoholics don’t require anything in particular to incite them to extraordinary violence. My article on the tragedy was published in the op-ed section of the Los Angeles Daily News on June 17 and is on my blog at www.preventragedy.com/worldpress/ (use the “search”function for “Whelchelâ€).
Former America West pilots Thomas Cloyd and Christopher Hughes, found guilty of being drunk in the cockpit after drinking all night at a sports bar (the story’s beginnings can be found on page 71 of Alcoholism Myths and Realities). Prizefighter Mike Tyson, sitting down in the 4th round and ceding the fight to Kevin McBride, reportedly $34 million in debt after blowing $400 million in gross income over the course of his career on jewelry, women, partying and mansions. Tyson, who watched multiple boyfriends beat up his alcoholic mother until she died when he was 16, may have hit bottom. Liza Minelli, crediting her six months of sobriety to religion and daily attendance at AA meetings, claiming alcoholism “has never ever affected a performance or stood in the way of my work.”Yet, she had hardly worked in years and was out of control, broke and battling “vicious”lawsuits from ex-husband David Gest and former assistant M’Hammed Soumayah, who both allege assault. Kelly Osbourne, admitting she started using opiates at age 13 and was continuously high while filming “The Osbournes”and recording her debut album, now writing songs about “so-called friends not stopping”her doing drugs. Her addiction surfaced only when she was photographed a year ago at age 19 buying drugs after six years of non-stop use, at which point her parents forced her into rehab. (W.C. Fields had a similar problem — except that not only did his “friends”not stop him from using, but instead smuggled gin into the sanitorium in which he resided even after doctors forbade him from drinking due to cirrhosis and kidney disease. He died a few months later.) And, a slim Jack Osbourne, Kelly’s 19-year-old and one-year sober brother (off everything, including his drug of choice, Oxycontin), doing an extreme sports show for British TV, which includes mountain climbing, bungee jumping and kick boxing. Hey, anything to stay sober.