A “Survivor” star tells us her mother never knew of her amphetamine addiction; lotto winners are told everything they need to do to keep their stash except the part about getting and staying sober; arsonist and meth addict Rickie Lee Fowler finally convicted.
Codependent retrospective find of the month:
“Survivor” competitor Dana Lambert told her mother she was hooked on amphetamines and asked for a rather unusual 21st birthday gift: a stay in rehab. Her stunned mother asked: “you’ve got a problem with drugs?” This lack of awareness, even in close family members, is not uncommon. A great example involves “Full House” child star Jodi Sweetin: she grew up and was married to an LAPD cop for five years, two of which she was a full-on methamphetamine addict. The cop husband didn’t have a clue. Codependents, including parents, are frequently unaware of addiction in friends, co-workers and even family members. Dana, now 32, spent 28 days in rehab and has reportedly been sober since.
Quote of the month:
“I tell lottery winners five things to protect themselves:
Don’t tell anyone you won. If you can collect the money anonymously, do so.
Stop and think for a minute before rushing down to collect the check.
Don’t take the lump sum payment. Take the money over time instead.” Etc.
So writes financial guru Don McNay. However, he leaves out one giant point: “Get sober.” While he notes that about 90% of lottery winners run through their winnings in five years or less, he fails to connect the dots between the largely mathematically-impaired down-on-their “luck” lotto players and alcohol/other-drug addiction. The latest victim of her own excess: Amanda Clayton, who after winning a million-dollar lottery was convicted of collecting state welfare money, and is now dead at age 25 from a drug overdose. McNay writes, “Like so many lottery losers, Amanda made the first big mistake when she won the lottery: she let the world know she won.” Sorry Mr. McNay; her first mistake was taking her first drink, hit or snort.
Retrospective find of the month:
Rickie Lee Fowler, who in 2008 was accused of setting the catastrophic 2003 “Old Fire” that destroyed 1,000 homes and blackened thousands of acres in the San Bernardino Mountains that led to five deaths, convicted and sentenced to death. Deputy District Attorney Robert Bullock noted that Fowler, a violent methamphetamine addict, raped and brutalized at least two girlfriends, one of whom was pregnant with his son, and sodomized a jail cellmate whom he had turned into a “sex slave.” In a classic case of “you never know what an addict may do next,” according to the prosecutor Fowler deliberately set the blaze in a fit of rage against his godfather, who had kicked him out of his home at the top of Waterman canyon. As he threw a lighted road flare into brush at the base of the mountains on a Santa Ana-windy October day, we wonder if he said to himself, “I’ll show that damned godfather!” The damage that addicts can wreak is breathtaking.