Erin Brockovich proves she has alcoholism; therefore, her claims cannot be trusted.
Retrospective look of the month:
When I first saw the 2000 feature movie Erin Brockovich, with Julia Roberts playing the “environmental” activist, I speculated that the real Erin Brockovich might be alcoholic. I don’t recall what led me to this tentative diagnosis based on a mere portrayal and what would, for many, seem to be flimsy evidence. It could have been the willingness to (arguably) stretch the truth, which is often rooted in alcoholic confabulations; it might have been her foul mouth and cigarette-smoking —hypocritical for a purported anti-cancer crusader. Because alcoholism is often locked behind closed doors, I’ve learned patience is a virtue and things take time to see the light of day. In the case of the real Erin Brockovich, that time has come: she was recently arrested for DUI while trying to dock a boat on Lake Mead, with a blood alcohol level at “more than twice the legal limit of .08.”
Brokovich released this statement:
“At no time was the boat away from the dock and there was no public safety risk. That being said, I take drunk driving very seriously, this was clearly a big mistake, I know better and I am very sorry. After a day in the sun and with nothing to eat it appears that a couple of drinks had a greater impact than I had realized.”
This is classic alcoholic “spin.” She makes excuses for her drinking: the boat wasn’t away from the dock so there was no risk; yet the police report shows she was trying to dock it when she was arrested. While admitting it was a “mistake” and superficially apologetic, she lies about the number of drinks she had (unless they were 28-ounce Long Island Ice Teas). The truth can be calculated: if she weighs 130 pounds, she consumed nearly 12 drinks over 12 hours, almost 10 drinks over 8 hours or 8 drinks over 4 hours. Any way you cut it, that’s not “a couple of drinks.” And when someone lies about drinking, is 53 and is not flat on her face with a blood alcohol level of anything much over .12, alcoholism is a given.
Like most alcoholics, Brockovich likely triggered early-stage alcoholism in her early teen years. She would have been, then, deep into alcoholism by the age of 30, when she began her quest to prove that residents of the small town of Hinkley, California developed high rates of cancer due to chromium VI in drinking water. The chromium, used to fight corrosion in a natural gas pipeline cooling tower, was released into unlined ponds by Pacific Gas & Electric before the 1970s. Brockovich made the connection between that and a “cancer cluster” in Hinkley in the mid-‘90s. This didn’t, however, stop her from smoking cigarettes through which she inhaled chromium VI, even though inhaling the chemical is much more dangerous than drinking similar quantities of the stuff (lung absorption through inhalation is much higher than absorption into the stomach, liver and pancreas via ingestion).
Other than the smoking and propitious use of foul language (either of which yields an estimated 30-50% odds of alcoholism for California residents in this demographic), there was little other evidence of alcoholism in this very public figure until recently, when her third husband left her. The odds of alcoholism increase with each divorce; as reported in Drunks, Drugs & Debits, after four divorces the odds of addiction are about 85%.
Isn’t this helpful? Someone was divorced four times—or three times, and also smokes and uses foul language. Knowing nothing else, we can ascribe very high odds of addiction and conclude the person can’t be safely trusted—for anything. Such clues give tremendous ability to protect oneself from the capricious misbehaviors of addicts in our personal and professional lives. They also give us the ability to quickly determine whether we should take special precautions in analyzing the veracity of such people’s claims.
It’s possible Brockovich is simply wrong regarding Hinkley. The findings here and here are interesting in this regard, as is the analysis here and here. We must always silently ask the possible alcoholic, “Are you telling and perpetuating a lie because of your egomaniacal need to capriciously wield power? And, if such need is unconscious, is your belief rooted in confabulated thinking?” On the other hand, if perceptions are distorted and one truly believe one’s incorrect assertions, the need to inflate the ego can make one blind to the truth. This alone should cause us to consider Bruce Ames’ arguments at the links above and to question the ideas for which Brockovich has helped to gain common acceptance.