Alcoholic law enforcers
Amazing Antics: Stories of Alcoholism-Driven Behaviorsâ„¢
Story from “This is True”by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:â€
These antics involve law enforcers who, like Kennedy in this month’s top story, could have easily cost lives.
“WHO CONTROLS THE CONTROLLERS? ‘Due to circumstances that I deeply regret,’ said Teresa L. Kaiser, 56, she resigned as the executive director of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. What sort of circumstances? While driving — not in a state car, her deputy was quick to point out — she swerved into oncoming traffic, causing a crash with injuries, and was arrested after her blood alcohol was shown by a breath test to be double the legal limit. Kaiser told police she
had only drunk two glasses of wine over several hours, but a chart released by her own agency notes that a person of her weight would have to consume six drinks in one hour to achieve a blood-alcohol level of 0.16 percent. (Portland Oregonian) …If cops got a dollar for every driver who ‘only had two,’ we wouldn’t have to pay them.â€
All too often, law enforcers have undiagnosed and untreated alcoholism. While most of the time doing their job”and oftentimes, like so many addicts, doing it well”they will sometimes falter and violate the rules they enforce. All the while, there is usually some degree of abusive behaviors going on behind closed doors. I have known women “happily”married to law enforcers for fifty years who, after the spouse died, admitted they were verbally (if not physically) abused the entire time.
Here we have a law enforcer whose job it is to protect underage drinkers from gaining access to the drug alcohol, when she is the one who needs such protection. She’s 56, not 26, with a BAL of .16 per cent. She lied because, well, that’s what alcoholics do. She was behind the wheel of a car at a BAL of over .15 per cent which, while not a concrete limit for a certain diagnosis of alcoholism, is surpassed by few other clues in terms of the degree of certainty. There are few if any instances in which a driver over the legal limit who claims that he or she “only had two”doesn’t have this disease. It would be interesting to ascertain how many lives she has ruined and relationships destroyed while her alcoholism has likely progressed for some 40 years.
Cassingham’s tagline is an insightful one. Cops deal almost exclusively with those having alcohol or other-drug addiction and would do well if they could collect a buck for every contact, virtually all of whom would say if asked, “But officer, I only had two,”or “the drugs belong to my friend; I don’t know how they got there.”
And this month, a bonus antic involving two more law enforcers:
“ALL IN THE FAMILY: Police in Columbia Heights, Minn., struggled to get control over a couple after an alleged drunk driving accident. The female half of the couple, Lindsay E. Anderson, 29, hit a parked truck and then a car at 1:00 a.m. Her fiancé, Steven J. Herron, 34, allegedly refused to submit to arrest and had to be stunned with a Taser twice to place him in restraints. Anderson was charged with driving while intoxicated with a blood alcohol level of .213 percent, and Herron was charged with “obstructing the legal process.” Both were booked into jail — a place they know well since both Anderson and Herron are police officers in nearby Minneapolis. Both were placed on desk duty pending the results of an investigation. They won’t be allowed to drive police cars, but were allowed to keep their guns. (Minneapolis Star Tribune) …And, I hope, just one bullet in their shirt pockets.”
Since tolerance usually decreases later in life, the difference between a 29 or 34-year-old alcoholic and one who is 56 is in the blood alcohol level at which point trouble ensues. Kaiser showed obvious signs of inebriation at a substantially lower BAL. In both cases, due to the heavy drinking and serious misbehaviors, there should be no question about alcoholism. Their superiors don’t seem to grasp the idea that a person with this disease is capable of anything. A gun”even with only one bullet in the pocket (very clever, Randy)”is the last thing they should be allowed to possess after proving to society they have a disorder that causes them to process the drug alcohol in such a way as to cause them to intermittently act badly in unpredictable ways.
(Story and tagline from “This is True,”copyright 2006 by Randy Cassingham, used with permission. See http://www.thisistrue.com for free subscriptions.)