A couple of actors, thousands of embittered homeowners, and an addict who paid his amends.
Runners-up for top story of the month:
Actor Wesley Snipes, convicted of three counts of willfully failing to file tax returns and sentenced to three years in prison in the IRS’s highest-profile criminal tax case in decades. Insight into Snipes’ convoluted thinking, likely rooted in long-term psychotropic drug addiction, can be found in the January 2007 edition of the Thorburn Addiction Report (http://preventragedy.com/pages/TAR/027.jan07.html). There’s more, below, under “enabler of the month.”
Actor Gary Busey, evicted from his rented Malibu home on which he allegedly owes more than $50,000 in back rent. Busey was last seen in court in 2004 when refusing to pay $52,000 in past-due rents, according to his attorney because of mold in the house. Friends admit that while Busey claims he is refusing to pay this time because “unclean air conditioning vents are posing a health hazard,” the truth is he “sometimes spends more than he earns.” As pointed out in numerous stories of financial abuse in Drunks, Drugs & Debits, spending beyond one’s means indicates an attempt to inflate the ego, which is usually due to alcoholism. I ask tax clients who own rental property on which large sums of back rent are due, “Did you see any indications of alcoholism before the tenant moved in?” Many admit they wondered despite the completely reasonable explanations for having a poor FICO score, or observed what seemed to be a too-charming façade at the start. (When I ask, “How many bottles did you find in the vacated unit that the prior tenant demolished?” they often respond, “How did you know?” or “No bottles, but lots of syringes.”) Landlords who want to learn how to prevent such financial abuse and psychological trauma may wish to invest in (and deduct as a business expense) How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics: Using Behavioral Clues to Recognize Addiction in its Early Stages and Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse.
Embittered homeowners, who have been stripping out appliances and wiring, punching holes in walls, dumping paint on carpets and locking their pets inside after vacating foreclosed homes. Reportedly half of foreclosures have “substantial” damage. Recovering addicts attest to having had “unreasonable resentments” while using, which can lead to vindictiveness and revenge. They admit they blamed everyone else for their mistakes. Landlords, when questioned, realize that vacated units with damage almost always were occupied by someone who they would now identify as an alcohol or other-drug addict. I suggested the likelihood in the TAR August 2007 top story, “The Mortgage Mess, the Real Estate Bubble and Alcoholism,” that the bubble was fueled in large part by alcoholics, because in the often-manic early stages they feel they are invincible and can be prolific liars. As the anonymous blogger writes, “The vast majority of people ‘losing their homes’ are not the innocents portrayed in the media or by Hillary Clinton, taken advantage of by ‘predatory lenders’. They’re just your typical losers, chain smoking at the casino, hoping against hope for ‘the big score’ that never came. They’re gamblers who bet and lost. They’re people who committed mortgage fraud….” The fact that as many as half of foreclosures suffer damage not dissimilar to that wreaked on rental properties provides additional support for the idea that the bubble was fueled by alcohol and other-drug addiction–and now made worse by addiction as entire neighborhoods suffer from the blight of vacant and damaged homes.
Bob Timmins, no ordinary addiction counselor, dead from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at 61. According to Rolling Stone, Timmins “used his own struggles with drugs and alcohol to help a generation of rock stars” including Kurt Cobain, Scott Weiland and members of Motley Crue, Guns n’ Roses and Aerosmith. Timmins is a wonderful contrary example for those who say “my addict will never get sober.” He dropped out of the ninth grade and, living on the street much of the time, spent eight years in and out of prison on robbery and drug-related charges before a public defender got him into a twelve-step program. He was able to honestly claim, “Nobody’s been down farther than me,” which helped his credibility when dealing with practicing addicts whose lives had fallen apart. He became a titan in the world of recovery and, according to his friend, attorney Michael Nasatir, helped clean up “owners of sports franchises to heads of movie studios to Grammy-winning, internationally known music idols…as well as the most down and out homeless person…” He served as an expert witness in courts across the country and as a consultant in the development of treatment plans for offenders. Superior Court Judge Bernard Kamins (also a drug court judge) said, “The amount we paid him [for his expertise in selecting a proper program for a defendant] was a joke compared to what he did.” Bob Timmins will be missed by many who knew him and even more by those who never had the opportunity of benefiting from his counsel.