Accidents usually require an alcoholic. “Accidents” include great and tragic ones, like oil spills.
Most accidents require an alcoholic. This includes great and tragic ones, including oil gushers.
Accidents are unplanned, unexpected and adverse events. Absent the whims of nature, arguably well over half of these events involve alcoholism. In Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse, a study of automobile plant employees is cited that reported an 82 percent reduction in accidents a year after treating its employees for alcoholism. Other studies are cited showing that at least one of the participants in 70 to 90 percent of snowmobile, workplace and incendiary accidents is under the influence at the time of the incident, which is an almost certain indicator of alcoholism. On pages 66-67 of How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics: Using Behavioral Clues to Recognize Addiction in Its Early Stages I show that the percent of on-the-road accidents involving at least one person under the influence is closer to 60 percent rather than the oft-quoted statistic of 40 percent. Absent road hazards, 80 percent of automobile accidents probably involve at least one addict.
While accidents occur due to a loss of coordination, passing out or other physical failing resulting from intoxication, they may happen even more frequently due to a Supreme Being complex, a sense of invincibility often resulting in unnecessary recklessness and a “rules don’t apply to me” attitude. Since these are the key behavioral and attitudinal indications of early-stage alcoholism, where the clues are observed alcohol or other-drug addiction must be suspected.
The last major oil spill in U.S. waters clearly involved alcoholism. At the time of the Exxon Valdez incident on March 24, 1989 Captain Joseph Hazelwood’s driver’s license was under suspension as a result of a DUI arrest in September, 1988. This was at least the third time in four years that his license had been suspended or revoked. While Hazelwood was later acquitted of charges of intoxication at the time the ship struck Bligh Reef, which resulted in at least 10 million gallons of crude spilling into Prince William Sound, his blood alcohol level (BAL) was .061 ten hours after the incident. While a court of law ruled that the blood samples were mishandled, with normal assimilation the BAL would have been roughly .21 percent at the time of the incident. This is consistent with a report contending that he was, at the time, below decks sleeping off a bender, leaving his third mate in charge.
Unmentioned by the press, the current mess may involve alcoholism as well. There was a “skirmish” between key representatives of the various companies involved with the drilling on the Deepwater Horizon rig less than 11 hours before the blowout, which resulted in an uncontrolled release of oil and gas and an explosion, killing 11 workers and spoiling a large swath of the Gulf of Mexico. Transocean’s crew leaders, including the rig operator’s top manager Jimmy W. Harrell, the primary driller Dewey Revette and tool pusher Miles Randall Ezell all reportedly “strongly objected” to a decision by British Petroleum’s top representative, believed to be Donald Vidrine, over how to start removing heavy drilling fluid prior to temporarily sealing up the well. Since BP was in charge of the operation, the BP rep prevailed.
“My way or the highway” is a common attitudinal variation of the Supreme Being complex. In addition, Vidrine was supposed to testify on the disagreement on May 27 before the U.S. Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service, which jointly regulate offshore drilling. He dropped out, citing an “undisclosed” medical issue. The onset of “sudden medical issues” is common in alcoholics. Another top BP official, Robert Kaluza, declined to testify asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
But there’s more. As so often happens, this tragedy may be a result, at least indirectly, of multiple addicts. An Interior Department report alleges that staff members of the Minerals Management Service accepted gifts from oil and gas companies and used government computers to view pornography. It reports a “deeply disturbing” culture of ethical failure and cronyism between government and industry. Two employees have admitted to using illegal drugs and an inspector admitted using crystal meth and said he might have been under the influence the next day. Anyone who understands crystal meth knows that the odds of this being a one-time occurrence are remote.
Not all disagreements or serious medical issues involve addiction. Not all incidents of poor judgment, crony capitalism and corruption or accidents, even disastrous ones, involve alcoholism. However, the alert and addiction-aware observer will find that any one of these is often the first clue to hidden alcoholism. When all five of these indicators exist, addiction is almost a certainty.
Cate said,
June 19, 2010 @ 6:14 pm
Accidents — that’s a specific instance of the larger picture. How about ‘current events’?
Ever since I read three of your books, as well as the speech you wrote last month, I see the news through a new lens. When I look at certain prominent politicians, who are in front of cameras almost daily, doing the ever more bizarre things they do, totally disregarding the opinions of a huge portion of their constitutents, lying through their teeth, and causing real destruction, or else failing utterly to deal effectively with situations caused by ‘accidents,’ I believe I am seeing alcoholics before my very eyes.