Charlie’s enablers–several shrinks try to psychoanalyze an addict.
Charlie’s Enablers
Many writers and talking heads “get it” in regards to Charlie Sheen: plain and simple, he’s an addict. Some, however, could easily mislead the addiction unaware, including USA Today and its sources.
A USA Today article, “Charlie Sheen in the hottest of seats,” cites Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville psychiatrist, Paul Ragan, explaining Charlie’s behaviors: it “strongly resembles a classic manic episode. What do we mean by a manic episode? This constant pressure to speak, the giving of numerous interviews, the increased goal-directed activities, irritability, lack of impulse control, what we call the ‘flight of ideas’—skipping from topic to topic, clearly the lack of judgment about his own issues. There’s the aggressiveness, the hostility.”
While this is a very accurate description of Charlie’s behaviors, Mr. Ragan fails to mention that all of these are common in alcohol and other-drug addicts and such addiction is by far the best explanation for their appearance. Such an omission is inexcusable for a so-called expert.
The piece goes on to quote chief psychologist at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, Alan Hilfer, who said, “There’s a grandiosity to [Sheen’s] statements that would worry most in the mental health profession.”
Such grandiosity concerns those in the addiction profession, Mr. Hilfer. The failure to even use the term will make many people think if Sheen were treated for a mental disorder, all would be well. Failing to identify the most common root to grandiosity is inexcusable for a so-called expert.
Then there’s professor of psychology at Hunter College in Manhattan, Jeffrey Parsons, who is quoted as saying, “My hypothesis is that it’s one of two things: It’s either an underlying bipolar disorder (a mental illness in which people cycle from depressive lows to euphoric highs) or it’s the result of long-term substance abuse and addiction.” (Emphasis added.)
Or? And? How about, “Given Charlie Sheen’s longstanding history of alcohol and other-drug addiction, he is exhibiting behaviors that mimic bipolar disorder. However, it’s obvious which came first. Addiction often mimics this disorder, as well as virtually all the others.” Giving credit where due, Parsons admits that bipolar disorder resembles symptoms of long-term substance “abuse” and that “even if he’s not actively using now, the long-term effects could still be driving his behavior.” True, but it’s not “abuse.” It’s clear-cut addiction and Parsons, if he hopes to help better educate the public about this often-fatal disease, should say so.
After having partially redeemed himself, Ragan completely screws it up. He estimates about 60% of bipolar patients also “abuse” drugs or alcohol (sic: should be “alcohol and other drugs”), often to “self-medicate.” He fails to mention that 70-80% of psychopathological disorders found during the first 10 days of sobriety disappear with three months of recovery (from studies cited in Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse) and that tens of thousands if not millions of addicts, including actress Vivien Leigh, Mayo Methot (Mrs. Humphrey Bogart number three), poetEdna St. Vincent Millay, actresses Mary Tyler Moore and Frances Farmer, and writer Mary Ann Crenshaw have been wrongly diagnosed as bipolar, or schizophrenic, or sociopathic. Nor do they have borderline personality disorder, with which so many (including the addict who inspired me to learn about addiction) have been tragically misdiagnosed. They cannot be successfully treated, as Ragan claims, for “dual diagnosis,” because alcoholism, which causes brain damage, mimics or triggers what look like—but aren’t—personality disorders (thoroughly discussed in Alcoholism Myths and Realities: Removing the Stigma of Society’s Most Destructive Disease). On the rare occasion when the disorder exists—for every one or two having a true disorder, at least ten have addiction—there is absolutely no way to know until the addict is clean and sober for at least a few months and possibly several years, after the alcoholism-damaged brain has at least partially healed.
Like all addicts who look like they’re unhinged, Charlie Sheen needs to be treated for the underlying disease: alcohol and other-drug addiction. Stop the euphemisms, the misdiagnoses, the excuses. Charlie Sheen may never get sober because fame, money and status (business, social and economic) are the greatest enablers. We only increase the odds of early demise by denying we can diagnose by observing him, as so many supposed medical professionals have been doing, explaining his plight by sidestepping the obvious and by showering him with attention. For Charlie Sheen’s sake, stop.