Sometimes, it takes an addict: Gerry Rafferty and “Tango” Maria Schneider
Gerry Rafferty, the Scottish singer and songwriter who gained pop culture status after director Quentin Tarantino included Rafferty’s “Stuck in the Middle With You” in the soundtrack of his 1992 film “Reservoir Dogs,” dead from liver failure at age 63. His most famous hit was “Baker Street,” from his solo No. 1 album “City to City.” His band Stealers Wheel had a “turbulent history” marked by legal battles and numerous personnel changes. Not surprisingly, he was reportedly “battling” alcoholism for much of his life.
Maria Schneider, the French actress whose character in the 1972 movie “Last Tango in Paris” engaged in an anonymous sexual relationship in an empty apartment with a grief-stricken middle-aged American (Marlon Brando) whose French wife had just committed suicide, dead after a long battle with cancer. Although Schneider confused cause and effect as most do (including even many addicts) by blaming the “glare of the media” for getting into drugs—“pot and then cocaine, LSD and heroin”—and that drugs were her “escape from reality,” she managed to get sober in 1980. Schneider was 58.
Note to family, friends and fans of the above: the benefit of the doubt is given by assuming alcoholism (they are either idiots and fundamentally rotten, or they are alcoholic/other drug addicts—which would explain the misbehaviors). If alcoholic, there is zero chance that behaviors, in the long run, will improve without sobriety. An essential prerequisite to sobriety is the cessation of enabling, allowing pain and crises to build. Thus far, many have done everything they can to protect the addict from the requisite pain, making these news events possible. The cure for alcoholism, consequential bad behaviors and, ultimately, tragedy, is simple: stop protecting the addict from the logical consequences of misbehaviors and, where possible, proactively intervene.
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