Doug Thorburn, addiction expert, addiction contrarian and author of the recently released
Alcoholism: Myths and Realities: Removing the Stigma of Society's Most Destructive Disease, has just released his May 2009
Thorburn Addiction Report and the Runner's-Up form of litany of murderers, sexual deviants and notables of society. Thorburn, a contrarian in terms of the prevailing opinions on addiction, brings to light a number of stories behind the headlines which have been served up lately.
The TAR has many different sections like Top Story of the Month, the Runners-Up, Enabler of the Month, Alcoholic Victims of the Month, Under Watch and Book Review. Runners-up for top story of the month: Lindolfo Thibes, sentenced to 109 years-to-life for sexually assaulting his daughter beginning when she was 6 years old and ultimately fathering her three children. What began as a domestic violence assault in a Las Vegas hospital parking lot in 2005, in which Thibes reportedly stabbed his "girlfriend," ended up revealing a harrowing tale, in which the girl was found to be his daughter. He monitored her every move for over two decades using surveillance cameras and home imprisonment. He beat her fiercely during paranoid rages. The unnamed daughter, now 29, told authorities he plied her with alcohol and marijuana from the age of 8. While Thibes rambled off a litany of complaints to the judge, calling his trial a "kangaroo court," the evidence "fraudulent" and testimony "perjured," DNA tests confirmed the daughter's account. The story is reminiscent of that of Josef Fritzl, who earned Top Story rights in the June 2008 TAR.
Music producer
Phil Spector, 69, (finally) convicted of murdering actress Lana Clarkson, 40, after pulling a revolver on her, as he had done with many women during drinking episodes. Spector made Top Story in the June 2007 edition of TAR, in which his Jekyll and Hyde, grandiose and just plain crazy behaviors are linked to obvious alcoholism. Spector's first recorded hit (1958), "To Know Him Is to Love Him," came from an inscription on the gravestone of his father, who died of suicide, which as explained in Drunks, Drugs & Debits is more often than not rooted in alcoholism. In his own way, he follows in his father's footsteps.
Kerby Revelus, 23, who was shot and killed by police officers responding to a 911 call from his 9-year-old sister. After fatally stabbing his 17-year-old sister, he decapitated his 5-year-old sister in front of the 9-year-old as the horrified police officers broke in to the home. According to neighbors, Revelus behaved "very erratically" since his release from prison on a gun charge and had gotten into a fist fight with a neighbor the day before. "He would go off, just talking about random stuff, stuff that makes no sense," said one neighbor. "Sometimes you would see him and he was normal. Sometimes you would see him and he was confused." Perhaps the fact that Revelus was seen wandering up and down their street "most mornings drinking from a bottle in a brown bag" had something to do with it.
Troy Ryan Bellar, 34, who shot and killed his wife Wendy, 31, and their 5-month-old and 8-year-old sons before killing himself in the front yard of their home near Orlando, Florida. Bellar had been arrested at least twice, once on suspicion of aggravated assault in 1994 and another on suspicion of driving under the influence, in 1999. While a "motive for the killing remained unclear" and neighbors asked, "What motive can you give?" we might respond, "Alcoholic rage. No motive required."
Under watch: See most of the stories listed in the Top Story, for which there is plenty of evidence of alcoholism but not necessarily absolute proof.
Alcoholic victims of the month: Angels rookie pitcher
Nick Adenhart, 22,
Courtney Frances Stewart, 20 and
Henry Pearson, 25, who were killed and
Jon Wilhite, 24, who survived, when
Andrew Thomas Gallo, 22, blew through a red light at an estimated 65 mph in his Toyota Sienna minivan and broadsided a Mitsubishi Eclipse. Gallo, whose license had been revoked after a 2006 DUI conviction, fled on foot without checking on the victims. He was arrested 30 minutes later and charged with three counts of murder. Despite the fact that he was ordered to take alcohol education classes after his 2006 conviction, his BAL was .24 per cent, three times the legal limit and a level at which most non-addicts would have been rendered nearly unconscious, unable to drive much less run from the scene. As pointed out in Drunks, Drugs & Debits, alcoholics are incapable of self-diagnosis, cannot be "educated" to abstain and need to have logical consequences imposed, just like children. Had Gallo been forced into abstinence with the technology of alcohol testing devices, which should be considered for everyone who has been found guilty of DUI, this tragedy would have been far less likely.
Co-dependent of the month: Rihanna, whose tale of having been punched, bitten, threatened and choked by her R & B singer boyfriend Chris Brown was briefly told in the Feb-April 2009 TAR, explaining why she's back with him: "He'll hit me and feel bad afterward, but then he turns into the sweetest man and becomes my angel. He'll cry like a little baby when he makes up to me, and that's the part I love." She admits, "I'd seen what alcohol and drugs had done to my dad [who was a crack cocaine addict] and I wasn't going to follow in his footsteps." Maybe not, but she's clearly followed in her own way by substituting Brown for her father and thinking abuse equals love. Rihanna, just a thought: wise up, before it ends badly.
Enablers of the month:
Vincent Carroll, who reviewed Jeff Kass's Columbine: A True Crime Story and Dave Cullen's Columbine for The Wall Street Journal. Carroll doesn't mention Eric Harris's drug use, including the fact that his favorite drugs were vodka and whiskey. The implication is that neither book Carroll reviewed identified alcoholism as the root of the tragedy. I'd like to hope that someone who has read either of these books will prove me wrong. (Had
TAR been in existence at the time, Harris and his apparently codependent friend Dylan Klebold would have been the Top Story of the Year. They were mentioned in the April-May 2007 issue of TAR in the Top Story on the mass murderer Seung-Hui Cho, who murdered 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech.)
The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, a group of organizations led by the African People's Socialist Party, which organized a march of 60 people in support of Lovelle Mixon, 26, who murdered four Oakland, California police officers after a routine traffic stop by two motorcycle cops. As Mixon exited his vehicle, he grabbed a handgun from his car and not only shot the two cops, who fell to the ground, but then approached and—get this—shot them in the head execution-style before fleeing on foot. He ended up at his sister's apartment building, where he had apparently stored an SKS rifle, which he used to ambush the SWAT team as it entered the apartment, killing two SWAT team officers before he was shot and killed. Mixon was no stranger to the criminal justice system: beginning at age 13 he was arrested multiple times for battery. The day prior to the police shootings, Mixon was linked by DNA to the February 2009 rape of a 12-year-old girl. Investigators said he may have committed as many as five other rapes in the same neighborhood during recent months. Those 60 marchers who supported this monster obviously suffer from distortions of perception and confabulated thinking, which are usually rooted in psychotropic drug addiction.
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Thorburn Addiction Report is available to newspapers as a regular feature column. Inquiries are invited.
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