06July
Wexlering Poetic
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL), running unopposed this November, is goaded by Steven Colbert of The Colbert Report, to "say a few things that would really lose the election for you if you were contested, but remember you're not contested, there's no way you can lose."
Gamely, Wexler follows Colbert's lead: "I enjoy cocaine because ..."
"I enjoy cocaine because it's a fun thing to do," Wexler says.
Next thing you know, The Colbert Report is reporting on the reporting on the morning "news" shows that picked up the segment and it's all one big self-referencing hoot.
Lost in the irony is the news that Colbert got a politician to speak the truth: Cocaine is a fun thing to do. At least until it inevitably isn't, by which time you're lucky if you've got the wherewithal to afford a TV and enough of a mind to do anything other than navel gazing.
I think we need more people admitting that drugs are fun, until they aren't (and that could be minutes or decades), if we're ever going to have a meaningful dialogue in this country.
David Weinberger's JOHO The Blog! has a funny clip of Colbert's commentary.
Out of Left Field
I was reading Harry Stein's The Girl Watcher's Club: Lessons from the Battlefield of Life the other night. I found myself mentally nodding at an observation by one of the members of the "club" — the sage buddies of Stein's father-in-law — about how kids really want rules and limits even when they are howling about how grown up they are. Then I got to a passage that literally hit home. Stein writes:
That was us.
I agree with Stein's point, and I don't mind being an illustration to make it. Except that, the more that I think about it, it's not so simple as being light on structure.
We understood the difference between being a parent and being a friend. We never believed that kids shouldn't have rules. Carrick had bedtimes and curfews. We ate together almost every night. She knew from an early age that we would not wink at drug or alcohol experimentation. We controlled TV hours (or did our valiant best to), and set aside homework time (at least until it became a grueling match of Carrick's difficulties in focusing and our desire to have her accomplish the task at hand).
But she was, to use a word you don't see too much, recalcitrant. When we forbade her to pierce herself at age 13, she convinced a friend's mother to vouch that she was 18 and got a belly ring at a tattoo parlor. When we set curfews, she set her alarm clock and slipped out in the dead of night.
I'll admit that we sometimes lacked constancy and consistency in delivering consequences, a subset of structure. In the grind, we got worn down. Many societal standards are murky — cigarette smoking, drinking, pot smoking, sex, piercing — because they are observed by many teens more in the breach than in the observance, and have been for a long time. We began to choose our battles. At some point, I stopped harassing the shopkeepers who were selling Carrick cigarettes as a minor and resigned myself to the fact that she was addicted to them. I stopped chasing cars that dropped her off down the street at 3 a.m., although I still set curfews. I stopped calling her friend's parents to trade information when it became a crap shoot whether I'd be greeted with thanks or hostility. But we did hold to one major consequence that I wish more parents of teens would enforce because it would forestall a lot of tragedies. We told Carrick that as long as she was getting high — on alcohol or drugs — she could not drive. Admittedly, she took our car out a few times when we weren't home, which could have been disastrous, but she never got so much as a learner's permit while she was using.
So, whatever child-rearing mistakes we made — and there were plenty — I'm not sure that being marginally more structured would have affected the outcome a great deal. Addiction is much more subtle and complex than that. And we all know plenty of addicts who came from very structured environments. I had lunch with one last week.
When we were in fifth grade, Mike and ran away together one afternoon. We got no further than New Jersey after walking across the George Washington Bridge in the midst of a winter snowstorm, but it was an event that marked my personal entry into the realm of active recalcitrance. I was running from what seemed to be oppressive structure at home and parochial school, and I think Mike was, too.
The good news, of course, is that Carrick did realize what she was doing, as Deirdre hoped for, and she is making the changes she needed to make.
I was finishing The Girl Watcher's Club after interviewing Harry the week before for our local cable TV station, WHoH. I'll link to the interview if and when it's online.
Over the years, I've read most of Harry's work, starting with his groundbreaking ethics column for Esquire magazine in the seventies. I not only enjoyed the droll humor of How I Accidently Joined the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace), I also agreed with a lot of it and didn't feel my bleeding-heart status diminished one iota in doing so. And Hoopla is the baseball/newspaperman story I wish I could have written.
Harry is also one of the scrappiest hit-'em-where-they-ain't softball players I've ever seen. When he told me that he doesn't hit to left field, my position, when his team plays ours, I felt I'd received the best compliment imaginable. It reminded me that I'd posted a blog entry about his team, the Sons of the Palisades, and playing left field some time ago. It turns out that it was exactly a year ago yesterday, just a few days before "Saving Carrick" aired for the first time. In that post, I included a journal entry I'd written in the summer of 2003, when Carrick was at the height of her addiction, and I was at the depths of my despair, though softball, as always, provided a temporary respite.
Last year seems like a decade ago, and 2003 like another lifetime. I'm not crazy enough to believe that tomorrow necessarily will be as good as today, but as Carrick charges into full detox from methadone, I not only share her apprehensions but also her vigorous faith that people change and recovery happens. And I can only hope that all of our recoveries — ongoing as they are —provide some inspiration for those who remain in the heat of the battle.
Psychobiochemical Complexity
An intriguing study published in the August issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research makes me realize just how complex the biochemical and psychological roots of addiction really are. It found two things:
- Naltrexone, which is used to treat alcoholism, actually seems to make people who have a certain genetic quirk crave alcohol more.
- It doesn't appear to be anywhere near as effective with heavy drinkers who have no desire to quit drinking as it does with those who do.
The study, to my mind, not only confirms that addiction is a product of genetics but also that an individual's motivation to recover has a lot to do with his or her success.
Naltrexone, by the way, is being used to treat many autoimmune diseases, as well as cancers, in a much lower dose than is used to treat alcoholics or heroin addicts. I have a phone consultation scheduled tomorrow with Dr. Bernard Bahari, a former commissioner of the New York City Addiction Services Agency who discovered that naltrexone, in low doses, boosts the body's immune system by increasing endorphin and enkephalin production. As I learn more, I'll keep you posted.
Too Much Hope?
When I logged into the Discussion area tonight, I noticed that someone named Hope was on the site. I hadn't seen the name for awhile, so I punched it into the search field figuring I get a list of Hope's past posts. Instead, I got a long list of my own posts that incorporated various renditions of the word "hope."
I guess it's one of my favorite words. I suppose it can be overused, but luckily I'm not cynical enough to feel that I done that. At times, hope takes us places that love or faith can't, and I cherish it dearly.
On the Radio Saturday
I will be on the Recovery Radio Show, a call-in talk show that originates on KKLA (99.5 FM) in Los Angeles from 9 - 11 p.m. eastern, 6 - 8 p.m. western, this Saturday evening, July 29. The show is also broadcast on KFNX (1100 AM) in Phoenix and WORL (660 AM) in Orlando. If you're not in any of those areas, you can listen to the webcast at the Recovery Radio Show website by clicking on the button in its left sidebar.
The show is hosted by Bob Munck and Steve Groth, M.D., both of whom are in recovery themselves.
This week's edition is keyed to the worldwide release Tuesday of the Silent Treatment: Addiction in America series that I wrote the lead article for, but I expect that the callers will dictate the real content. Jane McDonnell, the president/project director of Public Access Journalism, which produced the Silent Treatment series and website, will be joining us for the first hour.
Only your insights will separate America from my tendency to bloviate, so please call 888-995-5552 to say hello and contribute ideas and questions during the broadcast/webcast.
As Charles Osgood says, see you on the radio.
Booze and Murder
Some people look at me as if I wasn't paying attention to the last five years of my life when I say that I worry a lot more about the impact of alcohol on teens than I do about heroin or other opiates.
It's not just the sheer numbers of today's kids that alcohol will, eventually, take down.
It's things like date rape, automobile accidents, kids tumbling backwards and breaking their necks, alcohol poisoning, murder.
Two 18-year-old girls from New Jersey decided to go clubbing in Manhattan Tuesday morning. When they emerged at 3 a.m., their car had been towed from a No Standing zone. They found their way to the pound. The attendants wouldn't release their car because they were soused. An ambulance was called for one of the girls. The other slipped away. A few days later, her strangled body was found in a dumpster back in New Jersey.
This is every parent's nightmare. Something similar could happen anywhere to any of our children.
A sidebar to the New York Times story about the murder put it into a chilling — to parents, if not, unfortunately, to kids — perspective.
Manhattan has been marked by a sharp growth in bars and nightclubs, but a majority of homicides occur in the other boroughs. Shootings on Saturday nights outside nightclubs in poorer neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx remain regular events.
“The drug most implicated with violence is alcohol,” Professor Karmen said. “Being under the influence of alcohol has been shown over and over again to heighten the risk of being ether a victim or an offender.”
Hollywood Calls Again
I spoke today to a Hollywood writer/producer who just saw "Saving Carrick" when it was rebroadcast on the West Coast in June. She'd like to sign a deal with us to turn our story into a movie of the week.
We've received several similar offers over the past year, but always responded that we prefer to keep control of our story.
This writer/producer has some credentials handling a similarly intimate story. From the reviews I read, she did it well. She says she'd love have us participate, right down to being there for the pitches and reading the script. She would not, however, want to co-write it with either Carrick or me, as a process that she figures should take her two months might take two years. She's probably right, at least as it applies to me. Carrick works much faster, though. And she freely admits that we'd lose control of the story which, of course, is merely stating the obvious.
We'll talk about it as a family. I liked this woman, but I don't see anything happening. I think Deirdre and Carrick are more pessimistic about these things than l than I am. We put our fate in the hands of Dateline's producers (and fate itself), but the world of entertainment is a whole different leap of faith.
The plusses? Some money, of course. The ability to reach a new, larger audience with what the writer/producer says she sees as an "uplifting" story. A plug at the end of the show for whatever recovery cause we choose to promote. A bit of west coast diversion from our decidedly east coast existence.
I should probably call some of my friends in Hollywood to get their feedback. But I know what they'll tell me. We'll lose control of the story.
Whaddya think?
Big Alcohol's Watchdog
The Marin Institute has formally decided to focus on being a watchdog of the alcohol industry, which it estimates spends almost $5 billion a year in advertising and, increasingly, promotions and sponsorships that are not subject to the same scrutiny and restrictions as media ads. It says that the industry makes about $22 billion a year in sales to minors (mostly beer), and that the annual cost to society of underage drinking is $53 billion.
It has a form on its website where you can complain about any inappropriate advertisement you've seen that will be forwarded to an industry trade organization and the Federal Trade Commission, which has oversight of alcohol advertising.
Trip Notes
A new study has found that two-thirds of adults who took psilocybin — psychedelic mushrooms — under controlled circumstances had one of the "top five" experiences of their lives, with the positive effects lasting up to two months. Thirty percent, on the other hand, had bad trips "full of fear and paranoia." Somehow I knew I'd be in the minority on this, as I usually seem to be, which is why I steered away from hard-core psychedelics once I could get my hands on them.
One-in-three odds for a bad trip is worse than those for Russian Roulette, are they not?
This study was done at Johns Hopkins and published in Psychopharmacology. I'm glad to see that that academics can again investigate psychedelics, forty years after Timothy Leary scared the bejezus out of Ma and Pa and G. Gordon Liddy and ruined the climate for serious research. But as Dr. Harris Stratyner, with whom I'm writing Conversations With Dizzy, told ABC News this morning, there's danger that the findings will be taken out of context and used as an excuse for all sorts of drug taking.
"I've got tremendous concern about impressionable minds," Stratyner said. "We hear so much about youngsters who are using things like Ecstasy and club drugs. Why would we want to add to that list of other substances to use?"
Drinking Study
I linked to a New York Times article the other day that summed up recent research on the impact of alcohol on the adolescent brain. That article was inspired by the publication of a study of 43,000 adults that was published this month in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine that is available for free here.
Comment here.
Newtown's Drug Dog
About ten years ago, we considered moving to Newtown, Conn., an exurban community about an hour north of where we are now. It had bigger houses and more land for lower prices and taxes (and perhaps most appealing of all to this newspaper nut, a great weekly paper). We were under no illusions that the area was free from all of the problems that plague youth in Westchester suburbs, but I do think we had a wistful feeling that life there would be a little bit more —what's the word? — wholesome.
I read today that the Newtown board of education voted 4-2 on Friday to allow Barro, the police department's dog, to sniff out drugs in lockers and in the high school parking lot starting this fall.
Because it smacks of something that you'd hear about in a police state, I had to think about what I thought of the idea of dogs roaming the hallways of a school. For about a minute. If the goal is to intervene with kids who are using drugs and see that they get counseling or treatment, how can you not applaud the district for taking action?
"We never saw heroin in the high school before this year," Dorrie Carolan, board member of the Newtown Parent Connection, was quoted in the Danbury News Times. "This is the first year we've seeing it. We have 10 families whose children have experimented with heroin this past school year.
"Since our inception three years ago, we have had 13 substance abuse related deaths."
The schools district's current policy is to suspend first-time offenders and direct them to counseling. Second-time offender face expulsion. I would hope that there's considerable latitude before kids are thrown out of the school, or that they have the opportunity to earn a third chance if they complete treatment.
Carrick did not develop her heroin habit in Hastings, and I have not seen evidence that it has made significant inroads in the school here in recent years. Most of the residents don't know or have forgotten how serious the heroin problem was in our village in the sixties and seventies, when there were more than a dozen fatal overdoses. It was also a force in the late eighties and early nineties, when several more kids became junkies, At least two subsequently ODed, although they had moved from the village.
Many of us are lulled into a false security because we have not yet experienced the rash of fatal ODs that other communities are suffering. Here, the drugs of choice are the more "wholesome" liquor and pot — namely, drugs that most parents can live with because they've done them, or are doing them, themselves.
Fortunately, it has been a few years since a drug-related death made us wring our hands and try to deal with the issue. But does it have to come to that? A meeting we attended a few months ago on the issue drew about 20 parents, and they were the same faces we've seen for years.
The lead paragraph in a story in the Hastings High School newspaper, The Buzzer, said it all in May:
What do you think about using dogs to sniff out drugs in schools?
Kegs and Kids
A story in the New York Times this morning titled "The Grim Neurology of Teenage Drinking" neatly sums up recent reseach about the damage that alcohol does to the adolescent brain.
"What was once a social and moral debate may soon become a neurobiological one," according to the article on the front page of the Science section. "The costs of early heavy drinking, experts say, appear to extend far beyond the time that drinking takes away from doing homework, dating, acquiring social skills, and the related tasks of growing up."
On the upbeat, there's also a story in the sports section about the return of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' No. 1 pick in 1999 to minor league baseball after treatment for a cocaine addiction.
Comment here.