This blog is about alcoholism with particular emphasis on the destructive behavior patterns exhibited by those alcoholics who have not yet reached the final, self-destructive stage. In other words, most of them
EXCLUSIVE: Casey Anthony is spotted pounding St Patrick's Day shots and pints in the wee hours at West Palm Beach bar as she chats up several mystery men
O. J. Simpson likes to relax at this bar even though he’s shackled to a strict drinking limit. That
is one of the terms of his parole: not to drink “to excess,” defined as
a .08-or-higher blood-alcohol content level. Simpson monitors his blood
with a personal Breathalyzer day and night, since a parole officer
could burst into either bar or bedroom to test him at any moment.
Simpson had been frequenting bars at the hotel since his release from prison. Hotel staff tells TMZ ... at around midnight last night, Simpson was drunk and became disruptive at the Clique bar. We're told
Simpson was angry at hotel staff and glasses broke at the bar.
Check out the pic below of Simpson strolling through the hotel Wednesday night.
In 1996 a paperback version of my book was published in the United Kingdom with the title The Secret History of Alcoholism. This re-publication of my 1992 book gave me the opportunity to update some of the chapters, to include other famous people who I had reason to suspect were alcoholics. One person I added was O J Simpson,the American football player who was found "not guilty" of murdering his ex-wife and her friend in a famous trial. I included (in Chapter Eight, Alcoholism Kills) the following, with emphasis now added:
Years later, another husband (and possible alcoholic) stood accused of murder. Over many months of 1994 and 1995 O.J. Simpson was tried for the brutal knife-slaying of Nicole Simpson, his former wife and Ronald Goldman, a young male acquaintance. Admitted to evidence during the lengthy trial was a note Simpson had written in 1989 to his then wife, in which he apologized for punching her: "... I'm not going to blame being drunk thats [sic] no excuse. (But I have decided to stop drinking and will go to A.A.)" While testifying, Denise Brown, Nicole's sister, was asked if Simpson had a drinking problem. Because of Simpson's lawyers' objections, Denise (a recovering alcoholic) was not allowed to respond. O.J. Simpson was acquitted, but opinion polls showed that most Americans were convinced that this charming, dapper, over-achieving ex-football star was indeed the killer.
Although he was acquitted in the murder trial, O J Simpson was convicted for another crime and sentenced to prison. In October 2017 he will be released on parole.
The money that his father sent to him
for tuition at the University was spent on food and drink, with many of
his nights spent at coffee houses and taverns getting drunk and arguing
about Hegelian philosophy with other students.
Other telling behavior: Marx’s Mean and Mendacious Manner
In temperament, Marx could be cruel and authoritarian. He treated people with whom he disagreed in a crude and mean way, often ridiculing them in public gatherings. Marx
had no hesitation about being a hypocrite; when he wanted something
from someone he would flatter them in letters or conversation, but then
attack them in nasty language behind their backs to others. He
often used racial slurs and insulting words to describe the mannerisms
or appearance of his opponents in the socialist movement.
For instance, in an 1862 letter to
Frederick Engels, Marx described leading nineteenth-century German
socialist, Ferdinand Lassalle, in the following way:
The Jewish Nigger Lassalle ...
fortunately departs at the end of this week ... It is now absolutely
clear to me that, as both the shape of his head and his hair texture
shows – he descends from the Negros who joined Moses’ flight from Egypt
(unless his mother or grandmother on the paternal side hybridized with a
nigger). Now this combination of Germanness and Jewishness with a
primarily Negro substance creates a strange product. The pushiness of
the fellow is also nigger-like.
"Her father, George Tyler Moore, a clerk, and her mother, the former Margery Hackett, were both alcoholics... "
"In the 1980s, Ms. Moore admitted to having a drinking problem. It had
started, she said, when she was starring in “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and
had finally reached untenable levels. (In 2000, Mr. Van Dyke told Larry
King that he was also an alcoholic and that he had also started
drinking heavily while working on the show.) Ms. Moore entered the Betty
Ford Center for treatment in 1984."
Jimmy Fallon was
warned to cut back on his boozing by NBC chiefs following a series of
bizarre late-night accidents, according to multiple insiders.
An NBC insider said of the funnyman, “There were fears that Fallon was out of control
and something could happen while he’s out drinking. Things got so
serious at one stage that execs feared that Jimmy was splitting up with
his wife over his drinking, but they patched things up.”
The beloved “Tonight Show” host’s recent allegedly alcohol-aided antics include tripping on a rug at home and nearly severing his ring finger
on a table in June 2015.
Then he chipped his tooth “trying to open
medicine for his injured finger” a few months later. In October 2015 he cut his hand on a bottle of Jägermeister. In September of this year a “very drunk” Fallon was seen alone at an NYC punk bar at 3 a.m, which sparked more NBC concerns.
WASHINGTON — Year after year, both in his messy personal life and his brazen theft of classified documents from the National Security Agency, Harold T. Martin III put to the test the government’s costly system for protecting secrets.
And year after year, the system failed.
Mr.
Martin got and kept a top-secret security clearance despite a record
that included drinking problems, a drunken-driving arrest, two divorces,
unpaid tax bills, a charge of computer harassment and a bizarre episode
in which he posed as a police officer in a traffic dispute. Under
clearance rules, such events should have triggered closer scrutiny by
the security agencies where he worked as a contractor.
When I joined Ramparts in 1966, Hinckle was
already well on his way at age twenty-seven to becoming a living legend.
While most of the staff came to work in street-fighter chic, he had his
own homemade version of bella figura, showing
up most days in a tie and three-piece suit, although sometimes changing
pace with patent leather dancing pumps and a maroon velvet jacket.
Jowly and plump and conveying an impression of fluid retention, he was
an imperious alcoholic and only those who didn’t realize how Irish he
was regarded it as paradoxical that he should become more fluent and
inventive the more he drank, and that he never—even after several hours
at Cookie Pacetti’s, the working-class watering hole where he went to
escape intellectuals and politicos—appeared drunk.
... French
journalist Jean Quatremer, who conducted the interview, said Mr Juncker
glugged four glasses of champagne during the course of their light
lunch.
He
recalled how during a previous meeting when Mr Juncker was prime
minister of Luxembourg, he had drunk three straight glasses of cognac at
the end of a meal where he had enjoyed many glasses of white wine.
A co-pilot on a charter plane in Michigan bound for Massachusetts was
arrested Thursday after a colleague suspected that he was drunk.
Traverse City police Capt. Kevin Dunklow said the Talon Air
co-pilot’s breath test showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.30, nearly four
times the legal threshold for drunken driving.
Talon Air praised its employee for discovering the suspect was drunk.
“We are very proud of Captain Manny Ramirez’ immediate action in
detecting the co-pilot’s condition and removing him from his position,”
Talon Air said. “This is yet another example of Talon Air’s safety
procedures working effectively on behalf of our clients and for airport
safety.”
Talon Air said the co-pilot was “immediately terminated” following the incident. His name hasn’t been released.
Considering the difficulty of identifying alcoholics it is probable that the percentage of licensed commercial pilots who are active alcoholics is similar to the percentage for the general public.
" ... When we were kids, my sisters and I had a house rule: if it’s after
seven, don’t answer the phone. None of us wanted to be the one to pick
up if it was dad, his voice dulled, the words slurred and sprawling."
Phil
Parker, the son of a Baptist preacher, said he had never tasted liquor
until his Harvard graduate school classmates lured him into a smoky
cocktail lounge for the first time.
“This
night in the bar was like no other time in my life,” he wrote years
later. “Not only was I completely at ease, but I actually loved all the
strangers around me and they loved me in return, I thought, all because
of this magic potion, alcohol.”
After
that, he wrote, he lived only to drink. He graduated, but was fired
from one teaching job after another, wound up in an asylum and finally
landed homeless on the then-squalid Bowery in Manhattan in the
mid-1960s. There, he met a social worker, a member of Alcoholics
Anonymous, who told him how she had sobered up.
The techno music pioneer has reached middle age, with a new memoir out about his struggles with alcohol, poverty and success.
... Moby, born Richard Melville Hall and now 50 years old, has sold more
than 20 million albums world-wide; his dozen official releases include
“Play” (1999), “18” (2002) and “Innocents” (2013). It wasn’t an easy
path. He grew up poor in an affluent Connecticut suburb and battled
alcoholism for almost two decades.
... Moby was drinking heavily by the late 1980s, before becoming sober for a few years and then starting to drink again in 1995.
