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Jeff Bridges plays an alcoholic, Maggie Gyllenhaal costars.(Lorey Sebastian / Fox Searchlight)
Over the years there have been many films that have attempted to tackle the subject of alcoholism. Certain films inject an alcoholic into the script without ever elaborating on the disease of alcoholism and what operates behind it; what happens is that the public develops inaccurate opinions of addicts and what kind of people they are. There have been movies, like "28 Days", that have attempted to model life inside a treatment facility; it paints a fairly accurate picture of what it is like being thrown into a group of people you have never met and are asked to share your deepest darkest secrets with them. "Leaving Las Vegas" chronicles the life of an alcoholic who is hell bent on drinking himself to death. The power of film is in its ability to shape the way we interpret things we encounter in our own lives, the more accurate the portrayal the more accurate the opinion that is developed.
Jeff Bridges recently starred in the movie "Crazy Heart" which attempts to model the life of an alcoholic. Bridges' character, Otis "Bad" Blake is a 57-year-old country singer and songwriter whose life has begun to spiral out of control. He is a chain smoking alcoholic who can't go more than a couple hours without whiskey and suffers from blackouts and excessive vomiting. While working in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bridges' character becomes involved with a newspaper reporter who has a four year old son. The movie works to show how unmanageable the addict's life can be, car accidents and broken bones are common events in the alcoholic's life. While in the hospital doctors tell him that if he doesn't stop drinking and smoking he'll end up with emphysema, heart failure, cancer or a stroke. Naturally, the addict is not easily convinced and he continues drinking until his life becomes even more dysfunctional and he checks himself into a detox rehab program where he is given antabuse (a drug that makes you sick if you consume alcohol wile on it) and he admits that he is an alcoholic.
Last evening Jeff Bridges won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in "Crazy Heart". Knowing this, what are your thoughts, do you feel like this film is accurate in portraying the life of an alcoholic/addict? Let us know what you thought of the movie.
At this point it is probably safe to say that the majority of Americans are familiar with the Taconic Parkway tragedy from back in July. Where Diane Schuler drove the wrong way down the Taconic Pkwy with five children in a minivan, drunk and stoned; crashing head-on with a SUV carrying three people. A total of eight people died in the wreck, the sole survivor was Diane Schuler's five-year-old Brian Schuler; it's is a blessing that more were not injured in that horrific accident. Schuler's husband Daniel has repeatedly claimed that Diane was not an alcoholic and that she hardly ever drank, furthermore, Daniel states that he had never seen her drunk. As for the marijuana, well, apparently that was only for medicinal purposes to help her sleep. Daniel Schuler went so far as to hire a private detective to dispute the toxicology findings, but, basically the investigator Tom Rushkin has been hired to poke holes in the case against Diane. The latest defense put forth is interesting to say the least! Tom Ruskin stated, "That Taconic mom Diane Schuler couldn't have been drunk and high when she crashed her car driving the wrong way down the Taconic because she ordered Chicken Selects from McDonalds four hours earlier", reports The Village Voice. One has to wonder how it is possible, after seven innocent people lost their lives, that Rushkin and Schuler's husband could think that would prove her innocence.
Apparently, Schuler could not have been drunk or stoned, she argued with a McDonalds' employee and demanded to speak to a manager about ordering something not on the breakfast menu - Chicken Selects. A McDonalds' employee who served Schuler filled out an affidavit and failed to mention that Schuler seemed intoxicated, and that is the argument in a nutshell. Maybe Schuler wasn't inebriated at the McDonalds, but, there was another four hours until the fatal crash which would be plenty of time to drink and smoke. Diane "was seen by three witnesses vomiting at the side of the road on the morning of the crash. At the time of that report, Ruskin said that if it was Schuler vomiting, it proved that she was incapacitated by illness and not by pot and alcohol", according to The Village Voice. It is unbelievable how hard evidence against Diane Schuler keeps popping up and Rushkin keeps dreaming up magical alternatives to why Schuler couldn't be intoxicated. Incapacitated by illness, like alcohol has never made people vomit when they mix alcohol with pot?
Diane Schuler was an alcoholic who took the lives of many people with her addiction. The evidence all points in the same direction and the longer people try to cover for Diane the worse it makes her and the entire family look. Is it possible that Diane hid her disease from everyone, sure it's possible; but, there are people out there who know what happened on that tragic day and they are not speaking up. If anything, the truth is owed to the loved ones of the deceased; why belabor this tragedy any longer. Everyday, people get behind the wheel intoxicated even with children, as we saw in Schuler's case; New York just passed a bill that makes driving intoxicated with a child in the car a felony. Unfortunately, laws have very little sway against an addicted mind.
The video below seems slow and pointless until the end when everything suddenly speeds up. Or at least that is how it appears. We wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving.
I would like to share with you my thoughts about a Blog post that Roger Ebert did a few days ago that I found to be quite intriguing and informative. It's not every day that people in the spotlight decide to discuss their struggles with Alcoholism and their journey towards recovery outside of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Roger Ebert has not had a drink in 30 years and thought that perhaps sharing a little bit of his experience without going into a full on "Drunkalog" might help some body work towards starting their own journey towards recovery. As Ebert says: "You may be wondering, in fact, why I'm violating the A.A. policy of anonymity and outing myself. A.A. is anonymous not because of shame but because of prudence; people who go public with their newly-found sobriety have an alarming tendency to relapse". Ebert conservatively opens the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous to the outside world and gives people a glimpse of what it is about and how it might be able to help. I believe that he very carefully goes about his post in order to not break the principles set forth by A.A.
Let's face it, there is a lot of social stigmas regarding A.A. and many people refer to it as a religion or a cult. Roger Ebert attempts to clear up some of those ideas regarding the program, "A "cult?" How can that be, when it's free, nobody profits and nobody is in charge? A.A. is an oral tradition reaching back to that first meeting between Bill W. and Doctor Bob in the lobby of an Akron hotel. They'd tried psychiatry, the church, the Cure. Maybe, they thought, drunks can help each other, and pass it along. A.A. has spread to every continent and into countless languages, and remains essentially invisible. I was dumbfounded to discover there was a meeting all along right down the hall from my desk".
A.A. helps those people who want to be helped, it is not a program of idea pushers and there is no one way to work a program; if it works for you, than it works and nobody is going to tell you that you are working the program the wrong way. It is a collective of similar minds with similar problems, all working towards one common goal - Don't drink no matter what!
Roger Ebert in my opinion rather beautifully discusses his experience upon arriving at the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and talks a little bit about the serenity that he found once he became a member. Without breaking peoples' anonymity he talks about some of the people he met and who helped him see things a little more clearly along the way. Alcoholism is not something you manage on your own and if that were the case there would be no need for such a program; people find strength to not pick up their next drink inside the rooms of recovery and it may seem simple and that is because it is a simple program based on 12 steps that one can live their life by.
"'Everybody's story is the same,' Humble Howard liked to say. 'We drank too much, we came here, we stopped, and here we are to tell the tale.' Before I went to my first meeting, I imagined the drunks would sit around telling drinking stories. Or perhaps they would all be depressing and solemn and holier-than-thou. I found out you rarely get to be an alcoholic by being depressing and solemn and holier-than-thou. These were the same people I drank with, although now they were making more sense", relates Ebert.
I encourage everyone to read Roger Ebert's post: My Name is Roger, and I'm an Alcoholic because it is a very enlightening piece from one man's lips about millions of people's experiences. I would love to hear your thoughts...
So sad, the news that came my way this morning, a 22 year-old's plea for a transplant was refused. Alcoholic Gary Reinbach dead at 22 after transplant refused while at University College Hospital in London. This is a troubling story, which I read on Times Online, of the ethics in the health care system on a global level; unfortunately, this is not a new story, nor one that we will not hear again. How a 22 year kid could be refused a liver transplant, despite his alcoholism, has to make you wonder: Is the donor organ system flawed?
Gary Reinbach started drinking at a very young age, a product of a broken home in Essex, England. Nine years later he would be diagnosed and admitted to the hospital for an alcohol related illness for the first time. He was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver which is a fatal disorder that requires a liver transplant. The catch 22 is that in order for an alcoholic to receive a transplant they must demonstrate that the have been sober for 6 months; an impossible feat for a patient that does not have 6 months to live. Gary's doctors and his family went public making an appeal for the rules to be waived. But, despite their appeal Reinbach died less than 48 hours after it was issued; he died only 10 weeks after being admitted. This is unacceptable on multiple fronts for the fact is that people who suffer from the disease of alcoholism get less of an opportunity to receive proper health care than other diseases; do they make obese people swear they will stop overeating before they are given an insulin pump? Alcoholism is a disease that is far from understood by the masses of people who believe that alcoholics simply lack will power and that is why they continue to drink.
It is fair to say that if Gary were granted the transplant he would have had the opportunity to re-evaluate things and at least had one second chance to better his life. Sadly, this is not the case and the rules for donor organs do not leave room for exceptions; cutting people's lives short because people do not understand the disease concept of addiction. It is understandable that a repeat offender, someone in and out of hospitals for multiple years, does not receive a transplant; but, Gary was not one of those people, nor was he given the chance to prove that to be true.
My deepest sympathy and compassion goes out to Gary Reinbach's family. My greatest hope is that he did not die in vain and that his story will convince policy makers that a change needs to be made. Please share your thoughts with me on this subject as I will be glad to hear other's opinions. This story deeply pains my heart!
