Someone must be spiking the Konservative Kool-Aid. Lately it seems that everyone wants to join my club - A.A.
Hate-mongering, corruption, child molesting? Off to rehab with you! Mark Foley is only the latest member of the "I'm not a criminal - I'm a drunk" contingent. It's just like the "Jesus in the jailhouse" club, except that these guys are already Bible-thumpers, so they have to play the next 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card - the Alcoholic card.
Sorry, fellas. It ain't that easy.
They all have some idea that, if you call alcoholism a disease, then you're not responsible for what you've done. It was the booze's fault.
As a recovering alcoholic, I can tell you that it doesn't work that way. Having a disease does not absolve you of responsibility for managing that disease. Mel, it wasn't the booze that made you anti-Semitic. Bob, it wasn't the booze that made you a corrupt congressman-on-the-take. Mark, it sure as hell wasn't the booze that made you a pedophile. So if you think that you can boo-hoo your way into rehab instead of jail, go ahead and give it your best shot. But to blame it on the booze?
This drunk ain't buying it.
Update - thanks to the scintillating Blue Gal and Crooks and Liars for the mention!
7 comments:
(Go to Lohmann's Fallible Truths blog for another take on Foley).
Alcohol like crytal meth seems to be the final ingredient, like adding a bullet to a gun, that makes something, a person or a gun, very hazardous.
Of course Alicia is right, responsibility is not assumed by the gun or the alcohol or meth, but rather REMAINS with the person who loads themselves or the gun
Now knowing that they have a loaded gun or an unihibited person (themselves) on their hands, a NORMAL adult might be very fucking careful to DO NO HARM with the gun or their own selves.
And most of the time, many people can handle a loaded gun or themselves when they're are 'loaded'.
The problem with Foley and the Amish kid killer, is that they did not handle themselves right. They were real wrong. So wrong that you might never be able to fathom their actions.
But a nation that legalizes torture sets a very, very, very BAd example for its citizens about whether their is any true limits on human conduct. We as a nation do not show mercy or restraint. Do you really expect everbody in their personal lives to be better than the nation?
I pray for Foley and (even) Bush, and the Amish and the prisoners in Guantananom and the Iraqis and everyone else that is afflicted by our society who is being harmed or doing harm. For these I pray..
Excellent point, Bruce. I pray for them, too. And I agree that as a nation we have given up any pretense to the moral high ground.
Don't want to go jumping on any bandwagons here, but that guy's a monster, and there IS NO EXCUSE that ever can be valid or explain away what he did.
Hypocrite
=RD=
I have to laugh at the "The Booze Made Me Do It" excuse.
If you take the booze away from a drunken horse thief, you still have a horse thief.
Good post, A. I'm back from Chicago and starting to get back into the swing.
That should be *next*.
That typo was Mel Gibson's fault.
I aabsolutely vringed when I heard this. I am preaching to the choir (literally) I know, but this crap diluted the real process and the real healing that goes on at an inpatient Substance abuse treatment center. Shame on all those who go in just to get away from pesky press people.
'vringed' - I love that! You are so right on about that. I take alcoholism, recovery, and the 12 steps way too seriously to stand by and watch it be an easy out for slimeballs.
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