Alan Bisbort
'Dry drunk: Is Bush making a cry for help?'
Thu Sep 26 19:28:46 2002
208.152.73.191

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=8316&mode=nested&order=0
'Dry drunk: Is Bush making a cry for help?'
By Alan Bisbort, American Politics Journal
September 26, 2002

HARTFORD (APJP) -- Alcoholics Anonymous has a name for someone who is a
drunk in every way except for the actual imbibing of spirits. They call
that person a "dry drunk." This is not a judgmental term, nor should this
be a judgmental topic in America, where there are, by even the most
conservative estimates, 10 million adult alcoholics, and very few
families that have not been touched, in one way or another, by this
national scourge. This same scourge has, by his own admission, also
touched the life of our Commander in Chief.

Whether George W. Bush is or was an alcoholic is not the point here. I am
taking him at his word that he stopped what he termed "heavy drinking" in
1986, at age 40. The point here is that, based on Bush's recent behavior,
he could very well be a "dry drunk." Of course, he may just be an
immature bully who will gladly sacrifice thousands of lives to get his
way even against the advice of the most respected and mature members of
his own party.

Still, Bush's past battles with the bottle are worth pondering at a time
like this, one of the most dangerous in the nation's history. When a
recovering alcoholic begins to engage in what AA calls "stinking
thinking," he or she begins to exhibit the old attitudes and pathologies
of their drinking years. These include an increase in anxiety, mild
tremors, mild depression, disturbed sleep patterns, inability to think
clearly, craving for junk food, irritability, sudden bursts of anger and
unpredictable mood swings. According to AA literature, "Boredom and
listlessness may alternate with intense feelings of resentment against
family and friends, and explosive outbursts of violence."

Bush said he was a "heavy drinker." But let's not be coy here. Anyone who
has ever imbibed heavily over a long period of time knows that "heavy
drinker" is the rich man's (or the politician's) code for alcoholic.

For the record, Bush claims to have stopped drinking for reasons that
change each time he's asked about his substance-abusing past (which isn't
often, thanks to a cowed press). Let's say he started experimenting with
alcohol, as per the national norm, at 16 at prep school, and he began
getting regularly wasted at Yale at 18. This would mean that Bush drank
steadily "heavily" for at least 22 years. We are, then, asked to believe
that he went cold turkey after more than two decades of heavy drinking, a
nearly impossible feat even for someone, as he claims, who was rescued by
God.

Far be it from me to cast stones when it comes to alcohol. I've seen the
devastating toll alcoholism can take. My brother was an honors student in
college, when he began drinking heavily (party drinking, as was the
tradition at southern colleges back then). By the time he was in his
mid-30s, real and dramatic changes had occurred in his metabolism and
brain chemistry. Medical experts told me at the time that just 15 years
of sustained drinking can do irreversible physical harm of this sort. In
other words, even if my brother stopped drinking, the damage would remain
done. But by most measuring sticks, my brother was a functioning member
of society. He held jobs, paid his rent and bills, and he made heroic
efforts to beat his cursed addiction. He climbed the 12 steps more times
than Stallone climbed those steps in "Rocky."

Though I deeply loved my brother and miss him terribly now, I could not
deny the damage, even in his long periods of sobriety, that alcohol did
to him. Rather, I could not deny the damage, but I could not bear to
watch it happen. I could feel it in my bones that he was up against
something stronger than his will and his prodigious intellect. Stinking
thinking, like kudzu, simply overtook his mind, and alcohol killed his
body.

It is worth reflecting on George W. Bush's academic history. He graduated
from two of the finest institutions of higher learning in this country:
Yale and Harvard. He didn't make great grades, but he graduated, an
accomplishment warranting some respect. Many rich, well-connected boys
have flunked out. [NOTE from the editors: ...or tossed out, as was one
Richard Scaife, from Yale, allegedly for his own love of the bottle.]

The question is then begged, and seems to at least deserve some pause for
pondering: how did he, at age 58, get so fumble-tongued, incapable of
stringing more than two coherent sentences together, snippily irritable
with anyone who dares disagree with him or even ask a question, poutily
turning his back on the democratically elected president of one of our
most important allies because of something one of his underlings said
about him (Germany's Schroder, of course), listlessly in need of constant
vacations and rest, dangerously obsessed with only one thing (Iraq), to
the exclusion of all other things (including an economy that is slowly
sucking the life from the nation as well as the retirement savings of
anyone reading these words)?

Furthermore, why is Bush so eager to engage in violence and so incapable
of explaining why?

For drunks to function for any length of time in the world, they need
enablers. Congress is filling that bill splendidly right now for Bush. As
BuzzFlash put it about the recent corporate scandals, "For most of his
adult life, those people around him enabled Bush's alcoholism. Now the
Democratic Senate is enabling the corporate corruption problem of his
administration by not using their Constitutional powers to demand the
truth."

Not only the Congress but the nation seems to be watching this happen.
No. They are encouraging it to happen. Who knows, maybe we are all in
shock, just as we are when a member of our family does something
appalling or outrageous under alcohol's bidding. God knows, the crazy
behavior by the administration is so wild and unprecedented, covering
such frightening unknown territory up ahead that it may be easier to look
away.

But we can't look away. George W. Bush needs an intervention. Let's be
his interveners. Let's raise our sober voices. Let's ask questions,
demand more than temper tantrums and pouting from the Commander in Chief.
Let's do this before it's too late and a dry drunk's dream of glory
becomes our national nightmare.

Alan Bisbort is a columnist for the Hartford Advocate. His more recent
book is "Famous Last Words" (Pomegranate).

Copyright © 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, American Politics
Journal Publications, Inc.

Reprinted from American Politics Journal:
http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020924Bisbort.html 
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