Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
Mike Ellis
TDR MEMBER
I see no reason to slam Illflem for posting information that has been in several published articles, no sense shooting the messager.
That said, I did go out and read the linked articles and my view is that they are stinking morass of BS. According to the definitions of "dry drunk" behaviour they list in the various pieces, everybody I know from myself to my 5-yr old is a "dry drunk".
Addiction and recovery are a terrible process for anyone to endure, and I am not all that sure that complete recovery is ever possible judging from the experiences of people in my immediate circle. My youngest brother-in-law rots away in a treatment center at this very moment for drug addiction, having violated his parole yet again in spectacularly stupid manner. First parole violation was to be caught raising some weed in his back yard. His next door neighbor being a cop, with a clear view of the proceedings, this was less than bright. After his arrest, when asked why he did something so stupid with a cop next door, he answered, "Aw, he's my buddy. He wouldn't do nothin' about it. "
After a year or so in a boot camp treatment program (for about the nth time) he comes back home full of fire and zeal, Bible in each hand and stern words for all the rest of us teetering on the edge of perdition. This brave new outlook lasted approximately as long as it took him to skedaddle down the road and reconnect with his circle of loser friends and start "using" again. This time around, he invented himself a secret-agent-like identity and began passing information on all the OTHER druggies to the cops, using this unofficial undercover activity as the excuse to start up on drugs again - "hafta blend in with the targets see... ". When he strolled in to the probation guy to take his next pee test, he was outraged that the guy didn't accept his Austin Powers rationale for the positive test and cried about his infringed rights and important crusade all the way to the pokey. Once again, back in treatment (almost 2 years this time) and holier than ever.
I described the above excerpts (only a couple out of many, many episodes of BIL idiocy) to compare the experiences I've had with addicts against President Bush. Both of my grandfathers were alcoholics, the prototypical mean drunk variant, and their families were laid waste in truly tragic fashion - abject poverty, mental and physical violence, you name it. Many of my other family members have had alcohol destroy their lives, seemingly wiping out their own free will and ability to do much of anything except to screw up anything and everything they touch.
I contrast this with the behavior of someone like President Bush, who has functioned on an incredibly high level - graduating from college TWICE, becoming a fighter jet pilot (NOT an easy thing to do by any stretch of the imagination), serving as Governor of a large state, and becoming President of the United States to boot.
He must be what you call a "high functioning" addict or something. All I know, is he has done about 10,000% better than any addict I have ever known in my life, somebody needs to find out what he was drinking or taking and I will write it down and hand it over to all my addiction-prone friends and family.
coldsteel,
You were joking about Mexico invading Texas, but in fact this is an ongoing process and Mexico has made it clear they intend to eventually retake the Southwestern United States through illegal immigration. It's working like gangbusters so far, come on down to Texas and drive around San Antonio, Houston, DFW, and count the number of TV and radio stations that have become Spanish language only for instance. Things have changed dramatically in the last 15 years or so.
That said, I did go out and read the linked articles and my view is that they are stinking morass of BS. According to the definitions of "dry drunk" behaviour they list in the various pieces, everybody I know from myself to my 5-yr old is a "dry drunk".
Addiction and recovery are a terrible process for anyone to endure, and I am not all that sure that complete recovery is ever possible judging from the experiences of people in my immediate circle. My youngest brother-in-law rots away in a treatment center at this very moment for drug addiction, having violated his parole yet again in spectacularly stupid manner. First parole violation was to be caught raising some weed in his back yard. His next door neighbor being a cop, with a clear view of the proceedings, this was less than bright. After his arrest, when asked why he did something so stupid with a cop next door, he answered, "Aw, he's my buddy. He wouldn't do nothin' about it. "
After a year or so in a boot camp treatment program (for about the nth time) he comes back home full of fire and zeal, Bible in each hand and stern words for all the rest of us teetering on the edge of perdition. This brave new outlook lasted approximately as long as it took him to skedaddle down the road and reconnect with his circle of loser friends and start "using" again. This time around, he invented himself a secret-agent-like identity and began passing information on all the OTHER druggies to the cops, using this unofficial undercover activity as the excuse to start up on drugs again - "hafta blend in with the targets see... ". When he strolled in to the probation guy to take his next pee test, he was outraged that the guy didn't accept his Austin Powers rationale for the positive test and cried about his infringed rights and important crusade all the way to the pokey. Once again, back in treatment (almost 2 years this time) and holier than ever.
I described the above excerpts (only a couple out of many, many episodes of BIL idiocy) to compare the experiences I've had with addicts against President Bush. Both of my grandfathers were alcoholics, the prototypical mean drunk variant, and their families were laid waste in truly tragic fashion - abject poverty, mental and physical violence, you name it. Many of my other family members have had alcohol destroy their lives, seemingly wiping out their own free will and ability to do much of anything except to screw up anything and everything they touch.
I contrast this with the behavior of someone like President Bush, who has functioned on an incredibly high level - graduating from college TWICE, becoming a fighter jet pilot (NOT an easy thing to do by any stretch of the imagination), serving as Governor of a large state, and becoming President of the United States to boot.
He must be what you call a "high functioning" addict or something. All I know, is he has done about 10,000% better than any addict I have ever known in my life, somebody needs to find out what he was drinking or taking and I will write it down and hand it over to all my addiction-prone friends and family.
coldsteel,
You were joking about Mexico invading Texas, but in fact this is an ongoing process and Mexico has made it clear they intend to eventually retake the Southwestern United States through illegal immigration. It's working like gangbusters so far, come on down to Texas and drive around San Antonio, Houston, DFW, and count the number of TV and radio stations that have become Spanish language only for instance. Things have changed dramatically in the last 15 years or so.
