Tag: alcohol abuse
Why Rudy Giuliani's Drinking Problem Isn't Really So Funny

Why Rudy Giuliani's Drinking Problem Isn't Really So Funny

In much the same way I know a lot about the Army from a not terribly distinguished career, I know a lot about drinking from the same grievous perspective. Let me assure you that when your drinking earns you an above-the-fold front page story in the New York Times that jumps to a full page inside the paper, as Rudy Giuliani’s drinking did on Thursday, it’s not funny.

Sure, there is a temptation to point fingers and snicker at the photos of Giuliani from 2020 with hair dye cascading in sweaty rivulets down his cheeks as he was attempting to captain the listing ship of Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign. After all, Giuliani was failing spectacularly at the time, losing 60 court challenges to election results and holding a press conference in the parking lot of a firm in Philadelphia known as Four Seasons Total Landscaping – get it: same name as the luxury hotel? – seemingly oblivious to how ridiculous he looked.

See, that’s one of the signature effects of, well, let’s call it what it is – alcoholism. You’re so deep within the warm embrace of whatever alcohol you’re consuming, Scotch in Giuliani’s case, that you can’t see yourself as the pathetically loud, grandiose, grandstanding drunk that you are. Think of it from within the alcoholic fog: You don’t sound loud to yourself; you’re not grandstanding, you’re standing up for a principle or a principal, either one will work when you’re so used to being governed by your addiction to alcohol that it’s impossible for you to see yourself as you appear to others.

There are a couple of what you might call alcoholic set-pieces in the Times story about Giuliani’s drinking. In one, he is wandering through the main dining room in a restaurant in East Hampton, probably the clubbish Nick and Toni’s, “as if waiting to be stopped by anyone, while the rest of his party dined in a back room,” according to a witness who described the scene for the Times. “He would walk back and forth like he wanted everyone to see him, more than once. He just wanted to be recognized.” In the other, the Times notes that Giuliani was such a regular drinker at the Trump International Hotel in Washington while his mentor/friend was president that “a custom plaque was placed at his table: ‘Rudolph W. Giuliani Private Office.’” I’ve known a few people who had their names on plaques in Village bars or on the backs of barstools. They’re all dead.

One of the worst things about an addiction to alcohol is that you don’t know you’re addicted. Why, all you have to do is sit down in a restaurant or hail a bartender, and you’re brought the exact thing you want. It’s called, “ordering,” the behavior that is so commonplace it’s able to conceal from the alcoholic what it really is: the satisfaction of a craving, the maintenance of an alcohol blood content which has risen to the level of a need. But you aren’t aware of that. In the case of Giuliani, his honorary plaque tells him otherwise, as does the back-slapping and approbation of those around him.

They are also the ones who can see the pathos that alcohol massages away. That you are as blinded as you are cushioned by the effects of alcohol tells you all you need to know about the sadness and loneliness of what medical science calls an “active alcoholic.”

People around Giuliani willing to speak with the Times did so in a manner that was “careful…and with considerable nuance,” the paper reported. This is commonly known in circles knowledgeable about alcoholism as tip-toeing around the elephant in the room, Giuliani’s huge consumption of alcohol being the elephant, and the rest of them being enablers.

That’s another problem faced by alcoholics – everyone is willing to help when all help costs is the price of single malt scotch or a cigar that Giuliani frequently “enjoyed” before his appearances on Fox News at the Grand Havana Room, described by the Times as “a Midtown cigar club that still treated him like the King of New York.” The Times described a patron “out of the former mayor’s line of sight…as he signaled the rest of the club, tipping back his empty hand in a drinking motion.” Patrons of the club were described as “slipping away to find a television, clenching through his [Giuliani’s] rickety defenses of Trump.”

There is the life of an alcoholic neatly described in a single scene: Gloriously celebrating in the throes of your friend, the glass you just picked up, while behind you, everyone else sees your bloodshot eyes or your running hair dye or hears your slurred words and says nothing, unwilling to interrupt your drinking for fear they’ll be seen as breaking the spell of your “fun.”

The Times couched much of its lengthy story about Giuliani’s drinking in terms of what he did for and with Donald Trump, pointing out that the special counsel has become interested in the levels of his “inebriation” at key moments like election eve, or during meetings he attended in the Oval Office. But excessive, habitual drinking doesn’t need to be seen in conjunction with anything or anyone except the person who has lost control over themselves to their addiction to alcohol. It’s not fun, and it’s not funny, for Rudy Giuliani or any other alcoholic living in the loneliness of addiction. It’s hell inside that bottle and crawling out of it is the hardest thing in the world.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

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Just A Taste Of Alcohol For Children Is Too Much, Research Shows

Just A Taste Of Alcohol For Children Is Too Much, Research Shows

By David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PITTSBURGH — A parent enjoying an alcoholic drink might find his or her young child to be curious about what’s in that bottle or glass.

It raises the question: Should the parent offer the child just a taste? Will it remove the temptation or encourage use or even abuse?

University of Pittsburgh researcher John E. Donovan said previous research findings prompt his recommendation against parents’ offering their children a taste of alcohol. Even if research, so far, shows no harm from only a taste, it also has shown no benefit. So why encourage alcohol consumption?

His current study published online in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research sought to identify factors that prompt children to taste or sip alcohol at ages as young as 8 or 10.

Research already has identified two factors predicting whether a 12-year-old child has tasted alcohol — the child’s attitude toward giving it a try and a family environment supportive of alcohol use.

But the study led by Donovan, a Ph.D. and associate professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Pitt, and co-written by Brooke S.G. Molina of Pitt’s departments of psychiatry and psychology, found that parental approval more so than the child’s psychological proneness is key to whether children 8 or 10 years old already have tasted alcohol.

“Children who sipped alcohol before age 12 reported that their parents were more approving of a child sipping or tasting alcohol and more likely to be current drinkers than those yet to have a sip,” he said. Parents’ comments confirmed that conclusion.

The study involving 452 children (238 girls and 214 boys 8 or 10 years old), and their families from Allegheny County, sought to identify factors that predict whether a child will start to sip or taste alcohol before age 12. One key finding is “that sipping during childhood is not itself a problem behavior, like delinquent behavior or drug use,” Donovan said.

A previous study he conducted determined that nearly two-thirds (66 percent) of 12-year-olds have at least tasted alcohol.

Children often have their first taste of alcohol during family gatherings or celebrations, he said. Parents in the study, even those regularly drinking in the presence of their children, did not roundly approve of offering their children a taste. But some were less opposed to it.

“We don’t really know yet whether childhood sipping or tasting (of alcohol) has any future negative consequences,” he said. “But our previous research found that sipping or tasting alcohol by age 10 was significantly related to early-onset drinking — that is, having more than a sip or a taste before age 15.”

Previous research also found early-onset drinking, as opposed to just tasting, to be associated with numerous negative outcomes for adolescents and young adults, including alcohol abuse and dependence, illicit drug use, prescription drug misuse, delinquent behavior, risky sexual behavior, motor vehicle crashes, and job problems, among others. But it’s not yet known whether just a taste or sip can lead to early consumption of alcohol and later negative outcomes.

But that information could eventually be drawn from already gathered information from Donovan’s ongoing longitudinal study, which is one that follows the same participants through time. “I don’t know whether sipping or offering a sip or taste can have any consequences later on,” he said. “So we shouldn’t assume there is no problem. You have to make your own decision, but it suggests that it may be a problem, and they shouldn’t have a taste.

“What we’re saying is that drinking with the family does not protect against problems or heavier involvement with alcohol later in life,” he said. “It doesn’t have a good benefit. It doesn’t help the child. It doesn’t prevent problems. If it is not helpful, why engage in it? It could create problems.”

AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan

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Army Hires More Counselors, But Soldiers Still Struggling

The past decade of war has significantly altered the global landscape, but it has also had a less obvious effect on soldiers’ mental health.

The Army has posted 130 new job openings this week in an effort to increase its staff of substance abuse counselors by about 30 percent.

While most people consider employment opportunities of any kind a positive sign in the current economic climate, this decision by the Army speaks to the troubling rise of alcohol abuse by soldiers returning from war. As the AP reports:

The number of troops abusing alcohol has roughly doubled in the last five years as soldiers go through the stressful cycle of training, serving in the wars, readjusting to home life and then doing it all over again months later, Dr. Les McFarling, head of the army’s substance program, said in an interview.
Some 13,000 soldiers were treated for substance abuse last year, all but about 1,900 for alcohol and the rest for drugs like marijuana and cocaine, McFarling said.

Although the military denies a direct link between drug abuse and the number of deployments, they say many soldiers turn to alcohol as a way to readjust or to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Thousands of soldiers struggle with PTSD and do not have access to counseling and treatment. Up until last week, many veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD were not receiving medical benefits from the military. Fortunately, a class-action lawsuit settled on Friday ensured that as many as 4,000 veterans who were medically discharged between 2003 and 2008 because of PTSD will now receive the necessary compensation and medical attention.

With researchers estimating that up to 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will be diagnosed with PTSD, the military needs to ensure that soldiers returning from war have resources to help them settle back into civilian life instead of letting them struggle alone and, as is often the case, turn to alcohol and other drugs.

The new Army counselors, whose pay will range from $50,000 to $106,000, are intended to help soldiers, their families, retirees, and eligible civilian employees at bases around the world. With constant arguments about cutting government spending, it’s reassuring to know that at least some military money will go to caring for the soldiers who are dealing with the aftermath of war.

Even though the hiring of additional counselors is a step toward helping soldiers who are struggling with alcohol abuse, a more effective approach would be to critically evaluate the wars that often contribute to the abuse in the first place. With prolonged wars dragging on in remote destinations, it’s understandable that soldiers will have a difficult time readjusting to life after combat and might turn to alcohol. No matter how many counselors the Army hires, they cannot erase the impact of ongoing wars.