relapse
Here's a tip from one AA member to another purportedly sober person: beer counts, even for presidents, even for idiots. But wait, he got sober through religious conversion, right? Found the Lord, met with Billy Graham. In 24 years of doing beginners' meetings, I have discovered that really doesn't seem to work. Ergo . . .
This explains a lot. Heaven help us over the next 591 days. It's been bad enough while he's (allegedly) been sober. Now he gets drunk and calls in sick to the G8 conference? Courtesy of Culture Kitchen. Your president, hard at work.
Does this scare the shit out of you? If he's a drunk like I'm a drunk, we're in even bigger trouble.
More from the Times Online:
Yesterday afternoon Mr Bush was photographed sipping something that resembled beer, while sitting around a picnic table in a small group with Ms Merkel, but as the President has not drunk alcohol for more than 20 years it is unlikely that it was anything stronger than a fizzy drink.
Um . . . okay, right. But then he couldn't get up and out of his room the next morning because of a tummy ailment? I've had that very kind of tummy ailment. That head thrown back in the chair posture is one with which I am intimately familiar. My tummy ailment was generally better the morning after, as I always ended up puking by end of evening. But okay, it was a "fizzy drink" and we're not all at the mercy of a drunken madman. I believe it. You?
Update: SK and Ms. Nator report it's a nonalcoholic beer. So we're back to his being just a dry drunk.
Dry Drunk symptomology:
Grandiose behavior
Pomposity
Exaggerated self-importance
A rigidly judgmental outlook
Impatience
Childish behavior
Irresponsible behavior
Irrational rationalization
Projection
Overreaction
This explains a lot. Heaven help us over the next 591 days. It's been bad enough while he's (allegedly) been sober. Now he gets drunk and calls in sick to the G8 conference? Courtesy of Culture Kitchen. Your president, hard at work.
Does this scare the shit out of you? If he's a drunk like I'm a drunk, we're in even bigger trouble.
More from the Times Online:
Yesterday afternoon Mr Bush was photographed sipping something that resembled beer, while sitting around a picnic table in a small group with Ms Merkel, but as the President has not drunk alcohol for more than 20 years it is unlikely that it was anything stronger than a fizzy drink.
Um . . . okay, right. But then he couldn't get up and out of his room the next morning because of a tummy ailment? I've had that very kind of tummy ailment. That head thrown back in the chair posture is one with which I am intimately familiar. My tummy ailment was generally better the morning after, as I always ended up puking by end of evening. But okay, it was a "fizzy drink" and we're not all at the mercy of a drunken madman. I believe it. You?
Update: SK and Ms. Nator report it's a nonalcoholic beer. So we're back to his being just a dry drunk.
Dry Drunk symptomology:
Grandiose behavior
Pomposity
Exaggerated self-importance
A rigidly judgmental outlook
Impatience
Childish behavior
Irresponsible behavior
Irrational rationalization
Projection
Overreaction
Labels: aa, bush, crooks and liars, dry drunk, relapse
posted by BigAssBelle at 12:26 PM
20 Comments:
Sorry to burst your bubble, Belle, but I did a little research and it looks like the bottle next to him is a "Buckler" - a type of non-alcoholic beer.
Not that alcoholics should be drinking fake beer, anyway. Or that I would trust that he didn't sneak in the real stuff!
Hey Lynette, sorry to disappoint you, but that looks like Buckler "beer", ie non-alcoholic beer.
I was almost fooled because I think it used to be low-alcoholic (0.5%) but that was changed pretty rapidly for the middle eastern market (and foreign troops serving there, I seem to remember, which makes it quite ironic, since this was during the time of his daddy's Gulf War)
Hate him anyway. It's okay, he is a dull dull tool, a blunt instrument. Something for others to use as a pawn. Hate him. Hate him well. :)
If he relapsed I wouldn't blame him. I'd drink too if I'd royally fucked up two nations (us and Iraq, the latter much moreso) and hosed an opportunity to be a great leader at a time when the control is in dire need.
You have my blessing, darling!
Should alcoholics be drinking something that tastes like alcohol?
I agree: that stomach problem this morning was kind of a coincidence.
But that's right, Lynette, he doesn't need to worry about relapsing because God cured him.
I am sure if it is non-alcoholic, Dick Cheney makes sure to take the cap off, add alcohol an replaces cap. Thus keeping puppet-boy president suitably brain dead.
How interesting. He consistently displays EVERY one of those characteristics. Thanks for the link.
At least he's not trying to give the German Chancellor a back massage this time...
I guess I must have missed all the meetings where the topic of the day was “eagerly wishing relapse upon others”. Seems to me regardless of how many beginner meetings one has chaired it seems a little grandiose and maybe just a hair pompous to speculate with such certainty that someone else is an alcoholic, a drug addict, or is on the slippery slope toward relapse. But of course having been sober for so long and tutored so many newbie beginners surely its not a sense of exaggerated self-importance or a rigid judgmental outlook you have regarding this person, but rather just plain good old fashioned experience.
It does however disturb me that the participants of this blog are so awful impatient to see others suffer the pain and consequences of an addiction or relapse and are exhibiting the childish behavior reminiscent of little more than schoolyard taunting. It also seems a little irresponsible to state that only your method of recovery works, or to irrationally rationalize that since this man does not hold the same views as you that his faith or religious conversion is false. But then again maybe this is just a projection of your internal conflicts that bring about this overreaction brought on by a near beer and someone you have decided is an alcoholic and headed for relapse.
I hear Dick Cheney has a heart condition, maybe later on this weekend you can write an article cheering on a heart attack or how great a stroke would be.
TDA ~ who's eagerly wishing relapse upon others? rather, i am seeking some reasonable (maybe treatable) explanation for this megalomaniac who's ruining this country and the world.
i am not speculating he is an alcoholic. it's what he says. i was a little startled myself when i looked at the symptoms of dry drunk and they so clearly match the behavior of mr. bush.
i think the impatience is to get some semblance of sanity back into the governing of this country. it's hardly to wish pain upon george bush. however, a man who could send over 3500 americans to their deaths based on a pack of lies, and who could, as a result of those same lies kill thousands and thousands or iraqi civilians, deserves a little pain.
when i made the post, it was not clear that he was drinking nonalcoholic beer, something most sober alcoholics steer clear of for a variety of reasons, including the tendency to bring on relapse.
dick cheney does have a heart condition. it's probably because his heart is filled to bursting with hatred for others. i would hardly grieve if he died, and i think the world would be a better place, but i am far from wishing him dead.
so yeah, guilty as charged. thanks for visiting.
Lynette,
Maybe after you fail to find a reputable link of George Bush saying he is an alcoholic you will take the time to look up the psychiatric definition of projection and reflect upon your comment about Cheney, “heart is filled to bursting with hatred”.
Projection: defense mechanism by which your own traits and emotions are attributed to someone else
The President has admitted to abusing alcohol, but I think we can both agree that there is a huge difference between abuse and actual addiction.
tda ~ i will pray for you as i assume you will for me.
let me rephrase: i will pray for you as i hope you will for me.
I always appreciate a prayer and often find myself in need of one, and of course I will reciprocate.
Take care Lynette,
TDA
Nonsense. That idiot should not be DRINKING BEER. He is an alcoholic and he is not in recovery and he should NOT BE DRINGKING ALCOHOL AND THAT HAS ALCOHOL IN IT. Beer is beer is malted barley and he should NOT BE DRINKING MALTED BARLEY. He should be on the phone with a fellow alchoholic and he should be doing steps. How does a nation detach from this. Oy.
Look at the pictures. He is enthralled with the drink.. Enthralled and then the spectacle in the next photo. He SHOULD NOT BE DRINKING ANY TYPE OF BEER. He should be in fucking rehab and slapped around.
Are there no consultants near Bush to remind him that perception of falling off the wagon is almost as deadly as actually falling off it? What are recovering alcoholics who are fighting their demons supposed to think of this picture? Some, not knowing the drink is non alcoholic, might tell themselves, "If the president can do it once, so can I."
Stupid man. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Lynette, your dialogue with TDA was perfect. Forceful yet respectful.
I wholly agree with most of your conclusions, and defend your right to say and think what you want on your own blog. You didn't name it Politically Correct blog, you named it Big As Belle, and that's who I come to visit. So much of what you say and write about echoes the "truth" in the world as I see it. And I thank you for making my day just a little bit more special when I do stay a spell.
ewe ~ he does seem to be enthralled, yes? and the collapsing-into-the-chair posture is, as i said, terribly familiar. and yes, i would much prefer that the leader of my country, who says he does not drink, and whose behavior is so inexplicable to so many in this country and elsewhere, would not even want to give the appearance of drinking. i have known a number of people whose relapse began with nonalcoholic beer. it seems to start with wanting to relive the past and goes downhill from there. whether that's what has happened here, i don't know. i do think it's wrong for a lot of reasons, even with nonalcoholic beer.
and ms. place, wise as always, you are correct: Some, not knowing the drink is non alcoholic, might tell themselves, "If the president can do it once, so can I."
although there are other ways to stay sober, as TDA pointed out, in aa, drinking nonalcoholic beer is generally discouraged because of the potential to bring on relapse.
It's true that Bush hasn't actually used the term "alcoholic" to describe his drinking problem; but that doesn't mean he isn't one.
He admits to "abusing alcohol", which, if it were only while he were in his experimental college years, I would not necessarily consider a problem. But he abused alcohol until he was about 40 years old, which sounds like a drinking problem to me. A drinking problem may not be the same as alcoholism but I think both need treatment.
Bush never got treatment. He says he stopped drinking after his religious conversion in 1985. I guess he thought he could simply stop drinking by being born again. Several reports have suggested that this strategy hasn't been completely effective for him.
Anyway, thanks for bringing up the term "dry dunk." I had never heard of this before. Explains a lot.
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