17 October 2022
Warwick Beacon
Letters to the Editor
1944 Warwick Avenue
Warwick, RI 02889
Dear Editor:
Being an adult sometimes means letting things go. Some folks will present a great deal of good information and in the presentation is a tiny amount of misinformation. In a lot of cases as an adult, we take what we need and leave the rest. However, when that misinformation is about addiction due to the condition of today’s society, as adults we must speak up.
This has recently happened. Former Retired Superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police Colonel Edmond Culhane Jr. received an award from Mothers of Drunk Driving Rhode Island last week. He made remarks after receiving the award that were published in local papers. Some of what he said was misinformation that hurts the recovery community and everyone’s attempt to help others heal from the disease of addiction. I am guessing it was accidental.
Please understand this is not a shot at Colonel Culhane. There is no reason to believe he did this intentionally. The service he has put in is worthy of admiration.
This is also not a critique of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. In order to become associated with that organization, you must watch someone else go through great loss or even worse you must go through it yourself. Their motives are clear and honest. Sometimes this leads to a misstep against their goals and as adults we should suggest a different path that lead to a different opportunity for them.
So how would I know what is misinformation and what is not?? I started drinking when I was 10. By the age of 12, I was a blackout drunk which is right about the time I discovered cocaine. I am guessing that in my lifetime, I have driven drunk around 5419 times or so. While rolling 3 cars over, I never got charged on those nights just like I never got arrested for dealing coke although I ran a refined cocaine product franchise for a few years. The one time I did get arrested for drunk driving, thanks to a good lawyer, my DUI became the misdemeanor version known as an OUI. I didn’t even know OUI existed.
Family connections and good lawyers are why I have 34 arrests, 3 indictments, and only 8 convictions. Well, if my friends didn’t pay off that “jailer” in Mexico, I would probably have one more conviction. Such is the life of the alcoholic and addict.
How did I become an alcoholic?? My 13 year old mom got into a sexual relationship with a 34 year old. If you know the story, it gets better. They were brother and sister. She was sent away to a boarding school. When I was born, I was given up for adoption. Thanks to being inbred or thanks to the trauma or thanks to genetics or thanks to a combination of the 3, I got many mental illnesses. I was such a mess that my parents took me to see a Psychiatrist when I was 5 years old because I was emulating “serial killer behaviors”. Turns out I am suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Not only do I have NPD, but I also suffer from Bipolar 1 Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to go along with my alcoholism and addiction. It’s not all bad. I also got the 164 IQ, creative skills, and semi-eidetic memory package. To say the least, it’s noisy in my brain. My parents used to throw a lot of cocktail parties when I was a kid. I learned that if I drank the same stuff my parents’ friends did, my brain would get quiet. What I didn’t know is that I have activated the disease of addiction. When you are given mental illnesses, that gene usually comes along for the ride.
Thanks to a lot of hard work, you can read the story of how it started on my blog, I just celebrated 20 years clean and sober. I’m in the rather rare one and done club. I understand addiction better than most because each day I have to deal with my own while helping others. Somehow, Colonel Culhane and MADD forgot that addiction is a disease and not a “choice”.
Again, his speech starts off fine. We should all be proud of his career and his accomplishments. We should also support how everyone should work together. We should also take into consideration his suggestions for cutting down on distracted driving. Then he starts to take a turn.
He references the stats and does not talk about the work mental health professionals and the recovery community has put in to make this happen. No one chooses alcoholism as a lifestyle. Once there, “enforcement” is not going to stop you from doing what you do.
This is why the references to PSA and advertising campaigns are so weird. They affect no one in the addiction community. They do not stop one active alcoholic from drinking or driving. That’s not how it works.
This is also reflected in MADD’s need to talk about “choice” whenever they are in front of a microphone. Perhaps 5% of all DUI incidents are because a non alcoholic “chose” to be irresponsible. The rest happened because alcoholism works the way it does. For instance, when an alcoholic has their first drink, their brain shuts off Dopamine production and at the same time demands more Dopamine. The alcoholic knows this can be fixed by drinking more. This is why the alcoholic cannot stop at just one. They keep satisfying the Dopamine deficiency even though the brain won’t cooperate. At some point they pass out. Usually after they drive home in this condition.
Following that the honorable Colonel took a misguided turn. He made incredibly ignorant statements, without foundation, about cannabis. By the way, in case you’re wondering, I hated weed. I made fun of the people that smoked it calling them “lazy and not aggressive enough”. Meanwhile, the lines I was doing and crack I was smoking were all “performance enhancing” substances especially for a real estate/floor covering/timeshare salesman involved in politics. The truth is still the truth however.
The best thing this nation could do is decriminalize all drugs starting with cannabis. That would reduce stigma, increase understanding, and cause more people to seek treatment since there would be less trauma. In the long run, we would all save millions of tax dollars. Who is against saving millions of tax dollars because less addicts are running around in full addiction??
Thank God we know Colonel Culhane as well as we do. Being against marijuana decriminalization always has a racial element to it. Dirty cops use weed as an excuse to engage in disgusting behavior against non white people all the time. Thanks to the white nationalist turn of the Republican Party, there are more dirty cops out there. That is reality. Just as dance teaching and soccer coaching and priestly opportunities will attract pedohpiles, the job of cop will attract racists now and again. We should be adults and accept reality. Praise the good cops, force the bad ones out of the gig, don’t judge anybody until they reveal themselves as an individual. If you don’t have other evidence, trying to keep “weed” illegal is a major red flag.
Since we’re talking about weed, I should mention a couple of other things. If you’re going through your kids room, you would much rather discover that bag of Hindu Skunk than a lower shelf vodka bottle with the white label. In fact, if you discover alcohol on a non weekend, or “nips” ever, you really should have one of us from the recovery community have a chat with your kid just to be safe. Marijuana on the other hand is almost impossible to become physically addicted to. You are more likely to have a peanut-like allergy to it than you are to become addicted to it. Somebody should tell the Colonel that alcohol is much more dangerous than weed.
Along those lines, the other myth that the Colonel hinted at is also untrue. There is no such thing as a gateway drug. You have a mental illness, you go to self medicate it, you unlock the addiction gene. What you’re using works or it does not. If weed works, you stay there. If weed does not, you go deeper. If you went deeper the first time and are happy, you do not go back. I tried heroin once. I’m Bipolar 1. Heroin does not go in the right direction for me. I went running back to crack.
Then he starts talking about drunk driving being the equivalent of a weapons arrest. Most weapons arrests involve choice. I say most because some folks are suffering that much from withdrawal that they get into head spaces that are not normal. We have this weird conundrum. We know most crimes done under the influence were not intended. However, we cannot take that into account in our justice system because everyone would get lit before every crime. Along the same lines is how do we test for Fentanyl if we decriminalize drugs?? We may have to have permits and stuff.
This is where we all have to be adults. MADD and Colonel Culhane aren’t “bad” because they went down these roads and might continue to do so. We just have to stand by them as they process their pain and experiences. Then every so often, from a public policy point of view, we have to go in a different direction that is more scientifically based. We need to do so gently and engage in an incredible amount of respect when the time arrives. The folks in MADD get hit with a huge helping of pain for no reason other than somebody stumbled into the path of someone else suffering from addiction. I know how much it hurts to find out someone struggling from the disease relapses and dies. I cannot imagine how much it hurts to have someone taken away seemingly at random.
As we get more open about what we can discuss in public, we can put away stigma. As stigma decreases, recovery from addiction becomes more likely. Recovery for all those suffering should be the ultimate goal.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Robert T. Oliveira
Warwick, RI
401-391-6402
Quahogs United 