Posted on 02/09/2011 1:43:14 PM PST by truthkeeper
Former television personality Laurie Dhue says she no longer knew who she was and was tired of suffering in silence from alcoholism when she decided to quit drinking and get help four years ago.
Dhue, who turns 42 tomorrow and was an anchor for the Fox News Channel, MSNBC and CNN, battled her addiction to alcohol for "at least" a decade and a half, she told the "Today" show Wednesday.
"I hid my alcoholism for many, many years," she said. "I was probably a high-functioning alcoholic, as so many people are. But there were cracks, certainly, and there were definitely times when people asked me what was wrong, and I just -- I didn't even know, myself."
Dhue remembers the day she realized she had a terrible problem and decided to get help...
(Excerpt) Read more at aolhealth.com ...
Needing to go to the liquor store to quell a craving for alcohol is not a 'disease' any more than having a physical addiction to cocaine, crack, heroin, or Ho Hos is a disease.
Physical and mental addiction is a medical condition that needs to be treated as such, but it is not a disease. Cancer is a disease. Polio is a disease.
It's no secret that people can become addicted to intoxicating substances just as its no secret that the AMA involves themselves in things like gun control and classifies things like acid reflux as a 'disease'.
This is a trend that has started with drug addiction and alcoholism and is likely to spread to obese people or sex addicts, classifying them as innocent victims of a disease rather than people who have issues controlling themselves.
No one needs the AMA to tell us that some people are more susceptible to becoming addicted to certain substances. Nobody needed the AMA to tell them that imbibing certain things affects different people in different ways.
Calling it a disease creates the illusion that this is something that is a pure medical condition and requires a medical solution.
I know alcoholics that have quit drinking cold turkey using nothing but old fashioned will power. For others it usually something more to quit.
So tell me, have you ever heard of an ALS sufferer cure themselves with nothing but willpower?
Yes, I was aware that alcoholism and blood sugar problems (hypoglycemia, for one) are much related and often alcoholics are also hypoglycemic. Learned it as a child -- my mother is pretty severely hypoglycemic; her father, my grandfather, was an alcoholic who died before I was born; stories I heard from people who knew him revealed that he and I both reacted to booze in the same way -- we went nuts. That knowledge had zero affect on my alcoholism.
That it's likely a genetic thing is beside the point. It's genetic that some people are allergic to strawberries, too.
Knowledge IS the answer to correcting the problem ... not arrest and shame!
Knowledge is the answer for alcoholics ONLY when that knowledge is of the obvious: the problem is happening because the person is indulging in a destructive (for him, genetically) behavior. CEASE the behavior, and the problem goes away. The whys and genetics are interesting details, but in no way change that fact that it is a matter of behavior, of self-discipline, of self-determination, of self-love.
Arrests and shame are necessary responses to alcoholism. Cops have a duty to arrest people who pose a danger to others. Those who are so weak of character that they indulge in a destructive behavior that is clearly endangering innocents around them, are deserving of shame, as I most certainly was when I drank, drove, and caused strife and trouble for strangers as well as loved ones. I shamed my loved ones, and I shamed myself. I still cringe to think of the things I did, and that crigning is well-deserved shame. Anyone who says otherwise is blowing smoke.
Outreach programs like the one your sheriff set up are fine and good, nothing wrong with them at all. But they are supplements, and both arrest and shame, unpleasant as they are, are yet part and parcel of the alcoholic's lot. Indeed, they are among the motivators to QUIT drinking.
Amen, brother FReeper! :^)
After my first brandy at 15 I spent the next 25 years chasing down every drop of alcohol I could find. Heaven in a bottle, demon in disguise. Thank God the last 16 years have been sober ones.
Why did I drink, why does a duck swim or a bird fly?
We have to stop Meeting like this...
I absolutley agree with this assertion. In the eyes of the government, they are one of those higher powers to which alcoholics should turn over their lives, if not THE higher power.
Man, I just don’t remember her being there that recently. And I don’t remember her NOT being there in the late 1990’s. Who was the one that left Fox just before 9/11?
Getting old stinks!
APA - American Poolplayers Association - The only APA for which I qualify for membership.
Oh the tall one. Forgot about her.
I’ve always been amazed that some people have the ability to function after drinking. I know I can’t.
She sure looks classy.
yeah, I realized it was the APA, but when one got medical treatment, didn’t AMA recognize the APA designations? And vice versa? I don’t see alcoholism in the same category as, say, diabetes.
I don’t know. I haven’t been able to find anything about the AMA ever removing homos from the screwed up in the head category.
Holy crap. She was, and probably is, so amazingly beautiful, but I know this struggle, this journey-of-recovery, so very well.
You gotta spell my name right, SexMom. ;)
I would buy her a club soda or a mocktail. :-)
She wants you.
I hit it.
Then she had to drink, to forget.
Oh my...did *I* do that?! ;)
PS.. it’s actually for ScreamingEagle Mom!
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