Posted on 07/14/2010 4:30:26 PM PDT by Perdogg
indsay Lohan's 90-day sentence is a perfect example of how messed up and ridiculous our criminal justice system is.
All of the available research on alcoholism shows that it is a disease. Locking someone up in jail, not allowing them access to other inmates and not providing treatment has been going on for hundreds of years in this country. It is not consistent with what is known about treatment and its outcome.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I don't think there's any question about that. The problem for the judiciary, is that too frequently, that "bottom" doesn't come for an addict/drunk until after they've seriously injured or even killed someone.
Hopefully, this incarceration - as brief as it will be - will suffice as Ms. Lohan's "bottom". Otherwise, I'm fearful for the citizens of LA County. She'll be snorting, boozing and driving again, far too soon.
Rule of law
What there is left of it.
bringing Lindsey back down to the real world with a little bar time of the steel kind is the best thing that could happen to her
Lohan needs a good, swift kick in the @ss every time she does something stupid.
Pain is a very good motivator to learn a new behavior.
Treatment implies illness.
Cancer needs treatment. Heart attacks need treatment.
Alcohol abuse needs punishment.
I don’t object to medical treatment for the physical symptoms, i.e., liver disease or whatever.
Quite. What kind of "treatment" would get her to turn up on time and not insult the court with "F*** You" on her fingernails?
If it's a disease, it's self-inflicted and self-cured.
I bet anyone with a real disease like muscular dystrophy or insulin-dependent diabetes WISHES that all he or she had to do to make the symptoms evaporate, was resist the temptation to indulge in a bad habit.
Those researchers who insist on calling it a "disease" know there's a lot of money in all kinds of places at stake by doing so. Referring to it as a mere "allergy" would eliminate a zillion-dollar private and government industry.
But here's the deal: if you eat strawberries and break out in a rash, count on two things:
1. You're allergic to strawberries.
2. You're an idiot to go on eating strawberries. Refrain from eating strawberries, and you'll be fine.
Like my grandfather before me, and like countless alcoholics I have known personally over the decades, if I drink booze, I break out in handcuffs, trouble, and arrests. Reagan said it: we conservatives have simple solutions to complex problems -- not EASY solutions, but simple solutions. There is a very SIMPLE SOLUTION, a very SIMPLE CURE, for alcoholics:
STOP DRINKING.
All the counseling in the world isn't going to help an alcoholic. The alcoholic helps him or herself by making a simple decision -- not an easy one, but a simple one -- to STOP DRINKING.
23 years ago, after waking up in jail one too many times without knowing how I got there, after having one too many stitches for injuries I have no idea how I received, I finally figured out I had a decision to make: keep on drinking and kill myself and hurt the people I loved most, or stop drinking and live.
Curtain #1 or Curtain #2? Hmmmmm ...
Life isn't fair and nobody -- NOBODY -- said it was. Some of us can't handle our booze and the responsibility for dealing with it lies with the individual who has the problem, NOT the rest of the world, not counselors, not doctors.
I understand that Bill Clinton has offered to "counsel her"
Ooh wheee!
Exactly. Maybe this will be her bottom. A judge can force her to go to treatment but if she is not serious then that is a waste of time.
Who’s sick and tired reading about this rich spoiled brat? Raise your hands.
She had the opportunity for rehab...she was ordered to go to rehab or aa or something. She blew it off.
Treatment didn’t take. Time for the slammer.
Disease or not, there are consequences for violating court orders. You don’t get to not be in jail if you are an addict.
Many addicts stop being addicts in jail because they can’t get whatever they are addicted to. Besides there are AA meetings in jail, she could go if she wanted to. Especially in the type of light security jail she’ll be in.
What Lindsay needs is a lesson on “behaviors have consequences.” That’s what the judge is doing?
Will she get it and admit she has a problem? Who knows. Personally, I think she has too many enablers, starting with mom, that won’t deal in bottom lines.
Apparently, the lawyer who represented her has quit and is trying to be excused by July 20. As an Aussie on a comment page for a news article, “You know you’ve hit bottom when an American lawyer is no longer willing to represent you.”
Thank you for reading. ;)
"Treatment" for drug and alcohol addiction ONLY works after-the-fact -- after the person with the problem decides to take responsibility for it, and the "treatment" undeservedly gets the credit. As far as I'm concerned, the whole mythical illusion of "treatment" having anything to do with their overcoming the addiction is an insult to their own inner strength. The treatment didn't have a thing to do with it -- THEY DID. If a person decides to stop drinking and start living, "treatment" from some other place is an unncessary formality. The ONLY "treatment" is for an individual to take responsibility for his or her own actions.
When I finally quit drinking, there was a very expensive "treatment" clinic that was constantly hammering it into a gullible public's head that "You can't do it alone."
Bullsh*t. "Alone" is THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN DO IT.
No. She needs structure and the structure in jail is far and away better than the loosey-goosey celebrity treatment centers.
Leave it to a SMAJ to state the obvious.
Jail time for her crimes, and then treatment for her addictions and psychological problems.
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