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Bill Maher Comments on the Rush Limbaugh Drug Addiction Story
Bill Maher ^ | 10-13-03 | Bill Maher

Posted on 10/14/2003 4:04:21 PM PDT by ambrose

October 13, 2003

Rush Limbaugh

A fair number of Independents could be lured in, or back to, the Democratic Party. For me, a litmus test for that would have to be confronting the Drug War, and as I see the media and the Democratic presidential contenders both taking a huge whiff on the opportunity the Rush Limbaugh story provides, I am not encouraged.

For many years, I've been asked 'why do you read the Enquirer?' and have always said, "because I want to know what's going to be in the New York Times next week."

So, a week after I read the Limbaugh story in the Enquirer I read the rehash of it today in the Times, and again: Media, Pols, hello! If any time was the perfect time to make the case about the massive double standard that is the Drug War, this is it. Rush tearfully talks about his addition to a "medication." Yeah, well everybody likes their "medication" in different forms, pally. It would be funny, but substantially the same thing, if on the 6:30 news they sold bourbon and had the voice intone, "Ask your doctor if Jack Daniels is right for you."

Or pot or whatever it is that mixes better with your body chemistry. Because that's all the Drug War is, persecuting people with a different body chemistry than Plan A. Why does one person like scotch, and another loathes it and likes vodka? Or one like cocaine, and another Metabolife?

Who gives a f**k, that's why. The bottom line is, we all pick our poison and shouldn't arbitrarily punish and shame some, and accept and coddle others. There's nothing about preferring the high from oxycontin or liquor or speed (caffeine, ephedra, etc - speed, the drug America really loves) that makes you morally superior to people who like pot or mushrooms or even heroin for that matter, because that's what Oxycontin is, heroin in a pill. Gee, no wonder it's popular.

When it comes to Rush and pills, an analagous situation would be Reagan and guns. After Reagan got shot, what an opportunity to change that debate on guns! Who could argue about at least debating it while he lay in the hospital from a gunshot wound - like how JFK's program got passed so easily after his assassination, or even Bush's after 911.

But Reagan whiffed. Rush has the chance to change America for the better here. But it must involve his admitting the fundamental truths about drugs:
A: Almost all Americans do them, legal or otherwise; B: It's wrong to inconsistently treat fact A.

And Rush, if you don't see it that way yet, let me put it like this: When you're furtively meeting people in parking lots and exchanging ANYTHING in cigar boxes through car windows - OK, that's a drug addict. Issues of personal responsibility is where I often walked with Rush, and this is a classic. A true test of the man. If he comes out of rehab and says, 'I was wrong about our approach to drugs,' he could single handedly change the way America looks at this problem. If he admits that what separates him and Noelle Bush from crackheads is nothing. Nothing except money, race and lawyers. OK, well that is actually quite a lot. But nothing in the way that makes one of them a stronger or better human being. And that's what Rush has to say:

"I am no better or stronger than a crackhead. I lived for the drug, just like he did; obsessed about getting it all the time, like he did; corrputed and lied about everything else in my life - career, health (the hearing problem is related to this, no doubt - check the amount he was taking daily - Elvis is going "whoa, dude, slow down with that s**t"), relationships, like he did. And we both deserve the same treatment: compassion!"

Because Rush wants, and is already getting, a lot of compassion for this. Let me add my full hearted endorsement of that, and hope for a successful rehab, and a happy life for him whatever he wants to do thereafter. Rush Limbaugh was the first one to say "Bill Maher was right" when I was in the hot seat after 911, and I will always appreciate and remember that. He also has a good sense of humor, and enjoys jokes I've done about him. I want to be able to back him.

But he's gotta keep it real when he gets out. If he starts living the morally indefensible double standard he has been defending his whole career, game over. He learned nothing, or is too weak to admit it. That would be a shame, because I think he has it in him to do this, and the power and accomplishment from turning this battleship around would be, well - a rush.

Posted by safesearching at October 13, 2003 01:14 PM


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: rush; wodlist
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To: wirestripper
There is no high from Oxycontin.

1000% wrong.

There are wide variations from person to person in the effects of a given drug on someone.

The more prone to addiction someone is genetically, the greater the "high" they'll get from the early use of a given drug.

41 posted on 10/14/2003 4:30:56 PM PDT by John H K
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To: ambrose
Rush will be harder on himself than any of his enemies or self-righteous bashers could possibly be. I am grateful he is where he does not have the mental stress of reading or hearing about all this discussion of himself. Even tho he is unaware of this raging controversy, I believe he will be helped by prayer and the good vibs generated by the positive thoughts sent his way. He has not only to overcome his addiction, find a way to handle the pain, but while doing so, refresh his mind. He has to have an absence of input from all of the negative sources he daily tuned in to. Bill Maher strikes me as being at least honest in his comments on Rush. He appears not to have a political agenda nor is he being hateful to pump himself up. Rush will have no trouble dealing with this kind of individual.
42 posted on 10/14/2003 4:32:08 PM PDT by mountainfolk
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To: Almondjoy
He choose to become addicted to them

You do not choose to become addicted to Oxy-Codone pain drugs.

The addiction comes from using the product and is directly related to dose and how long you use it.

Rush was being treated for pain as a result of a back condition. With the time and dose involved with that, the addiction was as sure as the sun comes up in the morning.

It is a side effect of the drug and nothing more than that.

The real question is how one manages the addiction while using the drug?

This is what the Dr. helps you do. This is what Rush bypasssed and this was his error.

He self medicated and got himself in trouble. It happens all the time and he fessed up to that. Why he self medicated and how it was that his Dr. did not treat his pain to Rush's satisfation are questions that I hope he will answer when he returns.

Why he decided to detox and get off the meds entirely is beyond me. He should have just gradually cut back on the amount with the help of a Dr.

Now he will have to deal with the pain. I do not understand this.

43 posted on 10/14/2003 4:32:30 PM PDT by Cold Heat ("It is easier for an ass to succeed in that trade than any other." [Samuel Clemens, on lawyers])
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Comment #44 Removed by Moderator

To: Thoro
People thought that him being addicted to painkillers at all didn't pass the smell test, either.

You're seriously delusional if you're trying to cling to the fantasy that all the pills Rush acquired the last three years he got through a legal prescription.
45 posted on 10/14/2003 4:32:40 PM PDT by John H K
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To: John H K
I say again.........There is no high from Oxycontin.

A better high could be obtained from a bottle of Thunderbird.

46 posted on 10/14/2003 4:36:09 PM PDT by Cold Heat ("It is easier for an ass to succeed in that trade than any other." [Samuel Clemens, on lawyers])
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To: wirestripper
Now he will have to deal with the pain. I do not understand this.

For an addict to these sorts of painkillers, the addiction to painkillers in large part CAUSES THE PAIN.

Dr. Drew Pinsky, who is a specialist in this area (was an excellent article on Rush and this addiction a few days ago by him posted here) has mentioned that once one is addicted to painkillers, the brain will actually keep producing the pain that the painkillers were prescribed for in order to cause the person to keep taking the drug.....the pain actually ends up lasting longer than it would have if no opiate painkillers were given in the first place.

When he's treated painkiller addicts and got them both detoxed and into long-term rehab he's had patients have their "severe back pain" mysteriously disappear over and over again.

Another thing he's noted is that for whatever reason a lot of "chronic back pain" patients have underlying psychological problems. This isn't saying that EVERYONE with back pain is a mental patient and the pain isn't real, it's just there's an interesting correlation.

But the mind is an incredibly powerful thing. Opiates are SO addicting that the mind will actually create pain to insure that the supply of opiates will continue into the body.

47 posted on 10/14/2003 4:38:47 PM PDT by John H K
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To: wirestripper
I agree that he should slowly come off them.. It's like anything when you stop cold turkey.. it's an extremely dumb idea.

It's a play to the public.. he may not actually quit cold turkey.. his actual treatment will be a sealed record(I believe) so what actually happens could be different then what is said.
48 posted on 10/14/2003 4:39:45 PM PDT by Almondjoy
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To: ambrose
When you're furtively meeting people in parking lots and exchanging ANYTHING in cigar boxes through car windows - OK, that's a drug addict.

I never agree with him, but this comment describes what Rush did to himself.

49 posted on 10/14/2003 4:40:49 PM PDT by Dr. Scarpetta
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To: JackRyanCIA
Yap yap yap yap. Treatment doesn't count if it doesn't cure you. The fact that he went in but wasn't sucessful means that it's not apporiate for our dicusssion.

Since you brought it up in his defense then I was forced to shut you down with it's reality.
50 posted on 10/14/2003 4:41:01 PM PDT by Almondjoy
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To: wirestripper
A better high could be obtained from a bottle of Thunderbird.

Maybe it doesn't give YOU a high.(I've never taken an opiate painkiller, myself).

I've heard Ben Stein (who had a long-term addiction problem of his own which he beat) say that they make you feel "wonderful."

The point is people are different. I don't get drunk and really don't drink much because the few times I did I felt depressed and withdrawn and lost no inhibitions. Other people become the life of the party and lose their inhibitions when they drink.

Do I sit here stupidly extrapolating my singular experiences with alcohol to the other 5 billion members of the human race?

51 posted on 10/14/2003 4:42:59 PM PDT by John H K
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Comment #52 Removed by Moderator

To: John H K
Dr. Drew Pinsky, who is a specialist in this area (was an excellent article on Rush and this addiction a few days ago by him posted here) has mentioned that once one is addicted to painkillers, the brain will actually keep producing the pain that the painkillers were prescribed for in order to cause the person to keep taking the drug.....the pain actually ends up lasting longer than it would have if no opiate painkillers were given in the first place.

Dr. Pinsky also said that when an addicted person goes off these drugs, it can cause that person feel extremely sad, even grief-stricken for a year.

53 posted on 10/14/2003 4:44:56 PM PDT by Dr. Scarpetta
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To: Almondjoy
Yap yap yap yap. Treatment doesn't count if it doesn't cure you. The fact that he went in but wasn't sucessful means that it's not apporiate for our dicusssion.

It's pretty clear he went in for a secret detox a couple of times but never rehabbed. (The two are completely different; without rehab, detox is meaningless, as you're 100% guaranteed to start using the drug again.

Only missing a month of the show seems like an absurdly short period of time, so it seems he's now going to detox and attempt a "quicky" rehab, which doesn't seem like such a great idea.

54 posted on 10/14/2003 4:45:41 PM PDT by John H K
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To: ambrose
'I was wrong about our approach to drugs,'

Rush wouldn't be in rehab were it not for our "approach to drugs".

55 posted on 10/14/2003 4:47:19 PM PDT by VRWC_minion (Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and most are right)
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To: John H K
I agree.. but appearences are everything. If he can do a quick rehab(and do a better job of keeping his relapse hush hush). He can continue to admit that it wasn't that big of a problem.
56 posted on 10/14/2003 4:48:06 PM PDT by Almondjoy
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To: Almondjoy
Yes, it is. But addiction is really funny. A person can be in denial and rationalize and justify using drugs by saying, "Oh, it's perscription, so it's OK." It's the same as an addict telling themselves, "I can quit anytime I want to...I just don't want to." Pretty soon, they've justified themselves into oblivion and they can't quit.
The funny thing is, an addict doesn't know they have a choice til they've hit bottom and they are faced with the choice of dying, losing all (whatever) or getting help.
I hate to sound corny, but the first step to recovery is admitting there is a problem. Kudo's to Rush for taking that step. (And in front of the whole country, at that!)
57 posted on 10/14/2003 4:50:23 PM PDT by scan58
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To: Beelzebubba
There is a difference between getting addicted to something you start for recreational purposes, ans getting adicted to something you start for medical purposes.

You're probably right about this but it reminds me of the distinction made between a murder committed during a burglary and a murder commited because of racism (i.e., a "hate" crime). Either way, the victim is just as dead.

Furthermore, Rush's doctor probably stopped prescribing oxycontin to keep him from getting dependant. If he still had pain issues, he really should have consulted his physician, not his housekeeper.

58 posted on 10/14/2003 4:52:28 PM PDT by Grim
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To: mountainfolk
Rush will be harder on himself than any of his enemies or self-righteous bashers could possibly be

Breing on the pills for what was it 5 years minimum ain't exactly being hard on oneself

He also had a big weight problem so his discipline and self control are not a given

Everybody here has him successfully beating this
That is NOT a given .
He has a very tough road ahead

If he would have turned himself in with out being outted I would have said his chances were very good but under these conditions who knows
59 posted on 10/14/2003 4:56:56 PM PDT by uncbob ( building tomorrow)
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To: BlueNgold
BILL MAHER COMMENTS That's where I stopped reading.
60 posted on 10/14/2003 4:56:57 PM PDT by Pompah (If it ain't broke,fix it 'til it is.)
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