It's totally sad, but it might have the effect that the movie "scared straight" did on us back in the day.

So this is a middle class kid from Newport Beach. They only show you photos from when he was young, but he was a good looking, smart kid. The guy who made the documentary was a cop, and he must have had an agreement with Mark David Allen because he gets lots of really candid video and Mark David Allen is very open with him on camera. Most of the video is of M.D.A. getting arrested. You basically get this abridged overview of what can happen if you drink heavily for twenty+ years.

Basically Mark David Allen ends up suffering from Korsokoff's syndrome (caused by vitamin deficiencies that are often a result of late stage alcoholism some symptoms of which are amnesia and confabulation (inventing memories-illusions of grandeur.)) He travels from Newport Beach to Hawaii where he is arrested something upwards of 50 times in something like 5 years, then back to Newport and business as usual. He begins disappearing for stretches of time towards the end. The police get him into a psychiatric evaluation where the social workers understand what the situation is but the doctors just ask him questions and write down the answers, and they decline him inpatient hospitalization on the grounds that he says he has family to stay with and a steady job.

Very tough to watch. I think it could be used very effectively for high school health and safety.

One thing that struck me the first time I watched it and more so on each viewing: The cops certainly are cordial when there's a camera six feet away trained directly on them doing their job.

I've known few cops who were that polite- a couple, but not a lot.

I understand that completely. I think I have a morbid fascination with my demons. ;)

But really- I'm thinking seriously of going back to school to go into either teaching or counseling (or both?), and I'm really looking into any information I can find on all facets of both.

An amazing thing (albeit very sad) about this film is that you see the decline of a person into alcoholism as bad as you can get. Mark David Allen was a regular kid growing up in Southern California, an exceptional surfer and a decent artist. (Not to say that he wasn't an alcoholic before that, but the interviews with his mom doesn't seem to imply that) Apparently Mark David Allen was in some sort of accident and went into a coma, and his mom says he never was the same after that. I had an uncle (my step mom's brother, actually) who was a biker, and he was in an accident when he was about 22 where he went into a coma. He came out three weeks later and seemed to function, but after that he was constantly medicating and ended up living with his mom. He was in the program at the very end, and he died sober (I assume), but really everyone agreed that he never was the same after that head injury. Not to say he wasn't an alcoholic before that- his dad was and he was upwards of a quarter native American Indian, both his sisters are in the program.

Seeing the difference between him at 30 and him at 42 is a scary thing. SERIOUS amnesia and confabulation. I'd never heard of Korsokoff's prior to viewing this, and it sort of explains the actions of many people I knew as a kid- older guys who hung out down at the beach, guys who used to surf but kind of fell by the wayside. We used to blame acid from the sixties, but now I'm not sure at all. I think a lot of it could have just been middle to late stage alcoholism.

Amazing the amount of damage that a simple structure like five hydrogen atoms and a hydroxyl attached to two carbon atoms (C2H5OH) can do. But then, look at what happens when you split the one atom.

TLH wrote:

---

But then, I'm practically a tourist in alcoholism, compared to some. My problem barely got a chance to screw everything up before I began trying to straighten things up, y'know? I'm an alcoholic, for sure- but I think my bottom was kind of a mamby-pamby bottom compared to the stories others have told me. Thankfully so.

---

I dunno TLH,  I could almost agree with your assessment, reflecting on my experience and getting sober at age 29, I sometimes feel that I had a lot more
drinking I could've done.  Being a beer drinker for the last 5 years meant black outs were very rare, never drank in the morning or around the clock.  I was continuously employed and always paid my bills, and wasn't having any legal problems outside of getting arrested a few times for dui and drunk in public.

I did miss several days a month due to hangovers, lose a few jobs, lost a marriage, get charged with 2 DUIs, and act badly on manny ocassions, and to discount those indicators would be nothing but denial and comparing out (take a close look here TLH).  We all have different thesholds of pain.  Mine was more about emotional pain and insanity (or fear of it) that prompted me to get on with it.  I also knew that  I wasn't going to beat a 3rd DUI in court by refusing the breath test, and that with no license getting to a construction job at 6am was almost imposible, thus  goodbye management job or self employment.

TLH wrote:

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Yeah- whatever- we're comparing apples and apples. A drunk is a drunk is a drunk. My 'bottom' was plenty far enough down the tubes for me (and yeah- aside from me never getting a DUI (luck) we sound very similar). I was just saying my tale pales in comparison with some of the old timers I know who spent thirty years drinking heavily.

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I think the main reason for that is, that rercovery is so much more mainstream now.  It's almost trendy to be in AA in Cali now.  Drinking is not really cool anymore there as being healthy etc.... is what people are focusing on.  The old timers had a tough time I think because everything socialy revolved around drinking.   I still get a lot of that generation as customers and see their Bar promeniently displayed in the living room or dining room, and have been offered drinks many times during a sales presentation .  Imagine Bill Wison going out on a business lunch and not having a cocktail.  That saying "never trust a man who doesn't drink"  is an old one.  BTW  I beat both of my DUI arrests in
court so technically.....I have zero also  .  And Toby,  at the time I got sober I had Project managers position (government scale construction project)  at
a salary of $45k  (in '89).  I took a job later that year in Guam for $72k +++
So I don't think it matters how functional or disfunctional you are, it's how you feel about you that counts.



-- Edited by StPeteDean at 13:33, 2008-05-19

Hey Toby, we're in the same business. I think that most of my stress over the years was caused mainly from my perfectionism. That and thinking that everyone, that works for me, should, when going about solving a problem, come up with the same solution as I would.

For the last 18 years I've been in custom wood deck business. Funny I still say wood when 95% of them are composite these days. I really enjoy it. I design and sell the decks and have one crew that builds them. No subcontractore to deal with. Most jobs are 3 to 5 days max so if I have a difficult customer he/she's gone in a day or two. Most days I never leave home. Others I go out for 1 or 2 sales appointments. It satisfies my creative side, gives me a healthy 6 figure income and I spend 3 months a year on vacation or working on my mountain home. What's the deck business look like in your area? You might be surprised at how lucritive a business it is. It's pretty rare when my profit margin on any job, after overhead, is less than 40% and generally it's 50%. Let me know if it's something you're interested in and I'll help you in any way I can. Btw, I did the divemaster thing part time for a summer. Everthing gets old pretty quickly, but I haven't gotten tired of selling decks

Dean

Good luck with whatever you get into. If your heart's in it you'll do well.

BTW-The video share is so moving.....Im so glad I never got myself on camera wasted! Oh, let me take that back....My brother, husband and I borrowed my in laws video camera years ago for some event and we ended up taping us sitting around the table partying...Forget to take out the tape when we gave it back. Was I embarrassed or what!!!!! Mom in law was appalled to say the least!! UGGHH!

lani, I think that you have to "host" your photos on a site like photobucket.com
and then it will provide you with a url address, then copy paste that and add [/url] behind it and [url] in front of it. If I type that in reverse (front, back) alll that would show up is a red box.