Archive for August 20th, 2004

Drug Addiction Specialists Are in Outer Space

Posted by Bob in How Things Work on 08/20/2004

I told you before that I spent a lot of years in alcohol and drug recovery. I told you about you about The Fifth Step which should be useful for you to know about.

Recently someone in our recovery club read a quote from some medical journal that went something like this:

“it is important that people in recovery be denied access to dangerous drugs.” There then followed a very serious discussion of how addicts could be protected from the availability of such narcotics.

We all got a big laugh out of it.

If you don’t get the joke, don’t worry about it. There is no reason you should spend much time thinking about the ins and outs of this program. But if you think about it a minute, you will see what made us laugh.

If you spend years in prison, there is very little you don’t know about how to commit crimes. If you spend years getting addicts off drugs, there is damned little you don’t know about getting hold of drugs.

There was not a person sitting in that room who could not have jumped in his car and been back in half an hour, not just with cocaine or heroin, but with the best quality of heroin of cocaine or heroin. We know where it is. We know how to bargain for it. We know how to threaten for it.

A desperate junkie can’t do that. We could. So a serious discussion of how to protect addicts from access to dangerous drugs struck us as funny.

I have seen many, many young addicts who decided suddenly to go back on drugs in a city that was completely strange to them. It was amazing. They were back in fifteen minutes high as a kite. So some doctor is going to deny them access to dangerous drugs?

Gimme a break!

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Flyover Country

Posted by Bob in Political Correctness on 08/20/2004

I have just been watching a biography of Carol O’Connor.

You remember he was the star of “All in the Family.” He was Archie Bunker.

A lot of people don’t remember that. Every day less people do.

How about Roseanne? She was wildly popular in her day.

That day is gone.

Back then the idea of having an American “bigot” on television was a big deal. After the show caught on a popular book came out, “The Wit and Wisdom of Archie Bunker.” There were lots of bumper stickers, “Archie Bunker for President.”

Carol O’Connor was stunned by the popularity of his character. He was so sure the show would be a flop that he would not show up for the recording of the first episode unless the studio gave him a round trip ticket to his home in Italy.

After All in the Family became a hit O’Connor kept insuring people that he was nothing like Archie Bunker. Jean Stapleton and everybody else on the show kept testifying that O’Connor had not a trace of political heresy in his entire makeup. He was Irish, but he was not THAT kind of Irish.

THAT kind of Irish consisted of working class types like those in South Boston, the ones who fought racial busing. As I have bragged before, I am an Honorary Southie myself.

Roseanne was a wild hit in its day, too. Roseanne was working class on her show, but she let everybody know that she herself was a good Jewish woman without a trace of political heresy in her being.

In their day, Archie Bunker and Roseanne were a big deal. When the network finally dared air the first Archie Bunker show, they had a Political Warning first. Back then all three networks were run out of New York by the same people and nothing that offended New York Politically Correct Opinion was even considered.

Back then a balanced political debate was a discussion involving two liberal Republicans and three liberal Democrats.

No, I am not exaggerating.

In those days the only places that mattered were Hollywood and New York. The rest of America was referred to as “flyover country.”

And they meant it.

No, I am not exaggerating.

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