Of Addicts and Entitlements

Of Addicts and Entitlements

I have a friend who has a once beautiful sister who is living in hell. He is able to do nothing for her, even though he has tried everything. This sister is getting on in years, but imagines she is still a head turner. Growing up, she developed a taste for clothes not found in J.C. Penny's. As a maturing lady, she immersed herself in People magazine. Her main skill became manipulating people. Eventually, she translated this into a talent for selling clunkers.  Her beliefs and values became completely negotiable, depending on her needs of the moment. She married young and often, and she had numerous children --- all with smart and eventually successful engineers. Now older, her entire calculus revolves around how given inputs will lead her to the buzz she requires. This led her to an off-the-charts stage 3 addiction to alcohol.  Since she considers her habits more like entitlements than hurts, she believes no one in the public square should have any moral business or funding to tell her otherwise.

Rather than return to honest employment, this sister began haunting internet hook up sites. Her specifications require rich single or divorced and retired men, with a taste for the life of luxury and a need for companionship. She imagines she will eventually find and induce one of them to love her and agree to indulge her every want for the rest of her life. Oddly enough, there seem to be many men who partly fill the bill — but only partly. It’s doubtful that any of them want to take on the responsibility for indulging her for the rest of her life. Rather, she seems to fill their need for disposable companionship, without the need for paying an escort service.  Her only requirement is that they fund her travels and meals. Obviously, none of them will be insane enough to take on permanent responsibility for a stage 3 entitlement alcoholic who has no intention to work and whose only visible means of support consists in a substitute for welfare, i.e., alimony, which is all but petered out. They well know their invites serve only to lead her into further desolation. Yet, their moral codes somehow allow them to rationalize the way they lead her on, to her further abuse and desolation. Then they abandon her and sail themselves overseas.

This sister has passed out cold, fallen hard, endured numerous concussions, and ridden on many taxpayer funded EMT rides. She has pitied her way out of numerous public intoxication charges. She has several times been arrested for public intoxication, served time, been in detox, and been in rehab and halfway houses. She has endured numerous episodes of being lost and wandering. She leaves the same messages, repetitively, until all memory storage is exhausted.  Her propensity for losing jobs, computers, cell phones, and purses is legendary.  Amazingly, her liver is only just beginning to show signs of damage. Once, she misplaced her purse while in a haze waiting to board a plane. A good Samaritan found the purse, found her cell phone in it, and dialed one of her contacts. The contact identified the sister, so the Samaritan was able to find her in the boarding line in time to return the purse and phone, sort of like a Bent Spear.

The sister always returns to homes of her aging children, just long enough to detox just enough to scour internet date sites, always leaving her children stressed, unhappy, and likely with reduced expectancies. Even so, the sister’s children have been resilient. One is a successful businessman who regularly attends church with his wife. One is rather perpetually upset, but most are good naturedly and responsibly employed. All are horrified, but nothing they do helps their Mom.

My friend tried to provide a home for his sister, but found her drinking, often. Bottles were hidden in numerous places. Chaperoning did not work. She would simply hide small containers in her purse and periodically drink from them while in various public restrooms. When all else failed, she would drink Listerine – for the alcohol. She would be found (actually, tripped over) at his home, passed out in the dark. She would demand the keys to her car, even while drunk. Upon refusal, she would call the police and claim to have been beaten. Eventually, she was given the keys to leave --- after she loaded her stuff and was asked not to return.

Had the law allowed, the friend could have forcibly rehabilitated her. But he knew the law would not allow. The law would take her side to prohibit him from keeping her locked in when she was drunk. If he tried to restrain her, he knew she would cause an uproar and then call the police and claim to have been assaulted. So, when she was arrested for DWI, the friend asked the Court either to keep her in jail for the max or to refer her to forced rehabilitation. The Court told her she would likely be released sooner, were she to hire counsel. She laughed and declined. So, the Court, not wanting to pay any longer for her board and room, essentially pushed her out. Once upon a time, there was a program for court ordered referrals to forced rehabilitation. The funding for that program has dried up.

So, the law will not rehabilitate her, and the law will not allow my friend to rehabilitate her. The sister’s only hope appears to be to commit crimes serious enough to result in an extended incarceration. That seems unlikely, unless she first maims some people.

This encapsulates the liberal ethos: People are entitled to stupify themselves and then to require taxpayers to pay to detox them — for from now until the nation is bankrupt – financially and morally. Our Progressive government will not sponsor the tough love that is required to rehabilitate this sister, nor will it allow my friend to rehabilitate her. Although she laughs at God, her only real chance is between her and God. My friend is Uncle Sam. His sister is America.