July 09, 2004

I'm convinced George Bush is a dry drunk. That term, "dry drunk," is one commonly used by Alcoholics Anonymous to refer to someone who has quit drinking but still has the thought processes of an alcoholic. These thought processes are called "stinking thinking."

For the record, this isn't just an academic exercise with me. I've known, intimately, people who were drunks for 20 years, and after drying out with the help of AA, were still not right. Twenty years of heavy drinking often changes the brain permanently. I think it has in Bush's case, not only because he reminds me of the dry drunks I know, but because he also fits every characteristic of "stinking thinking."

I know one man who was an alcoholic from age 17 to 39. He finally was able to quit, only because of AA. Relatively normal when sober, when drunk he acted like he was possessed. I never seen such a torrent of obscenity pour out of anyone's mouth like that of a drunk's.

He wasn't the only drunk I've know who let loose with these waterfalls of obscenity. I'm not often speechless, but the first time I saw this, I simply had no idea whatsoever to do or say. I just sat there. Everyone just sat there.

I suspect that people thousands of years ago called alcohol "spirits" because they thought there really was a spirit in it that could "possess" susceptible people. I know that's what I would have thought.

I watched one 47-year-old dry drunk turn his teenage son's room upside down because he thought the boy was smoking marijuana. He did find a small pipe and a small amount. He hurled the pipe into the woods near his house and took the marijuana to the police station. And this was from a man who used to smoke more in six months that his son will do in his entire life. This is what "stinking thinking" can do to a dry drunk.

Lest anyone approve of such drastic measures as trashing a kid's room, I'll point out that his 25 years of heavy drinking left him with what psychologists told his ex-wife was the emotional maturity of a 15-year-old.

Bush, who was a heavy drinker for at least 20 years, finally quit when he was 40, when he became a "born-again Christian." This isn't surprising. The philosopher and psychologist William James, almost a hundred years ago, made the comment, "The best cure for dipsomania is religiomania." This doesn't mean the "religiomania" has anything to do with true religion. It certainly doesn't in the case of the murderous pseudo-Christian blood cult to which Bush belongs.

The characteristics of "stinking thinking" are, according to Katherine van Wormer (a professor of Social Work at University of Northern Iowa):

Exaggerated self-importance and pomposity.
Grandiose behavior.
A rigid, judgmental outlook.
Impatience.
Childish behavior.
Irresponsible behavior.
Irrational rationalization
Projection.
Overreaction.

Since these traits are interrelated, one cannot be discussed without reference to the others. Disturbingly--and dangerously--Bush shows all of these traits in abundance. He also shows he's never been treated for them, in the the way AA treats them.

His exaggerated self-importance, pomposity and grandiosity is shown by the fact he not only believes God choose him to be President, but that He also talks to him. Here is a man who has failed in every business adventure he's been involved in, including the presidency...yet after a lifetime of failure, he believes God chose him to be President?

Bush's outlook is certainly judgmental, as is anyone's who neatly divides the world into either good or evil, with nothing in between. He's impatient and certainly irresponsible, having started two wars on the flimsiest of evidence. Two wars, both overreactions, that even now, he still rationalizes as being just, after the loss of thousands of lives and the waste of a hundred billion dollars.

He projects all evil onto other countries, completely ignoring the evil the United States has done. Attacking Iraq when it didn't attack us? Ten years of sanctions that have left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead? I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks, "And your point is...?"

According to his words, we are good, and those who attacked us are evil.
End of story. The world isn't that simple, though. All true conservatives (and Bush is no conservative) know you can't divide everyone into either pure good or pure evil. His comment, "Either you are with us or against us" is something I expect from the mouth of a rabid leftist.

The first time I saw Bush do something childish was when a reporter spoke French in front of him. He snapped at him, while he was being filmed for the entire world, and threw a few words of Spanish at him, to show that he, too, could speak a foreign language. It was a childish, impatient overreaction. It was also embarrassing to see the President of the United States act like that.

I wonder if Bush's hilariously garbled syntax is the product of two decade's worth of heavy drinking? Are such comments as "I know how hard it is to put food on your family" a sign of brain damage? Did he speak like that before he started drinking?

Sometimes "stinking thinking" isn't that pronounced. In Bush's case, I think it's obvious, if you know what to look for. Personally, I'd like to see him hooked up to a PET or CAT scan, to see what's going on inside his brain. No reporter will ever suggest it, since the media (outside of the Internet) have become administration lapdogs.

Bush does deserve credit for knowing he can't handle his liquor. But I can't help but wonder, if he had not quit drinking, would he have ever run for President and been elected? While alcoholism is certainly a catastrophe for the alcoholic, in this case it would have been a blessing for the entire country. Indeed, the entire world.

Lew Rockwell See Bob's archives there.

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