By Mickey Friedman
October 22, 2016
We rip ourselves apart. White, black, born again or unenrolled, native born or newly arrived, we tear at each other with ever-increasing fury.
That we are all flawed and prone to mess up seems not to register when it’s easier to go after others who make the same mistakes we do.
Here in the Best Small Town in America we have taken a health problem that afflicts so very many to focus on the most recently outed offenders, our police. And while this time it’s Great Barrington’s police department, the full story extends to the north to Lenox and south to Sheffield.
It’s a tragic story. First, a young GB policeman drinks too much in Lenox and dies on his way home. The many ripples of that death is beyond calculation. For many, when it comes to talking about alcohol and drugs, the simplest thing is to default to a combination of pity and self-satisfaction. It’s easy to separate ourselves: the we who handle our liquor and drugs and those who don’t. We wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel or better yet would have stopped drinking sooner.
Sadly, this young man is gone. Now another young GB policeman has been suspended. Pulled over by a fellow officer driving erratically in Sheffield. The case has been investigated not by doctors and addiction counselors but by lawyers in both towns.
Before you all start writing letters to the editor, let me say I don’t in any way condone driving under the influence. I have very dear friends who lost an extraordinary daughter to a drunk driver.
But something is missing as we increasingly default to blame and criminalization and incarceration.
I know little about the science of addiction. So it helps me to think of this as “dis-ease.” Don’t we all wish for relief from the pain of living. A litany of discomfort: poverty, back pain, headaches, grief, insecurity, shattered dreams, depression, and bad relationships. Drink to be funnier; smoke dope, eat mushrooms, munch tree bark to see further, deeper, find joy or the fourth dimension. Pills for pain. The age old desire to find some small measure of peace.
In Great Barrington, the discussion of alcoholism has been replaced by questions of police procedure. Some suggest the brave Sheffield policeman wasn’t brave enough to administer a breathalyzer? Did his superiors intervene? Is there a double standard when it comes to how one is treated when stopped for driving under the influence?
These concerns need to be addressed. But I’d feel a lot better if we talked about the deeper problem. We are, almost all of us, living under the influence. And those who fall off the edge have lost their balance. While there by the grace of God go you and I, our friends and neighbors. None of us immune.
So now we know our police drink. Why should we be surprised that a certain percentage of them drink too much? I appreciate why many slip into outrage: the police are our protectors; they are the enforcers. Supposed to stop others when they/we drink in excess. Which means they shouldn’t have the same problem that afflicts the rest of us.
Yet Massachusetts has one of the highest rates of excessive drinking in the United States. The Center for Disease Control defines excessive alcohol use as “drinking 5 or more drinks on an occasion for men or 4 or more drinks on an occasion for women … or drinking 15 or more drinks per week for men, or 8 or more drinks per week for women.”
A 2015 Berkshire Health Systems study estimates 21% of Berkshire County residents engage in excessive drinking. Compare that to the 10% average in the United States.
According to the CDC “In 2014, 9,967 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, [and] over 1.1 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics.” But that’s catching only 1% of those who admitted to alcohol-impaired driving each year.
17.2% of the Berkshire County population smoke compared to 15% statewide; 22% of expectant mothers compared to the state’s 6.8%. 11.5% use opioids. 24% of twelfth graders were drunk or high at school.
Somehow, we have developed different standards for different drug use: drinking more acceptable than smoking marijuana; taking Valium better than taking OxyContin. One addiction more understandable than another. But it’s a common impulse: the desire to minimize pain. To relax. To forget. To disappear. Sadly, addiction to any and all can be a serious health problem.
So policemen who drink to excess have to arrest people who also drink or smoke dope or take Oxy or do coke. And so those who might help each other, who ought to share support groups, are pitted against each other.
Please, let’s treat addiction. Criminalizing the need to find relief is counterproductive and a waste of our already compromised compassion.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
For more information:
“Occupations With High Rates of Alcoholism,” Miranda McKee, June 24, 2015
https://www.addictioncenter.com/community/occupations-with-high-rates-of-alcoholism/
Berkshire County Community Health Needs Assessment, Berkshire Health Systems, 2015
http://www.rxlist.com/pain_medications-page2/drugs-condition.htm
CDC Public Health Surveillance: National Surveys That Collect Information About Alcohol Consumption
http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/surveillance.htm
1 comment for “Under The Influence”