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Jury Still Out on Gibson’s Rant
Robert Butterworth, PhD, a Los Angeles-based clinical psychologist, is a little more sympathetic than Kendrick and Malone. “If we all walked around uninhibited, we’d all be saying ‘mea culpa’ constantly,” he tells WebMD.
“We have to see whether the thoughts influence the deed,” he says. “Just because [Gibson has these feelings down deep inside], I am assuming he has managed to keep it from influencing him and we shouldn’t judge people by how they are when they are drunk,” he says.
Northridge, Calif.-based addiction specialist Doug Thorbrun, and author of Alcoholism Myths and Realities, says that what may be true for the social drinker is not necessarily true for the alcoholic.
“For 90 percent of us, alcohol may be truth serum, but in alcoholics it changes the person,” he says. “[Gibson] may be a bigot in real life, but there is no way to know until he is clean and sober for five to 10 years,” says Thorbrun.
The brain’s neocortex is supposed to reign in the instincts and compulsions of the lower brain, but in alcoholics it is not working properly, he explains. “Due to a buildup of poison and resulting damage to the neocortex, alcoholism causes deep behavioral changes.”
This is not Gibson’s real personality, it’s Mr. Hyde, he says. “This is not the real human being. The personality manifesting during a period of active alcoholism is a toxic one and is as opposite of ‘real’ as we’ll ever see,” he says.
Regardless of whether ‘in vino veritas’ (translation: ‘there is truth in wine’),S. Hanala Stadner, a rehabilitation counselor in Hollywood, Calif., and author of My Parents Went Through the Holocaust and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt, says “one of the reasons that we drink is because we have unfinished thoughts. And therapy can make you finish your thoughts, such as ‘you hate Jews because …’”
For Gibson, “therapy is the answer to get him to figure out why he is blaming the Jews,” Stadner says.
Treating Alcoholism With a Monthly Shot
By Denise Mann, MS, reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
SOURCES:Gary L. Malone, MD, addiction psychiatrist; and medical director and chief of psychiatry, Baylor All Saints Medical Center, Fort Worth, Texas. Carleton Kendrick, EdM, LCSW, family therapist, Boston. S. Hanala Stadner, rehabilitation counselor, Hollywood, Calif.; and author of My Parents Went Through the Holocaust and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt. Robert Butterworth, PhD, clinical psychologist, Los Angeles.Doug Thorburn, addiction specialist, Northridge, Calif.