I realize that at first glance, this may appear to contradict much of what I say on this blog, but if you bear with me you’ll see that it doesn’t: Lindsay Lohan is a victim. Now I don’t think she’s a victim of the disease of addiction, and I’m not saying that her choices aren’t her own responsibility. She is perfectly capable of choosing to use or not use drugs excessively at any given time, and she can choose to fully comply with the demands of the legal system at any time. I say she’s a victim because I believe she’s fallen into the traps of the disease theory and recovery culture which have been hoisted upon her by the very people charged with helping her, I think she’s been victimized by the press, and I think she’s been used as an example by the legal system as a means to flaunt their power.
I’ve resisted writing about Lohan for a long time. Every day I search google news on addiction to inspire me to write a new blog post, and Lohan comes up over and over again, the news about her is almost inescapable. Most disgusting is the constant stream of people, both celebrities and professionals, offering “advice” for Lindsay. These people are usually making wild assumptions about her life, putting her down, telling her how to live, and talking about her as a way to get more press. The most glaring example being Dr Drew’s advice to the Lohan’s that they should plant drugs on her and call the police so she’d have to go to jail and/or rehab. Well I won’t be giving her advice, because I don’t know her true behavior, but that’s the point – I don’t think anyone knows except for her, yet everyone’s talking about her life and telling her what to do.
Dr Drew has assumed, as he would according to his beliefs, that Lohan must be abusing substances, without any proof. He believes that once you’ve had an episode of substance abuse that you become a lifelong addict, that relapse is inevitable, and that moderate use is impossible. Furthermore, he thinks a substance abuser must be controlled by external forces because their behavior is compulsive, and that only treatment can help – so he feels no shame in recommending that she be locked up under false pretenses, because it’s all for her own good!
The media has become obsessed with presenting the story of another child star going down in flames as a result of addiction. They’ve hyped up her problems and we’ve all accepted the picture they’ve presented, waiting on the edge of our seats for her inevitable tragic death. It doesn’t have to end that way, it’s not likely to end that way, and the real story may not even be close to following that pattern.
The Facts
It appears that Lohan has been behaving horribly for a long time when you watch the news, but when you really investigate the timeline you see a different story. Back in 2007, she had 2 drunk driving incidents within a 3 month timeframe. This resulted in 2 counts of DUI, 2 counts of driving with blood alcohol level over .08, 2 counts of being under the influence of cocaine, and 1 count of reckless driving. That’s a total of 7 charges for 2 incidents. That was 3 years ago. She has not been charged with any crimes since. She has not been accused of any crimes since. She has not ended up in a hospital for overdose. She’s done nothing which officially indicates that she is currently abusing substances and that it is currently interfering with her life – for 3 years now. The only thing she has done wrong, is to struggle with compliance of the court’s excessive sentence.
Back in 2007, Lohan went to 3 separate inpatient treatment programs before, between, and after her 2 drunk driving incidents. Then she went to court, where she was sentenced to:
- 1 day in jail
- 10 days of community service
- 3 days in a county coroner program which involved talking to the families of drunk driving victims
- 36 months probation
- Several hundred dollars in fines
- Completion of an inpatient drug treatment program
- 18 months of weekly alcohol education classes
I’m sure she must have had her license revoked as well, and probably for a long time, although I haven’t been able to find the details on that. Put all this together, and I judge it to be excessive punishment. Nevertheless, Lindsay satisfied the court’s demands on every one of these conditions except for the 18 months of weekly alcohol education classes – and this is the only bad behavior she’s shown since 2007, this is the only reason she stays in the news, being presented as a reckless starlet on the verge of overdose.
Having trouble complying with 18 months of weekly alcohol education classes is not the same thing as having a substance abuse problem, nor is it an indication that one is abusing substances. 18 months of these classes makes for a total of 78 classes! Lindsay has attended many, and she has missed many, and she’s been in and out of court over it – and this is not rare. If you spend a day in an average county courthouse you will quite likely see many people struggling with the same exact thing, but they may not all have such an excessive amount of classes to attend. What could you possibly be taught as a drunk driver that takes 78 classes to teach? For some perspective, an average college course in neuropsychology takes only 10-12 sessions – so you can learn the inner workings of the human brain in only 12 weekly classes, but to learn to not drink and drive takes 78 weekly classes? The repetition must be absolutely torturous. I’ve now finally realized we should definitely do away with waterboarding and simply send terrorists to drug courts!
I know too many people who have been to these classes and been put through the wringer by the administration of these programs, and still haven’t been able to get their licenses back, or graduate the class, or move on in any way which satisfies the powers controlling their fate – yet for having these same troubles, we consider Lindsay Lohan’s life to be a disaster, and her to be on the verge of overdose. It’s ridiculous. By the way, the classes she must attend are in one location in LA. What if she has to work. This is often a problem for people who work average jobs (it causes many to lose their jobs), but imagine how much more complicated it becomes when your job is to be an actress? I know we’re not supposed to feel sympathy for her because she’s rich, but let’s consider the reality. Movies and television shows are little self-contained businesses which set up shop for a short time in a specific location with a tight schedule. You must be able to be there when it works for the whole production, or you can’t be there at all. So if a movie is shooting in Arizona for 3 months, and you land a role in it, you have to go to Arizona for those 3 months, and you work around the clock pulling 12-16 hour days. You don’t get somebody to fill in for you so you can go do something else – your life is on hold for those 3 months while you stay ready to be on set whenever needed. This is her situation, she has to travel, she has to deal with often unpredictable and tight schedules – it is unreasonable to expect her to take every friday off for 78 consecutive weeks to fly to LA to go to a ridiculous class which doesn’t help anyone, and most likely repeats everything she’s heard in her several treatment stints ad nauseum.
And this is it. This is all that’s really going on. She’s simply having trouble completing this one part of her extremely excessive sentence for 2 drunk driving incidents which happened within 3 months of each other 3 darn years ago. Nothing has really happened since – she’s just dealing with this nonsense and constantly being dragged into court over it. With that said, she should buck up and deal with it and get it done, but it’s not easy, and it’s not unusual to get trapped in this system – it happens to millions of young people every year, she just happens to be an extremely visible case. Lindsay Lohan is a victim of the legal system and a victim of the treatment system. Because of a brief period of questionable behavior, her life is now wrapped up in dealing with treatment programs and courts for 3 years now – and it looks like her mess will continue even longer.
In May, the court ordered her to wear a SCRAM, which is an ankle bracelet that detects blood alcohol content. Shortly thereafter, it detected a BAC level of .03. To give you an idea of what this means I went online to the BAC calculator website and entered in 1 red bull & vodka for a 105 pound female – and this brings back an estimate of a BAC of .043 – so 3 years after her drunk driving offenses she gets dragged into court again and harassed for the equivalent of having less than one drink in her system! The .03 BAC is only news if you think that moderation is impossible, or if you believe that a one time drunk driver should never be allowed to drink again, but if you’re reasonable, you know that people drink safely throughout this country, people can change and learn how to drink without driving, and that moderation is the normal outcome for people who were once alcohol dependent. But don’t take my word on that last point – take the word of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). A massive study of the national population that they released in 2005 showed that 75% of people once diagnosed as alcohol dependent are now no longer dependent, 3/4 of them never received even the slightest bit of professional help – and only 18% of them end up abstinent. The rest of them continue drinking, but at much lower levels. Moderation is the norm, self-change is also the norm. Do you hear that Dr Drew Pinhead?
I couldn't have said it better myself! People should also keep in mind that Ms. Lohan, as well as whoever else lands in this system that is specifically designed to line the pockets of treatment professionals, is compelled to pay for each of these mandated stints in rehab, the counselors and the excessive classes to which she is mandated. People think who cares, she's rich, but if they can compel her to do it — they can compel anyone to do it. Research a recent law in Florida, called the Marchman Act. In Florida you don't even have to break the law to be forced into treatment anymore! Scary!
Lohan is an abuser of prescription drugs and alcohol. It's a fact.
Her inability to show up for treatment classes is indicative of her lack of discipline and her attitude that rules don't apply to her. At the bottom of your, Steve, approach to life changing relationships with substances is self discipline. She has none. She behaves like an over-indulged child. Whether the treatment works or not, with so much on the line, a mature individual would have just complied. Even if you think the punishment doesn't fit the crime – and maybe it doesn't – it is also true that the attitude that she should live a life without consequences or that her consequences should be any different than other peoples': this is the attitude that makes her an addict to begin with…
Great point Michelle, you do have to pay for all this stuff – and that is one of the saddest things when you watch poverty stricken people get up in court and get more fines and more punishment because they were unable to pay for the programs they've been sentenced to. And when you know, like we both know, that the programs are basically counterproductive and teach people to be helpless, it just adds more layers of insult and injury!
Thanks for the tip, I'll be looking into that Marchman Act.
Thanks Anonymous, your point about showing up for the classes is well taken. Nevertheless, I don't think she has lived without consequences, she has suffered excessive consequences, and because of her celebrity status, probably more consequences than the average person would. While I agree that you have to suck it up and deal with the nonsense eventually, I think the 78 classes are too much, and I don't think it's unreasonable to struggle with finishing it and to get fed up with it. My point is that she is 3 years out from the drunk driving incidents, and yet she's still being ordered into treatment, even though she has stayed away from drunk driving. I don't think that the court should still be telling her how to live at this point.
I agree that attitude is important, it was very important for me to make a massive attitude change in my life – but I don't think we can make the blanket diagnosis that every person who goes through an episode of substance abuse has a huge attitude problem. I've had too many students up at SJRH who broke that mold. The first time back in 2007 when Lindsay wore the SCRAM ankle bracelet back in 2007, she did so voluntarily. I think that showed good faith and a good attitude, and an acceptance of the consequences of her actions at that time. But I can understand how the attitude could change after 3 years of dealing with the system.
I think it's wrong for us to make assumptions about her usage. I concede that she could have been actively abusing substances recently, but I don't know what proof there is of that, and I don't know why at this point, 3 years later, when she's no longer driving drunk, that it should be anyone's business other than her own.
Finally, her level of discipline is no business of the court, nor is her current attitude – and as far as maturity goes – she's 24 years old. In this day and age, people don't really reach maturity until the mid to late 20's. Some drinking and partying is normal for a girl of her age, and I feel like we're constantly convicting her on jealousy, for things that we'd be okay with our college aged friends doing. Somehow, because she's young, wealthy, and successful, we want to see her fry for having fun. I think there's a serious double standard at play.
In conclusion, you make good points about attitude, discipline, and maturity which anyone struggling with substance use issues should personally consider, kudos for that – my only problem is that I don't think that in this case, the courts should be considering any of those things at this time.