Judge Kavanaugh is no Alcoholic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Judge Brett Kavanaugh is no alcoholic and never has been.

Take it from me.

I drank alcoholically for 20 years until I was 50, joined Alcoholics Anonymous and haven’t had a drink since 1979, nearly 40 years ago. I continue to attend the occasional AA meeting, and I would go to more if the acoustics were better.

I am an expert.

If you want to know more about addiction and recovery download my free book, “Pathways to Serenity. Overcoming Your Addictions One day at a Time” on my web site. (you can buy an older version of the book on Amazon but we recommend the later free version)

I don’t know at this point what the outcome of Kavanaugh’s nomination will be, but I refer to Alan M. Dershowitz, a high profile liberal Democrat for comment. His opinion piece in Monday’s Wall Street Journal supports Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination because, to his great credit, Dershowitz, believes it is right.

Mr. Dershowitz is a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of “The Case against impeaching Trump.”

“Kavanaugh is on trial for his life,” Dershowitz said. “At stake are his career, his family, his legacy and a reputation earned over many decades as a lawyer and judge.

“If he is now denied the appointment, it will be because he has been depicted as a sexual predator who deserves contempt, derision and possible imprisonment.

“He may no longer be able to teach law, coach sports or expect to be treated respectfully. He could be forced to resign his current judicial position, because having a convicted rapist on bench is unseemly.

“For these reasons he now has the right—perhaps not a legal right, but a right based on fundamental fairness—to have the charges against him put to the test of clear and convincing evidence or some standard close to that.

“I don’t know whether Judge Kavanaugh is guilty or innocent or somewhere in between. I don’t know whether he told the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

“ Judge Kavanaugh wouldn’t have been my candidate of choice for the Supreme Court. I am a liberal Democrat who believes Republicans improperly denied Judge Merrick Garland a seat on the high court.

“But this is no longer about who would make the best Supreme Court justice. It is about the most fundamental issues of fairness this country has faced since the McCarthy era when innocent people were accused of trying to overthrow the government and had their lives ruined based on false accusations, while being denied all semblance of due process or fairness.

Kavanaugh is a Christian, an association that he declares and is revealed in his concerns for others and his honesty.

I believe him 100%.

I too am a Christian. I became one shortly after I sobered up.

I joined Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, where I was Baptized by Bill Parkinson and become a follower of Jesus Christ. Robert Lewis, founder of the Men’s Fraternity and Bill Wellons, like Bill Parkinson, were also mentors.

In 1984, I became more active in sponsoring young men at the new Wolfe Street Center, which, among other things, provided rooms for AA and Alanon meetings. I served two years as chairman of Wolfe Street in the early nineties.

I was an active alcoholic for 20 years and have worked with alcoholics as a sponsor for more than 30 years. I know one when I see one. Judge Kavanaugh is no alcoholic. He is a smart, caring man whose wife and children clearly adore him and hurt for him.

Obviously for good reason.

Problems in our nation

Make no mistake. I am as caught up in the politics of the moment as anyone. I sincerely believe that Judge Kavanaugh is the one and should get the Supreme Court job. I think that the Democrats have mistreated him and his family. I pray that he will prevail and that we can turn our attention to problem solving.

We have a serious drug problem in America which will get worse if we don’t attend to it, and when things settle down a little we should get busy.

Making a difference has to begin at the grassroots level with families, neighborhoods, and communities. National campaigns are fine, but recovery, I believe, is achieved mainly through local programs and relationships.

I find support for this conclusion in a project financed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), which in the 1990s gave out roughly $45 million in a series of grants to fifteen communities, including Little Rock.

The Fighting Back project produced a variety of milestones in the substance abuse reduction field—some of which endure today.

Little Rock’s successful grant proposal (written by Frankie Sarver, wife of the late Bob Sarver, Arkansas Commissioner of Corrections during the Winthrop Rockefeller administration) stated that “people and communities—whose behaviors are partly defined by fear, denial, hopelessness, and passivity—are dysfunctional in the same ways.

“The disease of substance abuse,” she said, “affects an entire city much the same as the disease affects its individual residents. Denial prevents its identification and an unwillingness to deal with the problem and blaming others prevents recovery.

The book. Pathways to Serenity, is mainly about people who have experienced the blessings and joy of recovery from their addictions, how they did it, and how you can do it. Our purpose is to give you hope and encouragement. The rest is up to you.

You will find my story, the one I tell at 12-Step meetings, in appendix 1. I hope you will conclude when you read it that, “If this guy can do it, I can, too.”

There are also nineteen chapters in the book that will help you better understand the resources available to you. There are chapters, for example, on people we are especially interested in—adolescents, veterans, and prison inmates—and about programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, and Celebrate Recovery.

I call these chapters “Pathways to Serenity” in the title of the book and emphasize taking it no more than “one day at a time,” a vital key to recovery. The photo on the front cover is meant to reassure those who seek recovery that there can be happiness after you drop the alcohol, drugs, or other addictions. And there will be moments of serenity, but not every moment. That’s where the “one day at a time” comes in.

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