Frat brothers defaced dead boy with magic markers

His lifeless body was defaced with offensive remarks from head to toe.

That's what an autopsy released Tuesday Jan. 9 2007 shows happened to Phanta "Jack" Phoumarrath, the University of Texas (Austin) fraternity member who died of alcohol poisoning in 2005.

It also shows his blood alcohol content was five times the legal limit.

Some members of Lambda Phi Epsilon have been indicted in his death.

The family's attorney says the suspects seem to have spent a considerable amount of time drawing on Jack, when they could have been helping him instead.

"They wrote a variety of things, most of which would be considered juvenile. Some of which were lewd. It was disappointing and certainly discouraging to the family that people who hold themselves out as fraternity brothers would do something like this," Phoummarath family attorney Randy Sorrels said.

UT suspended Lambda Phi Epsilon as a registered student organization until 2011, after determining that hazing had occurred. Source.

Many of the epithets scrawled on Jack's body were homophobic. Source.

More alcoholics 'coming out' despite stigma, traditions

A march by more than 2,500 recovering alcoholics and addicts in Hartford CT has spurred a movement to end discrimination and drum up moral and financial support by urging more people to tell their recovery stories publicly. A lengthy report appears in the North County Times (Riverside, CA).

The movement models its efforts after the public awareness campaigns that pushed breast cancer and AIDS onto the country's radar screen and pushed back the walls of stigma and discrimination against gays and lesbians.

"I still don't think the general public believes that an addict or alcoholic ever gets well," says Phillip Valentine, executive director of Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery, a state-based advocacy and support group that organized the first Recovery Walk six years ago. "Many, many people have long-term, sustained sobriety and you may not know about it. We need to put a face on recovery so people won't be so afraid or fearful or angry at it. It's not a hopeless condition."

People in recovery routinely encounter public and private policies that were created as a deterrent or punishment to alcohol and drug abuse. On paper, the penalties might make sense; in practice, they often are counterproductive to people trying to put their addictions behind them.

Those with alcohol or other drug diseases pay higher insurance deductibles and co-payments for treatment, get fewer visits and days of coverage, and have more restrictions on the amount they can spend, even when their insurance benefits cover treatment ---- if they are insured at all, according to Join Together, a project of Boston University School of Public Health that formed a national policy panel in 2002 to address the discrimination issues. The panel found that the Americans with Disabilities Act is applied very narrowly in these cases and that employees who seek treatment are frequently fired before they can get help.

Another barrier is the tradition of anonymity in the 12-step organizations. Author William Cope Moyers, an advocate for greater openness, says:

"This is a very contentious issue and I respect both sides of the debate, but I will tell you that I believe this misunderstanding of the traditions has made it very difficult for those of us in advocacy to mount a sustained and successful effort."

"This whole business of anonymity is where the thorn is," says Robyn Leary, who hosts a weekly radio show called "Recovery Talk" on WDFH-FM in New York's Hudson Valley. Leary gives her guests the option of using their names.

"It's not a matter of insisting that everyone go public," says Leary, who has organized an "Under the Influence" film festival. "It's a voluntary calling. I do think anonymity is going to keep people in recovery in the basement of churches. It's going to prevent more and more people from getting treatment." -- Read the whole report in the N.C. Times.

Limbaugh blasts Trump for giving Miss USA a second chance

Radio bloviator Rush Limbaugh blasted media mogul Donald Trump today for giving Miss USA, the underage Tara Conner, a chance to redeem herself following an incident in which she was publicly intoxicated and smooching with another woman.

In Limbaugh's entire commentary on the incident, he somehow never touched on the fact that Limbaugh himself was caught out with an opiate addiction in 2003, and that he is currently serving out the last ten months of a court-supervised treatment regimen in settlement of a charge of doctor-shopping. Source.

When it comes to second chances, Limbaugh wants to hog them all for himself. Oink, oink!

More meth, more HIV: study

Gay men who use methamphetamine more often are more likely to become HIV-positive, says a new study done in Los Angeles and published in the Journal of Urban Health this month. Abstract.

Send Haggard to boot camp: Maia

Maia Szalavitz writes in her blog:

I'm waiting for the rehab announcement-- I'm sure within 24 hours we will hear that Rev. Ted Haggard is on his way to Hazelden or Betty Ford or some other upscale rehab for his "methamphetamine addiction."

But where he should really be sent is to Love in Action's anti-gay boot camp-- a confrontational, attack-therapy program based on Lieberman fundraiser and former Republican finance chair Mel Sembler's Straight Incorporated.

Readers of this blog will recall that at Straight and its descendants, teens are forced to spend 10-12 hour days sitting on hard back chairs, looking straight ahead, listening to the person who is leading the meeting or who has been called on to speak.

When someone is speaking, anything but attention and agreement with program principles is met with pinches, slaps or if that doesn't prompt compliance, full restraint in which the person is thrown to the floor and other participants sit on one's arms, legs and midsection. The head is also held immobile-- and restraints can persist for hours and are not ended if the victim needs to urinate or defecate.

Source. Maia, Maia ... your blog shows no loving Christian charity toward this sinner, at all.

He didn't inhale

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (CNN) -- Less than 24 hours after being fired from the mega-church he founded, evangelical Pastor Ted Haggard confessed to a "lifelong" sexual problem.

In a letter read to members of his New Life Church Sunday, Haggard admitted he is "a deceiver and a liar."

Haggard admitted that he had bought methamphetamine, but said he did not use the drug and threw it away.

A former male prostitute, Mike Jones, went public with charges last week that Haggard paid him for sex about once a month for three years until this past August, and that Haggard frequently used methamphetamine during the sessions. Source.

Haggard, with his chiseled features, wide smile and five children, had been a poster boy for the evangelical movement and social conservative causes that have been embraced by the Republican Party. Here's a video from You-tube: UK prof. Richard Dawkins interviewing Haggard.

Foley hides out a bit longer

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Former U.S. Rep.Mark Foley is remaining in treatment for alcoholism beyond his initial 30-day stay, his attorney said Wednesday. Source. More on Foley.

Translation: Expect him out the day after the election.

Foley's Alcoholism Phoney?

Directly after resigning from Congress, Mark Foley (R-FL) made a public admission of alcoholism and checked himself into an addiction rehab program.

Foley's claim of alcoholism is not convincing a lot of people who knew him. One of his own colleagues, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) told Fox the claim is "a gimmick." Source. Advocate.com, the LGBT website, quotes sources close to Foley as doubting that he had a drinking problem. Source. From this perspective, Foley's quick public entrance into an alcohol rehab clinic was a convenient exit from further public questioning about his sexual advances to underage male pages.

True, as a psychiatrist pointed out to the press, many alcoholics manage to hide their addiction for fear of being stigmatized. But Foley had other stigmas to worry about. He was a closeted gay Republican -- but his orientation was an open secret in Washington and in Florida. He was also sexually interested in the male Capitol pages -- but this fact was widely known among the pages themselves and evidently at least some in the House leadership. Does the stigma of alcoholism carry a more painful sting than homosexuality and pedophilia, such that Foley would guard the secret of his drinking more closely than his other secrets? Hard to believe. Especially in Washington.

Foley wasn't alone in taking dubious refuge in alcohol rehab. Rep. Bob Ney (R.-OH) declared himself an alcoholic and checked into rehab last month hours after pleading guilty to corruption charges in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal.

The parallel has been a feast for skeptics. The Maine Morning Sentinel's editorialist observed that "claiming an addiction becomes the last resort of the poorly behaved." Source. Another commentator thinks that checking into rehab is becoming standard procedure for cornered politicos. Source.

Writer William Saletan had fun with this emerging pattern in Slate. Politicos in trouble should follow a 10-step program, he writes, including:

4. Call yourself an alcoholic. Foley adopts the label directly: "I am an alcoholic." This is vital, because when you're also a crook, anti-Semite, or pervert, "alcoholic" sounds so much nicer. Millions of people are alcoholic or love someone who's alcoholic. Embrace the label, and they'll embrace you. Roth adds a nifty twist to this maneuver, calling Foley "a closet drinker." Everyone knows Foley had a closet. The only question is what's in it. Booze is the least shocking answer he can hope to get away with. Source.

The conservative pundit Mona Charen also wasn't buying it. She wrote: "A fly on the wall of these treatment centers would doubtless discover that some of their celebrity clients are not alcoholics at all, but simply charlatans anointing themselves with alcoholism to wring sympathy from an infinitely forgiving public." Source.

So, at least if you're a celebrity, the "alcoholism" label, far from stigmatizing you, makes you downright lovable. NCADD, are you listening?

It's a perverse world. The huge majority of alcoholics who need treatment can't get it. Source. Scarce and understaffed emergency detox centers have waiting lists. Source. But for a handful of public figures, alcoholism treatment serves as a convenient moral refuge, a beggar's cup for sympathy, and a safe harbor from public inquiry.

P.S. A number of the commentators on Foleygate are mixing up his case with Mel Gibson's. While Foley's "alcoholism" seems too convenient to be true, there's no doubt about Gibson's bona fides in this department. See earlier blog posts here and here.

Dealing with Spiritual Abuse

BURBANK, CA: One of the workshops at the addiction counselors' annual conference this afternoon was Queers 101 -- What Every Addiction Counselor Should Know About Lesbian/ Gay/ Bisexual/ Transgender clients. The presenter, Joe Amico, had been booted out of his position as a successful senior minister of a mainstream Christian denomination when he came out as gay. He then became an addictions counselor, and has spoken and written widely about the topic.

Someone in the audience asked Amico to talk about the spiritual dimension of recovery for LGBT people. He said that many LGBT people had suffered what he calls spiritual abuse in the churches, in the form of sermons that brand homosexuality as a sin and tell queer people that they will burn in hell. As a result of such spiritual abuse, many LGBT people had extreme difficulty with the 12-step approach, riddled with God references as it is. Amico referred the questioner to an article Amico had written about the topic. Source.

Spiritual abuse is one more reason why it's important to have a secular option. No doubt one of the reasons why the LifeRing meeting at the LGBT Center in San Francisco is so popular is that LGBT people can work on their recoveries here without constant reminders of past painful religious experiences that filled them with shame and self-loathing.

On religious intolerance of LGBT people, read Elton John's statement with commentary, here.