Tag Archives: alcoholism

Gwyneth Paltrow Got Advice From Robert Downey Jr. On Playing An Alcoholic

Kate Torgovnick/Kate-Book.comJanuary 3, 2011 //

Gwyneth Paltrow says that learning to belt out twangy tunes for the movie “Country Strong” was a challenge. But the hardest part of her role as Kelly Canter, a country singer on the comeback trail after going to rehab, was learning to play an alcoholic. So how did Gwynnie do it? She consulted her good bud, Robert Downey Jr. “I just couldn’t understand how you could be so drunk that you could wreck people’s lives and then wake up the next day and pretend everything was fine. I struggled with that,” she said. “I asked Robert, ‘How does this work?’ He was really articulate about addiction and the psychology behind it. He really helped me a lot.” We hope she just asked him with choicer words than, “What was it like when you were a total f**k-up?” [Huffington Post]
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Dear Wendy: “Hot For Doc” Responds

Wendy AtterberryJune 30, 2010 //

It’s time again for “Dear Wendy Updates,” in which people I’ve given advice to in the past let us know whether they followed the advice and how they’re doing today. After the jump, we hear from “Hot For Doc,” whose letter to me first appeared in one of my “Shortcuts” columns. She was involved with a guy — a hot doctor — she called a “functioning alcoholic,” whose daily consumption of booze and pills “frightened her.” He wouldn’t walk the dog around the block after drinking for fear of being seen by his neighbors, and his boozing was even affecting the couple’s sex life since he “usually passes out before they can even get started.” Her friends were telling her to walk away, but she blamed co-dependency issues on her inability to leave him. So, have things changed since she saw my advice and reader comments to her? Did she finally get up the gumption to walk away? Find out after the jump. Keep reading »

Your Social Group Made You A Drunk—It’s Maybe Not Your Parents’ Fault

adminApril 14, 2010 //

New study alert! Apparently, your extended social group influences your alcohol consumption just as much as genetics and family history. I don’t know why they keep doing studies that could easily be written after spending one weekend on a college campus, but I guess since this study borrowed information from the Framingham Heart Study, they didn’t waste anyone’s time. The Heart study followed 12,000 people for 30 years and found that if your friends drink, you are 50 percent more likely to drink yourself. Even if a friend of a friend abuses alcohol, you’re 36 percent more likely to abuse it, too. [Asylum] Keep reading »

Girl Talk: I Keep Forgetting Not To Trust An Addict

Jessica WakemanMarch 22, 2010 //
addiction photo

About a year ago, I was sitting at my desk at The Frisky when an email from my mother popped up. She was writing to tell me that my brother had checked himself into a rehab facility because he had started using drugs again. He had strained his back at his job, but didn’t tell his doctor about his past history of heroin and OxyContin addiction when he asked for a painkiller prescription. So he started taking Vicodin. And when he became addicted to the painkillers, he hid his drug use from his girlfriend. When she overheard him buying drugs on the phone, she kicked him out. But he did even more heavy drugs another night after that, and he woke up the next day realizing he’d hit “rock bottom” again. So my brother did another stint in rehab and when he checked out a month later, we watched warily, worried. But he lives in another state and, by choice, I hardly ever see him. Judging by the few holidays where I do see him, I assumed he was sober. Keep reading »

Girl Talk: How “Intervention” Helped Me To Forgive

Ami AngelowiczJanuary 21, 2010 //

I was really young and naïve when I met Christian* at a nightclub. By “young,” I mean 18 and by “naïve,” I mean an inexperienced dater who thought men would only like me for my intelligence.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Christian asked some other club goers in line. I looked behind me to see where the beautiful girl was. I certainly didn’t think it was me. But he pointed at me again. He was standing in the club’s entryway wearing big, Buddy Holly glasses, black leather pants, and reeking of “teen icon.” Then he smiled – a wide, devilish grin. With one hand, he offered me a lollipop; with the other he held a whiskey on the rocks. In fact, in the four years (on and off) that we were involved, Christian usually had a whiskey on the rocks. It was like his signature accessory. Keep reading »

Dear Wendy: You Booze, You Lose?

Wendy AtterberrySeptember 22, 2009 //

Let’s start off with the fact that I love my boyfriend “Scott.” Scott and I have made it through a break up, months of monogamous dating, and we are an official couple again. However, I’m concerned that he may drink too much. Scott rarely has a night where he doesn’t smoke marijuana or drink. He occasionally does hard drugs (he only seems to do them when he goes on vacation with his exgirlfriend, but that is neither here nor there since that hasn’t been resolved). Whenever Scott drinks he either gets annoyed or overly affectionate- ie. he either is on edge or is trying to convince me to marry him. Wendy, what should I do to address this issue? I want to support him through thick and thin but at the same time I think part of support is urging him to stop destructive behavior. —Girlfriend of an Alcoholic Anonymous

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Confessions Of A (Maybe?) Excessive Drinker

AnonymousAugust 11, 2009 //

Last night, I got drunk. (A few too many Blue Moons.) The night before that, I got drunk. (Vodka tonics.) The night before that, I got really drunk and accidentally made out with a dude two degrees skeevier than I would normally go anywhere near. (Shots followed by champagne.) The night before that, I … got drunk. (Blue Moon. Again.)

I bet you’re starting to notice a pattern here. Keep reading »

Stupid Tabloid Claim Of The Week: Is Michelle Obama A Lush?!

Zandile BlayJune 26, 2009 //

The war on Michelle Obama continues. This time it’s not her looks that her critics are attacking, but her sobriety. According to The National Enquirer, “Michelle Obama – cracking under the pressure of being First Lady – is drinking way more than she should, friends fear.” Oh really? The tabloid lists “close sources,” “friends,” and “insiders” who have lined up to tattle on Michelle’s excessive drinking habits which include: “overindulging during (her) date night” with the President in New York City on May 30th; knocking down “a glass or two of champagne” on a private jet and downing “two martinis during dinner at the Greenwich Village restaurant Blue Hill.

”  That doesn’t exactly qualify for a membership at Alcoholics Anonymous, otherwise we’d be seeing her there, but the National Enquirer must have different standards. [via I Hate The Media] Keep reading »

Damn You, Bill Murray

Amelia McDonell-ParryMay 29, 2008 //

I’ve had a crush on Bill Murray since I saw Groundhog Day and his studliness was further proved by the depressing lothario he played in Lost In Translation. So it’s with a sad heart that I report that Murray may not be the sensitive moper the world thought him to be. According to divorce papers filed by Murray’s soon-to-be-ex-wife, Jennifer Murray, the actor’s “adultery, addiction to marijuana and alcohol, abusive behavior, physical abuse, sexual addictions and frequent abandonment” led to their split. Apparently he also told her “she was lucky he didn’t kill her.” [The Smoking Gun] Keep reading »

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