Word: downey
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...anyone ever had good reason to say no to drugs, it was surely Robert Downey Jr. The actor, 35, had already seen a promising career held back by substance abuse. He had been separated from his wife and son and lost his freedom--twice. But since his release from prison last August, Downey seemed to be turning his life around. He was in the middle of a ratings-boosting guest run as Calista Flockhart's romantic interest on Ally McBeal. He was set to star in a film with Julia Roberts and Billy Crystal and to take a turn onstage...
...ready enough, evidently. On Nov. 25, Downey was arrested at a luxury resort in Palm Springs, Calif., charged with possession of cocaine and speed and with violating the terms of his August parole. Against all logic and common sense, he had played with the same fire that had repeatedly burned him in the past--and this time his career could be put on hold indefinitely...
...crazy as Downey's latest bout of self-destructive behavior seemed, it was pretty typical for someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol. Experts and addicts alike have long understood that willpower alone is helpless in the face of addiction, and in recent years science has started to figure out why. "The brain of a drug user," explains Dr. Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, "is physically altered in ways that make it difficult to resist further...
...public figures like Downey, the danger is especially great. "When you're famous," says Niki Moyer, a psychologist and clinical specialist at the Hazelden Foundation in Center City, Minn., "people respond to your public image, not to you as an individual. But direct human connection is an important key to healthy recovery." Going public with declarations that you're on the wagon, as Downey did in Vanity Fair and other publications, doesn't help. The feeling that your struggle is on full public view adds stress that can help trigger a relapse. That's one reason, says Moyer, that...
Visit www.somanintheknow.com followed by www.amihotornot.com, and you'll be giggling with glee... Last year, someone said that my column reminded them of Liz Smith and I threw a hissy-fit. The memory came back when I read this absolutely inane quote from Smith protesting Robert Downey Jr.'s arrest: "We'd better change the draconian drug laws of America before this country sinks under the weight of a prison population so huge that if we sent them all to Harvard instead of jail, we'd be a nation of educated achievers." Uh, no. I think if you sent the entire...