One day at a time

They say that even a blind squirrel stumbles over an acorn now and then, and a stopped clock is right twice a day, so it must follow that there is ONE thing on which Donnie J. Trump and I agree, and it is this: we both feel that alcohol (and drug) abuse are debilitating to body and soul.

It was just the other night that the Bloviating Blonde brayed for the 342nd time that he abjures alcohol. He didn't say why, but we Trump observers know that it has everything to do with his brother Freddy, eight years older, who died a dissolute mess at age 43 in 1981.

Mother Trump with Freddy

Seeing one's own brother throw his life away for the next Jack and Coke would, or should, be enough to make most people swear off the hooch. If you can't handle it, you shouldn't handle it, and for all his other manifold shortcomings, we must say the president can't blame any of them on being drunk.


I don't know if it's genetics, or one's disposition, or what it is that makes some of us able to have a beer or two and move along with our lives. I'm grateful to be one such person, but I know plenty of folks who are not so lucky.

Such as the person in this piece from the Baltimore SUN:


Baltimore City police have fired an officer who was found intoxicated and slumped over in his patrol vehicle near Pigtown.

Officer Aaron Heilman, working and in full uniform, was found slumped over behind the wheel of his marked patrol vehicle in the 700 block of Washington Blvd. on Tuesday around 1:40 p.m.

Heilman was taken to the Central District under suspicion of being under the influence, police said. A Breathalyzer revealed his blood alcohol level was 0.22.

0.22 means almost three times drunk; in this state, you're considered impaired with a blood alcohol of 0.08 grams per deciliter or higher.

The article goes on to say that Heilman is charged with DUI-related offenses, and that Interim Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle fired him the day after his arrest, saying, "His actions represented a safety issue for himself and the community. I simply won’t tolerate it.”

And this officer was not an old-timer, tired of the world and everything in it and seeking solace from a bottle. Quite the contrary, Heilman is described as a new man, still on probation, and he had been on the clock for three hours when found sitting in his car, parked on a street in Pigtown, with his emergency flashers signaling. He had just been off for the two days prior. Another officer was seen removing Heilman's gunbelt, two others had to prop him up to walk to another patrol car, and a fourth had to drive his car back to the precinct.

I think of so many things. First of all, I'm not holding the man up for being a bad policeman. There are far too many good ones to let this one bad hire taint the majority. For all I care, he could have been a new young school teacher, architect, farmer, fisherman, shoe salesman, warehouseman or photographer.  It's not his profession that matters; it's how he blew the chance to succeed in it by succumbing to demon rum.

I think of his parents, significant other, family members, friends, all so proud when he was graduated from the police academy just months ago. Did any of them know he has problems with intoxicants, and did someone try to get him to help, or look the other way?

It's not enough to look at a person wasting their chances on substance abuse and decide not to go down that road. There is help available for people who need it, and I think the best thing is to take that person where the helpers are.