gkainz
Final Approach
I disagree. You can fix ignorance with education... stupid, I'm afraid, is terminal.
stingray
Line Up and Wait
All depends on the educator. If need be, in the right hands a baseball bat is a great educator!
Dan
Education cures ignorance, not stupidity....
U
Unregistered
Guest
Flying is addictive. So is booze. We are all a little crazy to leave terra firma. But flying is a seductive pursuit. Since Selfridge died, everyone knows there is a risk. But we can justify it to ourselves. Being confident enough to fly requires a certain mentality. If you fly single-pilot IFR, you have to have confidence.
James
Filing Flight Plan
That's as concise as I'e ever seen it. Can I steal that if I properly attribute you, Dr. Bruce?
Two examples, polar opposites. First-hand observations in both cases.
A family member that struggled with alcoholism all his life until he decided to take flying lessons. Bought a C-150, never drank another drop of alcohol as far as I know. Got his PPL, new airport buddies, and a huge shot of self-esteem.
An ex-brother-in-law (over 20 years ago) started flying freight in a Cherokee 6, then Beech 18s, worked his way up to charter L-1011 FO, then right after his 30th birthday got typed in a 727 at the charter company. Straight into two failed stints in rehab, got all his tickets revoked (rightfully so), then got FIVE DUIs in about four years, got a felony DUI, did time in state prison, now drives a ditch witch for a company that installs golf course irrigation. Can't legally drive himself to work. heck, I wonder if he's ever wrecked the ditch machine.
How can one explain either scenario?
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docmirror
Touchdown! Greaser!
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Cowboy - yeehah!
I think where Henning is going, and where a lot of others leave the bandwagon is the infliction vs defect issue. For the example given of schizophrenia, this is so similar in that neither have an organic litmus test. While there has been a lot of focus on finding a genetic link for both, so far nothing has been established that meets the clinical definition of a causative marker.
On the other hand we have mental defects like the Sclerosis family of neurology, or the clear defect of Cerebral Palsy. These are not inflicted, as is the case with the addictive behaviors. If there isn't a difference in the clinical diagnosis(I think there is) then we should treat them the same as the defect group. However, if there is a difference in the clinical diagnosis, then we are really doing a disservice to those who truly suffer from a mental disease by lumping the addicts in with them.
It would also be a disservice to the addictive person to define them as mentally defective, and turn into 'enablers' of the behaviors that must be stopped to control the problem. Certainly a weakness of mine, is that I can't work up the same sympathy for a self-inflicted mental illness as I can for someone born with or developed MS, CP, or ALS. While both the alcoholics and the mentally defective suffer, the cure in one case is really quite as simple as Dr Bruce has defined.
"Stop drinking". And before anyone chimes in with 'they can't', I say, if we put them in prison, they would effectively be 'cured'. However, I don't see any value in that, with the clear exception that alcoholics often damage many people around them, and are often the cause of drunk driving deaths.
<edit: philosopher here, not a physician(obviously)>
On the other hand we have mental defects like the Sclerosis family of neurology, or the clear defect of Cerebral Palsy. These are not inflicted, as is the case with the addictive behaviors. If there isn't a difference in the clinical diagnosis(I think there is) then we should treat them the same as the defect group. However, if there is a difference in the clinical diagnosis, then we are really doing a disservice to those who truly suffer from a mental disease by lumping the addicts in with them.
It would also be a disservice to the addictive person to define them as mentally defective, and turn into 'enablers' of the behaviors that must be stopped to control the problem. Certainly a weakness of mine, is that I can't work up the same sympathy for a self-inflicted mental illness as I can for someone born with or developed MS, CP, or ALS. While both the alcoholics and the mentally defective suffer, the cure in one case is really quite as simple as Dr Bruce has defined.
"Stop drinking". And before anyone chimes in with 'they can't', I say, if we put them in prison, they would effectively be 'cured'. However, I don't see any value in that, with the clear exception that alcoholics often damage many people around them, and are often the cause of drunk driving deaths.
<edit: philosopher here, not a physician(obviously)>
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Maxmosbey
Final Approach
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I need to get serious.
I'm not going to pass judgement in regards to wheather alcohol abuse is an illness, or just a behavior problem. I worked as a police officer for twenty-nine years, and during a good part of it I specialized in alcohol related crime. The city where I worked is a big college town, so they have quite a few draconian laws in regards to alcohol. One of them was a law that would not allow persons under the age of twenty-one to enter into an establishment that was considered a tavern under the legal definition. I won't go into that, because it has been argued for decades in the city. Anyway, my point is, often times officers would find ROTC students in the bars underage. They would always plead their case to the officer by saying that they would be kicked out of the program if they recieved a conviction for an alcohol related offense. My take on it was that they knew this going in, so by weeding out the cadets with poor judgement, we were in fact saving hundreds, if not thousands of enlisted men who might fall under their command. I could never understand why someone would put their whole career in jeapordy in order to sneak into a bar, or to walk down the sidewalk with a bud lite in their hand. I don't think that most of these kids were alcoholics.
I've been retired now for a couple of years, so I don't know all the particulars, but a cop who I worked with for almost my entire career, was arrested last fall for drunk driving. He just lost his job last month as a result. I have some mixed emotions about this. In one way I want to believe that it is an illness, but on the other hand, I think that even so, he could have done something different. As I understand it, he had a drinking probem for a long time, but he was good at hiding it. Like a lot of things, looking back I can see some things that would point to his drinking problem. They just didn't register at the time.
I've been retired now for a couple of years, so I don't know all the particulars, but a cop who I worked with for almost my entire career, was arrested last fall for drunk driving. He just lost his job last month as a result. I have some mixed emotions about this. In one way I want to believe that it is an illness, but on the other hand, I think that even so, he could have done something different. As I understand it, he had a drinking probem for a long time, but he was good at hiding it. Like a lot of things, looking back I can see some things that would point to his drinking problem. They just didn't register at the time.
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