Hollywood

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This is an opinion piece.  If you'd rather read something other than a discussion of drug and alcohol abuse, you might be interested in our four-part series on Hector Noesi.

's awright?  's awright.

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Q.  Do you figure that Josh Hamilton's situation is more dire, or less dire, than we would guess at first glance?

A.  Well, here's one thing about it.  In the PC world, if we don't like something, we go into zero-tolerance mode.  We don't like littering, so throwing a napkin out of your car window is not far removed, on the media-lynching felony scale, from assault with a deadly weapon.  That which we find distasteful, we react to very harshly.

There is a media assumption that for Josh Hamilton, his lapse back into alcohol is pretty much the same thing as if he'd lapsed back into heroin.  This is simply not true.  Many opiate addicts, perhaps more than 50% of them, can substitute alcohol for opiates.  

And then their drinking problems, long-term, may be no worse than that of many "social drinkers" who overdo alcohol.  There is a proverb that 75% of Russian men are alcoholics by the American definition.  It doesn't stop the factories from running.  People go to work and maintain their lives despite the fact that they drink a lot, and I don't think that Hamilton's drinking implies, not at all, that he's an odds-on bet to go back to opiates.

Here is a relatively nuanced article on the question of whether it is okay for drug addicts to drink.

We're not saying it isn't mortally dangerous for Hamilton to drink, of course.  If it meant a 16% chance that he'd relapse into heroin, would it be worth the risk?  Is Russian Roulette with a .357 magnum a cool game, or is it something that insane people play?

But it's his life, and real justice depends on a nuanced consideration of the crime.  A fair judge is sympathetic to the community that is endangered, and is also sympathetic to the individual who has done something wrong.

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Q.  What is your own background as it relates to helping people with addictions?

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ARod dumped Boras for endorsement purposes

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=== Epiphany, Dept. ===

And we'd have re-titled it with one word-slot change and one punctuation change, "Scott Boras IS Hurting Prince Fielder!," except for one thing:  Prince Fielder hasn't yet signed a disappointing contract.

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=== Prince Fielder ===

Jack Zduriencik has been kind enough to avoid calling Prince a fat man.  (Granted, I imagine this might be good business, too...)

But it is one thing for Meryl Streep to blush and say, aw shucks, I'm just happy to be here.  It's another thing for Streep to protest that she's the prettiest woman in Hollywood and hey, why am *I* not the one on the cover of Cosmo?  She's just asking for somebody to analyze her facial structure.

It's one thing for Prince Fielder to say, look, I'm a team guy and I want to help somebody win.  It's another thing for him to say, hey, why are ARod and Pujols getting $250M and I'm not?  He's just asking for somebody to ask him what exactly his pant size is, and by the way Scott, what EXACTLY will Prince's UZR be in 2015?

Q.  I'm concerned that 17-year-olds will imitate this.