Intervention

Happy New Year! Let’s all commit to only focusing on relationships, personal or professional where everyone is on your team. Where we’re all fighting the good fight together and not against one another. Although my personal inclination is to pay a lot of attention to negative things and people I vow to let those things and people go. To focus on the people who like me and not search out the ones that don’t. Same with work. Do the leg work but focus on 10 attainable goals instead of 100 possible ones and anyone that doesn’t believe as I do and don’t want to help, can sit out 2010. If I achieve 5 of the 10 I’ll have a fun year and will be able to help more people get to their goals. This means that I’m going to have to say “no” and cut any dead weight, 2 things that scare me to death as a People Pleaser First Class (BTW, I’m doing this so I can provide for Ashley and our future family. If it was just for me I’d never do it:)  

Now I need to write about something I’d hoped I never would because it involves anonymity and good deeds. 2 things that shouldn’t go together, in my book but are necessary I sure hope there’s Karma and a God otherwise I’d do a lot less. As most recovering alcoholic-addicts know, being of service is one of the big key’s to staying alive because it makes me forget about myself which is reward enough. I also know there are millions of people out there doing kind stuff everyday without anyone knowing. Helping others without even the chance of getting a plaque or trophy. From my experience, it’s a selfish act to lend a hand to another who’s suffering because it always makes me feel better about me. Plus, next time it could very easily be me that needs a hand. Many people have and do help me selflessly in ways big and small that have gotten me through the days and kept me sober over 20 years. By “keeping me sober” I mean keeping me alive. I am 100% certain that if I had one drink or one hit it would lead to 1000 and I’d me dead. If I could’ve lived the life of a normal “party on the weekends” kind of guy I would’ve and I tried every combination, every trick, set and broke every rule and within 2 days I was back to snorting a half ounce of coke a day. I’ve never understood social drinking or partying. I always got wasted. Otherwise, what’s the point? That’s how my brain is wired. That’s why I had to surrender DEC 10, 1989. I’d tried for 3 years before that. Hardly anyone gets it the first time but I was lucky. I only got arrested 7 times, stole and lied to anyone who cared about me and lost EVERYTHING, except my life. That is the amazing part. A lot of people I know did a lot less and died. I am also certain I’d die the next time I used. Maybe because my body is older. Maybe because I have 3 stents in my heart but probably because I couldn’t face the failure of the greatest oppor tunity a person has ever gotten. Life and the opportunity to make amends to the people I wronged and a good life. One without having to remember the lies and live with the shame of who I’d become. A lot of invisible strangers out there have a lot of nasty things to say about me but that’s part of the deal plus, I don’t have to read it (but, of course, sometimes I do:). That’s not to take away from the overwhelming amount of kindness I’ve received from friends and strangers. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Including the nasty comments. Some of which I deserve and the rest would bother me more if the gutless, faceless, nameless morons that wish everything from the end of my career to death on me, didn’t also make similar lame comments about people I know are awesome. EVERYBODY gets it. Doesn’t make it cool but adds some perspective on these miserable folks. BTW, how much time do you have on your hands if you can spend time calling someone you’ve never met names you’d never say in person? Again and again? I seriously feel sorry for them but if they used their time more productively (and I’m not talking about the clever one’s. They even make me laugh at jokes about me) but if the mean spirited, witless rest would volunteer a few hours a week or even read a good book, imagine what we could accomplish together. One of my favorite “selfless acts” are interventions. Hard core interventions. The ones I do happen after the professionals and loved ones have tried without success. My interventions bend the rules and I only do them when I think someone is going to die soon. They are usually the same. I hear the broken hearts of the loved ones (I particularly like to help addicts with kids because of my mom). I find out where the dying addict is holed up, whether they have a dog, gun etc. Who they’re with and what’s the best way to get in. I also make arrangements with a treatment facility be cause we are going directly there, whether they like it or not (it’s for the kids:). I bring duct tape and carry a small bat incase it gets ugly and when you’re dealing with hardcore addicts whose sanity is buried beneath mountains of drugs and alcohol, it can get crazy fast. I always write my lawyer first giving him details of my actions and I call the police in advance “just incase”. The police have ALWAYS gone out of their way to assist me. It is illegal for a policeman to enter an addicts house without a search warrant but those take time and time is what we don’t have (the bat is also very effective if I don’t have a key to the front door) The element of surprise is key. I do mine before noon and I don’t negotiate, they are coming with me willingly or I’m tying them up, throwing them into my trunk and driving them to rehab, a hospital or jail but it’s happening NOW. I’ve also always gone alone because I didn’t want to jeopardize my many friends who would happily go with. Wires can get crossed and the wrong Police Department may be notified or there could be violence, etc. If the individual threatens to call 911 I always let him and sit next to him, bat in hand and wait for the cops. One fella thought he’d hung up the phone and continued to rant “I know I’m on Heroin. I know I shoot coke…” not realizing that all 911 calls are recorded. It’s funny now because he’s better but that call was the first time he’d admitted doing drugs to anyone so when the Beverly Hills Swat Team got there, we were on the same page. The Captain even told me “we’ve been here 3 times this weekend, this guy would’ve been dead very soon”. But again, the police were handcuffed. They couldn’t grab him until he stepped off his property and he was too messed up to do so, which is why they turned their backs while I loaded him up. Over the years I’ve done about 100 of these, mostly strangers but also my own sister and they don’t alway s work (my sis wouldn’t listen and spent 20 years in Federal Prison…that Meth is some powerful shit). I also lost 2 brother in laws and my mother died before I could get to her. Sometimes they are famous and sometimes they don’t work either (you know the names) but I always get all of them a chance. 30 days at least. It still hurts when they fail. I still take it personally but I also know that I failed myself at first but then I got lucky. My favorite good story is about a guy I’d met 3 or 4 times and I knew his kids were friends of my god kids. I also saw him driving impaired once with the kids in the car at their softball game (I’ll be the first to admit these interventions are an excellent way to release some of the anger I had about my own childhood). When I got my 20th call from people who loved him, crying I said “okay, where does he live…”. I came through his front door at 11 a.m. the next day. He was sitting on his couch with the remains of a half gallon of Vodka and 7 or 8 other drugs and paraphernalia. He’d been up for 5 days. He looked up and said (this should be the name of my reality show:) “What the fuck is Tom Arnold doing in my house?”. Since I knew he wasn’t taking care of his kids I’d asked what his favorite possessions were in the world. “A signed 8 by 10 from his “best friend” Elvis Costello and a guitar autographed by Mick Jagger. Both sat on his mantle (he’d pawned everything else). So I said “Get the fuck up. We’re going to rehab” and he refused. I pointed at the Elvis pic “I hear you like this?” “Yes” then I smashed it with my bat. He lunged at me, swung and I knocked him back on his butt and said “Oh, you shouldn’t of done that” and smashed the Jagger guitar. After another 911 call, some more physical contact, a few more pieces of memorabilia crushed we got him into Cri-Help (a no frills place I highly recommend). Cut to 9 months later, I pop by his house which is now immaculate and he looks and sounds great but, and I know this sounds like a Hallmark Movie, instead of B. S. celebrities stuff, on his mantle now was a baseball. Autographed by his daughter after she hit a home run. I like that story. Which leads me to this week. A young man I’ve known since he was 5 and tried to help the last 10 years, but now he had become a full blow heroin addict with all the infections and sleaze ball pals that come with that. I got a panicked call from his mom Wed night. His family and friends had tried everything but he’d just check himself out of the hospital against Dr’s orders and he was holed up with other junkies, porn stars pimps etc. Exactly the kind of folks I hung out with in the day. They didn’t know if he was going to die from his staff infection or O. D. first but it was go time. Since I have a wife who loves me and who I have to take care of I’ve altered my original intervention worksheet to include a witness (in this case his brother who did ALOT of ground work, thank God). At 11:30 a.m. Thurs we broke down his door, I knocked him into a shopping cart and we loaded him into the car and headed to a very nice rehab near Palm Springs which has a hospital next door for his other issues. When we got back to L. A. Ashley informed me that one of the other junkies was trying to sell a story to the tabloids that I’d randomly broken in and beaten people up (including a woman). This is another reason why I’m lucky to have Ashley. See insisted I take a witness incase because if I got in trouble it wouldn’t just hurt me but also her and our future family. If TMZ runs a story that I beat a bunch of people up it would ruin whatever career I do have. Even if they ran a retraction later, it would always be out there, on the Internet and hitting a woman, even a junkie, is not something I would do but there are people who would say “I told you so” and that would be it. That is also why we filmed everything:) So these fine people are trying to sell this nasty story so they can buy more drugs and they almost pulled it off. I was smart enough to call the cops before and after (I’m an officer of The U.S. Drug Court…most people don’t know that either) so when Radaronline.com called the police to verify they couldn’t, plus I’ve got the actual footage and my witness etc. The failed blackmailers also didn’t count on one of my sober buddies working at Radar. I guess my point is we all feel helpless sometimes. There’s someone we care about that won’t get help and I can’t do all of them (I would never of mentioned this publicly if a coke head hadn’t tried to defame me…I’m not beloved enough to survive that kind of P. R. hit). Addiction is a family illness. I recommend taking care of yourself first (Al anon is free and awesome and a great way to game plan with other people who are afraid someone they love is going to die). AA is good for that too. But the biggest mistake families make is keeping the secret, especially mothers because it’s in their nature to protect their young but by keeping the secret you’re not protecting them, you’re enabling them. I know it’s hard for parents. I know it’s hard for kids, too, which is why I have my place but before you ask a crazy man like me to intervene, I highly recommend hiring a professional (every town has a few Dr Drew’s) because my way is flawed, desperate and probably illegal. Involve the whole family and all their friends. Check for rehabs that take insurance or like Miriam’s House, a rehab for mothers AND their children which is free because of fundraising, there are many options and even the fancy one’s (I have nothing against the nice places) will negotiate a little these days. Just try something and don’t cover for them, give them drug money or enable them in anyway. Tough Love is called that because it’s TOUGH but sometime’s it’s the difference between life and d eath. As for my intervention this week, the boy’s protective, single mother. A wonderful woman who raises millions of dollars to cure MS, a disease she’s had for 18 years. The first person I’d call if I were in trouble and Ashley wasn’t around…she released a statement to defend me even though it goes against the DNA of every other protective mother, stating that her boy was indeed an addict and me and his brother were just there to help save him (the irony is he played a young Chris Farley in a movie and was CRUSHED by Chris’ death, swearing to never use, just like I did when my mom died BUT…) By admitting her son was one of us, risking public humiliation and all the nasty comments she know’s will come with it, SHE’S the one who deserves the credit for truly saving her son. L,Tom