George Bush: Dry Drunk or Wet Brain

George W Bush : Dry Drunk, or Wet Brain?

First of all, I want to say right up front I have no problem with drinking. I enjoy it, as a matter of fact I’m half in the bag right now, but It’s no secret that we do some crazy things when we are drunk.

I remember driving into town once after having dipped my bill a bit too much and returning for some reason with a new hood ornament for my car: A jogger! I’m only kidding.( he wasn’t really jogging ,he was getting the paper off his front lawn.)

Seriously, I once saw a guy in a bar starting a fight with another patron because he “Was staring at my Girl” even though “His Girl” had left him there in disgust 3 hours earlier, I have seen men claiming to have been the victims of hit&run accidents only to discover the next day they have hit parked cars, and I once knew a man in Seattle who claimed that a bottle of Malt liquor “Threw him into Lake Washington.”

I first found myself in a court ordered A.A. meeting many years ago after being found in possession of the newly illegal drug lsd.It is interesting to note that the drug lsd was originally invented as a psychoactive tool to help people with addiction problems, most predominantly alcohol addiction.

And so I found myself in many A.A. meetings for using a drug that was made to take the place of A.A. meetings. It was all very confusing to me at the time, but years later, I saw the light, and began abusing legal and lethal drugs like alcohol and nicotine, and so ended up in treatment centers for the right all American reasons.

To those of you who have never been in treatment for drug or alcohol abuse like Rush Limbaugh and I have, you soon learn that there is a language of addiction, mostly invented by A.A. This language includes terms like “higher power” ( God as you perceive him/her/it) “hitting bottom”(losing everything you own to alcohol or drugs and finally getting into treatment) “The 12 steps”(A system of instructive measures one must adhere to for obtaining ultimate sobriety) and “13 step” ( Having sex with someone you met in A.A) and of course “blackout” (the state I am in as I write this now),and lots of other confusing little slogans like “letting go and letting God” or”Keep it simple Stupid”.

Easily however the most confusing concept I ever came across in my on going A.A. education is “The Dry Drunk.”

This turns out, as near as I can figure ,to someone who acts drunk even though they are sober. A.A contends that this sober drunkenness stems from the fact that ,like George Bush and myself they have not embraced the tenets of A.A and so never really dealt with the root of their problems. .As a matter of fact I hear from all my A.A. friends that George Bush has become a kind of textbook example of The dry drunk syndrome and is probably being discussed in A,A, meetings all over this country as we speak. While I certainly wouldn’t presume to take George Bushs’ “inventory”(the A.A. term for the newly sober persons sanctimonious criticism) It is a theory that makes sense to me.

After all “They had WMD” is not much different than the afore mentioned drunk in the bar who starts a fight for accusing someone of staring at his nonexistent girlfriend, and all that tough talk like “bring em on” is the sort of language that the veteran alcoholic knows often results in facial contusions and puzzling early morning awakenings in parking lots or sidewalks with mysterious bruises and lacerations.

Then there is the religious revelation stuff, I’ve read that George believes he is on some sort of mission from God. I can’t claim to have had much experience with that although I think did once have a kind of religious experience. After drinking beer all night and taking a piss under a streetlight in a snow storm just outside of Aurora Illinois many years ago. The snowflakes gently falling , each one illuminated in a soft cone of light,the traffic noises and the honking horns suddenly distant, that perfect relief that comes from a bodily function after a dozen beers and the small waft of steam gently rising from my shoe.I was for a time... transfixed.... God it was just...beautiful.

Well any ways my point is that George Bush by his own admission hit the bottle pretty hard for about 20 years before he got saved and he still seems to act drunk to me or at least light years from any sort of what A.A. calls “serenity.”(serenity)

The other explanation that comes to mind when I consider our recently sober alcoholic presidents behavior is a condition known in drinking circles as“Wet Brain”

Unlike dry drunkenness ,which is basically an A.A. construct, Wet Brain is an actual medical condition known as Wernicke Korsakoff syndrome an alcohol related kind of brain damage that affects language and thinking.

This might explain George W Bushs nearly non existent grasp of the English language.

Phrases like :"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." —LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." —Greater Nashua, N.H., Jan. 27, 2000

"I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here." —Waco, Texas, Aug. 13, 2002

"I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport." —Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 2001

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.'' Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001

"I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe — I believe what I believe is right." —Rome, July 22, 2001
"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. onsored Lin
Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." —Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000
. "They misunderestimated me." —Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000

And that classic that made us all believe him when said he wanted to be the education president and leave no child behind to wit:"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" —Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000

These are just a few of the oral faux pas this President is capable of. Indeed there have been volumed sets of books written detailing his “curious” problems with language.

Consider too, that this is a man who attended Yale University and while he reportedly was not the brightest bulb in the chandelier there,still it not out of the realm of possibility to surmise that a couple decades of hard drinking might have fizzled out a few key synapses. There is certainly evidence here for one or more of the wet brain symptoms like “a decline in the capacity for thinking or learning.” In fact perhaps his penchant for nicknames is not a attempt at playful affectation at all, but a kind of brain cell bingo that his thinking has become, that results in short bursts of language that are all he can really remember of someone's name.

And what about not being able to ever remember a mistake he made?

Come on ,I know he didn’t want to say tax cuts ,the economy , or a preemptive war, but he could have at least mentioned his plans for wanting to put a man on the moon again or Mars. Nobody seemed to have blamed him for those little adventures in bad thinking, or how about that time he slowly drove his car into a hedge , surely that was an honest mistake.

These few examples of what could be drink related residual problems seem to me like the warning signs of mental confusion that might have alcohol intake counselors taking copious notes and leaving the room for a moment to talk to their supervisor.

Oh and I’m sure this seems very outrageous to some, even perhaps unbelievable,but then again remember; half the country didn’t even know that F.D.R had polio, and he had to be in a wheel chair most of the time! And lets not forget about iran contra when , another great Republican President Ronald Reagan uttered those famous words, “I can’t recall.” over and over again. And we all know what happened to him ,after that, or was it before that. Well...cheers.