Just when I thought Joe Jackson (Michael’s “father”) might be my poster boy for reprehensible parenting, you’ve come along to challenge him for the honor.  According to media reports, you tried to pick up your own daughter Tatum at Farrah Fawcett’s funeral, with the one-two punch, “You have a drink?  You have a car?”
 
You are quoted as telling Vanity Fair contributing editor Leslie Bennetts, “I’m a hopeless father. I don’t know why.  I don’t think I was supposed to be a father. Just look around at my work—they’re either in jail or they should be.”  You go on to say that you aren’t in touch with your children any longer and have “never been happier.”
 
Here’s a psychological newsflash:  Not recognizing your own daughter is the kind of thing that gets etched on your tombstone, under the heading SCUMBAG.  Trying to pick her up at Farrah’s funeral—or any woman’s—goes right underneath that entry.  And stating publicly that you’re happier not seeing or speaking to your own kids makes it a Trifecta.  You’re gonna keep some guy who etches letters in granite very busy.
 
No wonder Tatum was hooked on heroin and Redmond is in jail for a drug offense.  You obviously have a really bad habit of inflicting pain on people, and they turn to one or another intoxicant to try to relieve it. I mean, it’s one thing to try picking up your adult daughter, it’s another to do whatever you did to her as a little girl.  Exactly what was that, Ryan?
 
I know, you think I’m being a little hard on you, but I’m not. 
 
See, when I use the term “scumbag,” I mean it in the clinical sense, and with no hatred toward you, whatsoever.  I mean that something happened to you in your own personal development that led you to think so little of yourself and so little of others that you can’t see the beauty it is to bring a new life into this world and be able to nourish it.  You must question your own self-worth so deeply that now the only thing you can pay attention to is how to pump yourself up narcissistically and avoid the deeper questions you have about whether you’re worth anything at all—to yourself or anyone else.
 
You tell Ms. Bennetts that you’d “take back” your kids—as in, return them to their Maker; as in, kill them off.  Well, you came close, setting them up for their drug abuse.  But here’s the thing:  The real ambivalence you have at core isn’t about them at all.  It’s about you and whether you deserve to exist.  I don’t believe you could have been well-loved and turn out unable to love.  Your own family somehow made you wonder whether you deserved to be born, whether you were really a keeper.  How?
 
You did deserve to live. You were once an innocent child, full of human potential and the capacity to love yourself and others endlessly.  You were cheated of that potential, and I am sorry that happened to you.  Now, facing the particular traumas you lived through and feeling all the pain of having lived through them is the only way back to being fully human.
 
Life is an amazing journey and, even with you facing leukemia, the end isn’t written until a man’s last acts and final words.  You can still reclaim your humanity and capacity to love and offer it to the children you brought into this world.  And then very different words might mark your resting place and very different things may be said of you.
 
I have seen people resurrected by embracing the truth at 18, and at 48, and at 78.  It is never, ever too late. 

Today I read an incredibly tragic story about a 2-month-old baby in Pennsylvania who died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) because her parents were allegedly too drunk and high on cocaine to notice.

The parents, Jennifer Nicole Gaster and Daniel Keith Martin II, both 30, stood trial Monday on child endangerment charges alleging that after a night spent snorting cocaine and drinking beer and vodka, the couple was too incapacitated to notice their baby was dying.

This is not the first time we have seen a parents with a history of drug and/or alcohol abuse lose a child to SIDS. In February of 2007, a Michigan woman pleaded guilty to charges that claimed high levels of cocaine in her breast milk had killed her 5-month-old daughter. Although the cause of death was originally thought to be SIDS at the time the baby died, further testing proved otherwise, and at the trial, the mother admitted to using cocaine two or three times the day before the baby died.

Traces of cocaine can remain in breast milk for more than 48 hours after a woman uses it — and the transmission from mother to infant has been linked to respiratory failure, seizures, increased cardiovascular risk, central nervous system damage, irritability and addiction — just to name a few.

Babies are at high risk for SIDS if they:

o          Are born to mothers who smoke or use drugs

o          Have low birth weight or premature infants

o          Are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke

o          Sleep in a crib packed with soft objects and loose bedding

o          Are placed to sleep on their stomachs

o          Are between the ages of 1 and 6 months

Please be advised that most drugs are transmitted through breast milk. If you are abusing any kind of drug – especially cocaine – the effects can be deadly.

I want to know what you think.

Eight states are considering passing legislation that would require random drug testing for people to receive food stamps, unemployment benefits or welfare.

Click here to read the article, “States Consider Drug Tests for Welfare Recipients”

Supporters of this legislation feel that it’s necessary in response to an ever-growing population of Americans applying for government-funded aid as a result of the economic downturn. These lawmakers feel it would help to identify the potential health risks and the probability of those receiving aid getting back on their feet when the economy turns around — and that it would also send a clear message: In America, you don’t get something for nothing.

Why not get tested? Millions of Americans are drug tested at random for their jobs every day — the same Americans whose taxes are funding government assistance programs like food stamps, unemployment and welfare. And as American citizens, we need to take responsibility for our own well-being and that of our families.

Now, I’m not getting down on the millions of Americans who may be down on their luck, or for whatever reason, must rely on government aid to help them through tough times while they try their best to get back on their feet. But then if that’s the case, a random drug test should not be a problem, right?

But there are two sides to every argument — and there may be a couple of questions worth asking when considering this proposal …

What about the unintentional effects that limiting aid to a family — especially one with children — may have in failing to provide them with necessities as basic as food on their plates? We don’t want to punish the children for their parents’ actions. But then, in some cases, with severely drug-addicted parents, how can we be sure that the money is going to support the children, rather than to support the habit?

Just last year, a contest in southern California called “There Ought to Be a Law,” yielded a disabled 16-year-old winner whose life challenges inspired his proposal of legislation to mandate random drug testing for all pregnant women on welfare. R.J. Feild was born weighing just 2 pounds, 2 ounces with traces of heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, alcohol and cocaine in his system due to his mother’s drug use while she was pregnant.  And while the “R.J.’s Law” never made it into legislation, it brought to light an important issue.

But then what happens to people who test positive for drugs while on public assistance? Would the states flat-out refuse help forever, or would they help them get into a rehabilitation center to kick the habit? Right now, most states can’t even meet their Medicaid requirements for people to get routine health care. Perhaps a better plan might be to pump the government aid they would normally receive directly into rehabilitating them.

So I’d like to know what you think, because at the end of the day, we’re the ones funding these programs.

R & B star Rihanna is reportedly back together with singer Chris Brown, risking her life for “love,” after he allegedly beat her so badly, anyone who saw her bruised face cringed.

Like many battered women, Rihanna doesn’t seem to see the danger in dancing with a violent man who has proven he can’t control his destructive impulses.  That’s because her vision is clouded by passion or naivete or whatever dark chapter of her own life she may be replaying now by “playing with fire.”

Rihanna’s father has apparently blessed his daughter’s decision, saying he’s “behind her,” whatever she decides.  That’s not loving your child; it’s letting her walk into the abyss, and it may be the best window on why Rihanna can’t stand up for herself.  Maybe no one ever did—even her dad.

If the allegations about Brown are true, the likelihood that he was “caught” the very first time he abused a woman is remote.  More likely, there have been other episodes of uncontrolled rage in his life and that there will be more.  Men who abuse women aren’t usually one-time offenders.  They lack the internal restraint necessary to control their impulses, or they harbor deep resentment toward females (often rooted in experiences and emotions from when they were much younger) or their behavior and judgment is impaired by alcohol or illicit drugs.  Very frequently, they have personality disorders, whether narcissistic or paranoid or antisocial.  They are entirely focused on their own needs and enraged when they aren’t met.

Rihanna proves that she doesn’t understand any of this by returning to her relationship with Brown so quickly.  There’s no possibility that he completed any anger management course or detoxed from any drug he might be on or delved deeply enough into his psyche to exorcise any demons that might have led him to turn his self-hatred into a clenched fist and the terror and tears of woman just 21 years old.

He needs help, and a lot of it.  So does she.

What Rihanna is teaching her lover is that her self-esteem is so low, or her need to fix a man so great, that she is willing to risk everything to be by his side. For a man like him, it unconsciously gives him license to strike out at her again.  And it actually deprives him of learning that his disorder can cost him things he cares about (if he actually does care about Rihanna at all).  

Rihanna’s decision is a terrible example for young women in America and around the world—as bad as anything we ever saw from Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan.

As a forensic psychiatrist, I’ve testified in murder cases that started out just like this one.  Let’s hope it doesn’t end as badly.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com or e-mail him at info@keithablow.com.

Dear Yvonne,

How do you know if you’ve been slipped a date rape drug?
-KC

Dear KC,
Rohypnol, a brand name of flunitrazepam manufactured by Hoffman-La Roche Pharmaceuticals, is a central nervous system depressant generally in the form of white tablets. It is also known as “roofies,” “roche,” “rope,” “rib,” “La Roche,” “ruffies,” “Mexican valium,” “Mind Eraser,” “Party Poppers,” and “rophies.”  It is odorless, tasteless, and ten times stronger than valium. 

The drug causes muscle relaxation and slows psychomotor responses and reportedly enhances the high produced by low-quality heroin, mellows the high of cocaine, and eases a user down from a crack or cocaine binge.  When taken with alcohol, it causes disinhibition and amnesia, and hence is also known as “the date rape drug” since it is sometimes used to seduce a victim into a sexual assault scenario. 

 Among the drug’s immediate effects:
- blackouts                                 
- sense of aggressiveness
- amnesia                                                          
- disinhibition                              
- nausea
- sense of fearlessness           
- dizziness                                 
- disorientation
- drowsiness                              
- decrease in psychomotor performance
- muscle relaxation                     
- nightmares
- tremors

Withdrawal symptoms include:
- headache                                 
- muscle pain
- irritability                                 
-  hallucinations   
- anxiety                                     
-  convulsions/seizures
- tension                                     
-  restlessness
- confusion

 Although it is illegal in the U.S. and Canada, Rohypnol is prescribed in more than 60 other countries to treat severe sleep disorders, to sedate patients before surgery, and to treat serious psychiatric disorders. It is an attractive drug to users because it can be inexpensive to buy, with prices ranging from .50 to $8 per tablet. Some young adults who use Rohypnol with alcohol claim that it intensifies their “buzzes.” If used over an extended period of time, a person may become psychologically and/or physiologically dependent upon it.

Dr. Yvonne Kristín Fulbright is a sex educator, relationship expert, columnist and founder of Sexuality Source Inc. She is the author of several books including, “Touch Me There! A Hands-On Guide to Your Orgasmic Hot Spots.”

Researchers at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and other academic medical centers scattered around the country are now testing psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, the active ingredient in “mushrooms,” to send terminal cancer patients on acid-like “trips.”  

Some of the patients report the drugs open their minds to great insights that help them overcome the desperation and depression they had felt facing their own mortality.  These insights, they say, are lasting ones that sustain an increased sense of well-being and self-possession for months or even years.

That sounds great.  Why not break free from the reality of your unfortunate circumstances and see the vastness of the universe around you?  Why not feel a connectedness with your fellow man so powerful and so far-reaching that it might reach even beyond death?  Who would keep the doors of perception locked to those with so little time left on the planet?  What harm could come from extending the medical use of marijuana in cancer victims to other illicit drugs?

The devil, however, is (as usual) in the details.  The clinical trials of psilocybin and (in other medical centers) Ecstasy to treat psychological distress have at their core the theory that hallucinogens or other illicit substances have demonstrable and defensible benefits to users that outweigh the benefits to society of blanket criminalizing of such substances. 

Certainly those battling cancer and facing death have unique needs and challenges.  But what about those who are grieving the death of a child, or those experiencing severe stress from terrible accidents, or those with post traumatic stress disorder, or those with chronic depression?  Don’t they deserve the same chance to shake off the shackles of their psyches and see what a “trip” might do for them?  Why can’t they have some mushrooms or Ecstasy or LSD?

You can see the slippery slope ahead.  It’s hard to tell young people, for example, that these drugs are paths away from the truth, not toward it, when doctors are touting their mind-expanding and healing properties.  It’s hard to argue that they or anyone else should see their problems, including their anxiety and depression, as wake-up calls to understand and take charge and change their lives, when they could just take a pill—just once—and trip right out of their troubles.

Cancer is big trouble.  Our mortality is something hard to “get our heads around.”  It brings up significant and even tortuous questions about whether we have lived our lives as we might have wished to, whether we have expressed our love for those who deserved it, whether we’ve ever gotten the love we deserved ourselves. 

I, for one, believe that the search for answers to such questions, even when painful, even when undertaken from a hospital bed, is a worthy and human one.   And I worry about short-circuiting that process by taking a trip anywhere other than deeper into one’s heart, clear mind and relationship to the universe and God.

American children take anti-psychotic medicines at about six times the rate of children in the United Kingdom, according to a comparison based on a new U.K. study.

Does it mean U.S. kids are being over-treated? Or that U.K. children are being under-treated?

Experts say that’s almost beside the point, because use is rising on both sides of the Atlantic. And with scant long-term safety data, it’s likely the drugs are being over-prescribed for both U.S. and U.K. children, research suggests.

Among the most commonly used drugs were those to treat autism and hyperactivity.

Click here to read the full report

Your comments and thoughts are welcomed!