The Republic of T.

I wasn’t going to say anything about this, because I’ve said it before. I’ve heard the stories that president Bush is drinking again and I’ve seen the pictures. Whether he is or not isn’t my concern here (though it is a very important question). I feel there’s something that must be made clear. George W. Bush, according to what I’ve read, was a heavy drinker from 15 years old until he turned 40, at which point he stopped drinking. But he has not “fallen off the wagon” because he was never on the wagon to begin. George W. is not a recovering alcoholic.

He is a drunk who just stopped drinking, and that’s something different.

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The Bush recovery is a myth. It’s safe to say this precisely because of Bush’s self-declared decades of active alcoholism, and because he’s never entered recovery or honestly admitted to an addiction.

Republican candidate for president George W. Bush, like most who decide to quit drinking, did so on his own without help, press reports following the revelation of his 1976 DUI arrest reveal. An estimated 70 percent of people who decide to quit drinking do so without any outside help, professional counseling, or support group meetings, and Bush is apparently among that majority.

“Well, I don’t think I had an addiction,” Bush told the Washington Post for a July 1999 profile. “You know it’s hard for me to say. I’ve had friends who were, you know, very addicted. . .and they required hitting bottom [to start] going to AA. I don’t think that was my case.”

Speculation in the national press, which went into a media frenzy over the report that Bush was arrested 24 years ago for drunk driving, ranged from the suggestion that if he never went to A.A. he is not really recovered, to the opinion that if he quit on his own, it was not a big problem in the first place.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Alcohol abuse can be a very serious problem in itself, but if it progresses into alcohol dependence, the solution can become much more complicated.

However complicated it may have been, Bush described it rather simply.

It appears from all reports, that candidate Bush did abuse alcohol for a long period of his life, but in 1986 decided to quit, because it began to “compete for his energy.”

“I am a person who enjoys life, and for years, I enjoyed having a few drinks. But gradually, drinking began to compete with my energy,” Bush wrote in his autobiography. “I’d be a step slower getting up. My daily runs seemed harder after a few too many drinks the night before.”

Apparently, it was anything but simple.

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Per the parts one and two, I’m reminded that addiction is usually a family disease. As mentioned before in the case of George W. Bush, the family may ignore certain excesses so long as appearances are kept up. They may clean-up the mess caused either by the addiction, or by the addict’s addiction-related character traits. And chances are they will do so uncomplainingly, going out of their way never to blame the one who made the mess, because to do so would be to not only acknowledge the problem but to also their own complicity; to acknowledge that its their problem too.

In a Newsweek article titled “Beyond Bush: What the world needs is an open, confident America,” Fareed Zakaria at once brings to mind the same capacity to enable and aver that often seen in the family of an active or untreated addict, when just three paragraphs into his essay he paints what now has to be a familiar picture where George W. Bush is concerned: Dubya ambles off into the sunset while others are left to cope with the consequences of his actions and choices, and to clean up after them, while Dubya goes on to live the charmed (and largely unexamined) life of one who “sleeps better than most would think,” having wreaked havoc on so many lives.

In any event, it is time to stop bashing George W. Bush. We must begin to think about life after Bush—a cheering prospect for his foes, a dismaying one for his fans (however few there may be at the moment). In 19 months he will be a private citizen, giving speeches to insurance executives. America, however, will have to move on and restore its place in the world. To do this we must first tackle the consequences of our foreign policy of fear. Having spooked ourselves into believing that we have no option but to act fast, alone, unilaterally and pre-emptively, we have managed in six years to destroy decades of international good will, alienate allies, embolden enemies and yet solve few of the major international problems we face.

So, Bush will go on to give speeches, collect fees, and perhaps land in yet another position that will allow him to cash in on his family name rather than any particular skill or ability of his own. And we are not to blame (”bash” is the term Zakaria chooses, as though holding someone accountable must include some degree of hostility) him, but to set about cleaning up the mess left behind by his “foreign policy of fear.” We must not look too closely, because, like the family of the addict, if we look too closely at his illness we will see our own.

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