- Dora the Explorer is singing about cocaine. Is that why my kids have so much energy? #
- RT @prosperousfool: Be the Friendly Financial “Stop” Sign http://bit.ly/67NZFH #
- RT @tferriss: Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ in a one-page cartoon: http://su.pr/2PAuup #
- RT @BSimple: Shallow men believe in Luck, Strong men believe in cause and effect. Ralph Waldo Emerson #
- 5am finally pays off. 800 word post finished. Reading to the kids has been more consistent,too. Not req’ing bedtime, just reading daily. #
- Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse: morbid story from my childhood. Still enthralling. #
- RT @MoneyCrashers: Money Crashers 2010 New Year Giveaway Bash – $7,400 in Cash and Amazing Prizes http://bt.io/DDPy #
- [Read more…] about Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-16
Indio Downey: The Cost of Drug Addiction
Indio Falconer Downey, the son of actor Robert Downey Jr., was arrested Sunday, June 29, 2014 on drug possession charges. At the time of his arrest, Indio was a passenger in a vehicle that was stopped around 2 PM. At the time of the traffic stop, Indio was found to have what appeared to be cocaine as well as a smoking pipe. He posted bail around 9 PM that evening and was released.
Father’s Drug Problems
Indio’s father had many well-publicized drug addiction problems throughout the 1990s, attending a number of rehab facilities in an attempt to beat his drug addiction. The 49-year old actor says he was introduced to drugs by his father at the age of eight, and by 20 was a full-fledged addict. Just two years after Indio was born in 1994, the actor was stopped by police driving his Porsche on Sunset Boulevard naked and in possession of cocaine, heroin and a .357 Magnum. Just days before he was due to be charged for those crimes, he was arrested after being found passed out in a neighbor’s home. Indio’s father spent 12 months in prison and, in 2000, when Indio was six, Robert Downey Jr. was arrested in a Palm Springs hotel room with cocaine and wearing a Wonder Woman Costume. Before a preliminary hearing could be held on the charges, Indio’s father was arrested for being under the influence of an undisclosed stimulant. Indio’s mother, Deborah Falconer, divorced his father in 2004.
Indio’s Drug Abuse
According to reports, Indio’s father has been helping his son deal with addiction problems for many years. Indio has been in and out of treatment centers, and some reports say he had remained clean and sober for some time, in some part due to his father’s counseling. In 2013, there were reports that Indio was being treated for a “pill problem,” which his mother claimed was not a significant problem. According to Deborah Falconer, Indio was taking “one pill a day” and that he was not addicted. She said Indio was being treated with “holistic, natural and orthomolecular therapy.” After Indio’s arrest on Sunday, however, Robert thanked the Sheriff’s Department for their intervention, stating that there was a “genetic component to addiction” and that “Indio likely inherited it.” Robert has been clean and sober since late 2001.
Children of Addicts
One of the unknown costs of addiction is that children of addicts are eight times more likely to develop an addiction than those whose parents are not addicts. Many studies have confirmed that addiction is a combination of genetics and poor coping skills. In addition, sons of addicted fathers are four times more at risk for developing an addiction than the sons of non-addicted fathers. Much of this is because addicted parents often lack the ability to provide structure or discipline, and the sons of addicted fathers receive harsher discipline than those of non-addicted fathers. These statistics clearly show that the cost of addiction on offspring is high, and indicates why Indio may have turned to substance abuse.
It is clear that this recent arrest shows that Indio may be facing an escalating drug problem, similar to what his father faced in the 1990s. After seeing his father as an addict, as well as the well-known genetic connection regarding addiction, Indio may need intensive therapy in order to fight his addictions.
Related articles
Saturday Roundup – Welcome to Halloween
- Image via Wikipedia
This weekend marks the beginning of Halloween at Casa del Myhouse. We’ll start setting up our yard display tomorrow. If we’re lucky, we’ll be featured on TV again.
Don’t miss a thing! Please take a moment to subscribe to Live Real, Now by email.
The Best Posts of the Week:
Bill and Ted is coming back for another sequel! I don’t know how they can top Bad Robot Ted or the Grim Reaper playing Battleship, but I’m looking forward to it.
Here’s a summary of the first stage of the new, overpriced, under-understood health care plan.
I keep thinking about signing up for a CSA. Here’s some details on how they work.
Frugal Dad talks about “my money“.
Finally, a list of the carnivals I’ve participated in:
Cheap Vacations was included in the Festival of Frugality. Thanks!
If I missed anyone, please let me know.
Priorities
I once saw a sign on the wall in a junkyard that said, “Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
Another good one: “If everything is top priority, nothing is top priority.”
Once a week, I meet with my boss to discuss my progress for the previous week and my priorities for the coming week. This is supposed to make sure that my productivity stays in line with the company’s goals.
Great.
Once a day, my boss comes into my office to change my top priority based on whichever account manager has most recently asked for a status update for their customer.
Not so great.
At least twice a week, he asks for a status update on my highest priority items. Each time, he could mean the items we prioritized in the weekly meeting, or the items he chose to escalate later. Somehow, getting a new task escalated doesn’t deescalate an existing task.
Everything is a top priority.
To compensate, I’ve been working a few 12 hour days each week, and occasionally coming in on the weekends.
I’m dedicated and still behind.
Prioritizing is treated as an art, or in the case I just mentioned, a juggling act. It should be considered a science. It’s usually pretty simple.
- Is the problem costing you money? +1
- Is the problem costing your customer money? +2
- Is the problem going to hurt your reputation? +1
- Is there a deadline? +1
- Is it soon? +2
- Is it urgent? +1
- Is it important? +2
- Are there absolutely no real consequences for anyone if it doesn’t get completed? -500
That’s it. Too many times, we get hung up on urgent-but-not-important items and neglect the important things.
The hard part comes when it’s someone else setting your priorities, particularly when that person doesn’t rate things on urgency, importance, and cost but rather “Who has bitched the loudest recently?”
Can I tell my boss that I’m not going to do things the way he told me too? No. A former coworker very recently found out what happens when you do this.
Can I remind him that I’m busting my butt as hard as I can? Yes, but it will just earn me a request to come in on the weekend, too.
Can I ignore the official priorities part of the time, and work on what I feel is most important to keeping our customers happy? Yes, but it’s easy to go too far. “Boss, I ignored what you said, but this customer is happy, now!” won’t score me any points if it happens every week.
Priorities are simple, but not always easy. How do you balance your priorities?
May 30 Day Project
Before I discuss May’s 30 day project, I’m going to talk about April’s.
Last month, my goal was to declutter my entire house. Every room, every closet, every drawer.
I missed the goal.
My wife has gotten behind this project wholeheartedly. She’s had friends over helping almost every weekend. She’s kept the kids occupied while I’ve been working on it. It’s been a team effort, which has been nice. One room at a time, we’ve tackled the entire house, except for a couple of spots.
Our son’s closet isn’t finished. He hasn’t had use of his closet since we moved him into the room he’s in. It’s been the filing center for a couple of business opportunities. Most of it has been cleared out, but not all. It will be finished in the next few days.
Our storage room isn’t done. It pains me to have a “storage room”, but I don’t think its purpose will be changing. Now, however, instead of unopened appliances and boxes of clothes, it’s almost down to just seasonal stuff and things we do need occasionally. We have the Christmas decorations, the pet crates, and a few other things that get used rarely, but do get used. This room used to have a 6-foot cabinet of computer parts, leftover from the days when building/supporting computers was my main side-hustle. That has been reduce to just one box, mostly power cords. The gaming pads and old hard drives are gone. All that’s left for this room is one shelf, and the remainder of another old side-hustle that has some emotional attachment for my wife.
The remaining trouble spots will be cleaned out by this weekend. We’re having a garage sale the following weekend, and it will all be there. We’ve been pricing as we’ve been sorting, so we’re almost ready.
Decluttering an entire house that’s been filled by the horrible habits of two accumulators means we literally have thousands of things we’ll be selling in two weeks. We split our garage with our roommmate. Our stall is full. We’ve got some stuff in the driveway. We’ve got a pile of boxes in the basement, ready to go. Our dining room is full.
Let me repeat that last point: Our dining room is full.
My project for May was supposed to have been having dinner at the table at least 3 nights per week. At the moment, I’m not entirely sure we still have a table. I certainly can’t see it and there is no way to use it for dinner. This project has to be moved.
So, what’s the plan for May? I’m going to tackle June’s project.
I will not use the computer while anyone else is awake, except for household necessities. Household necessities on the computer are almost nonexistent, since I’ve automated almost everything. I balance the checkbook on a monthly basis, and may have to pay a quarterly bill later this month. I’m going to take the time to be with my family, and do something that matters more than Google Reader. That means writing happens after everyone goes to bed, or at 5AM, which will be motivation to keep that wake-up time. Internet on the blackberry counts as computer use.
Family first.
5 Ways to Change Your Spending Habits
If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’re going to keep getting what you you’ve always gotten. One of the hardest things about getting out of debt is changing your habits. You need to break your habits if you’re going to get yourself to a new place, financially.
How can you do that? Habits aren’t easy to break. Ask any smoker, junkie, or overeater what it takes. There are a lot of systems to break or establish habits, but they don’t all work for everyone.
Here are my suggestions:
- Commit to just 30 days. I’m a big fan of doing new things for 30 days. If you can do it for a month, you can do it forever, no matter what “it” is. For just one month, don’t buy anything. I don’t mean avoid buying groceries or toiletries and I certainly don’t mean to stock up on new crap the day before your 30 day spending fast or rush out for a shopping spree on day 31. Just don’t buy anything for a month, no exceptions but the things necessary to stay alive and healthy. No movies, no games, no cars, no toys, and no expensive meals. Just 1 month.
- Switch methods. If you pay for everything with a credit card, restrict yourself to just cash. If you pay cash for everything, switch to a credit card. Breaking your long-established habits is a way to get used to spending consciously: taking the time to think about what you are doing, instead of just spending mindlessly.
- Identify your spending triggers. I can’t go into a book store and come out empty handed. So, I avoid bookstores. My wife has problems with clothing stores. A friend can’t walk out of a music store without some body piercing equipment. What are your triggers? What makes you spend money without thinking? Figure out what those things are and then avoid them like the plague…or the clap.
- Quit buying things for pleasure. Buying things makes us feel good. It sends a rush of endorphins through our bodies. The more we get that rush, the more we crave that rush, so the more we do to get it. You need to stop that. Before you buy something, ask yourself if it’s something you actually need, or if you just want a pick-me-up.
- Avoid shopping online. E-commerce sites make it far too easy to buy things at a moment’s notice. You don’t have to think about what you are doing or if you actually need whatever you are buying. You just buy. The best way too avoid them is to delete your credit card information from any site that save the information and delete the sites from your bookmarks. Whatever you can do to slow down the buying process will make it easier to avoid buying things, which can soon be stretched into NOT buying things at all.
Habits—especially bad habits—are hard to break. There is an entire self-help niche dedicated to breaking habits. Hypnotists, shrinks, and others base their careers on helping others get out of the grip of their bad habits, or conning them into thinking it is easy to do with some magic system. How do you avoid or break bad habits?
