Lindsay Lohan and Rehab

[cambraceres]

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Anyone on here want to tell me why smart people do this?

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In general the very bright are not different in matters of ethics from a person within normal parameters of intelligence. You must think abou it like this, the pain of a smart person, and that of a dumb one is the same qualitatively. The absolute bliss of a productive genius is the same in characteristic as that of a blithering idiot.

It is in terms of our emotions that humanity is said to be a community.

Cam

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I never really considered this as an ethical question, and it still doesn't seem one to me now that you've mentioned that angle.

I disagree that people with fewer perceptive powers can perceive exactly what those with greater perceptive powers perceive. This is borne out in real life all the time. That said, ignorance is bliss has a strong basis in truth.

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The old maxim "Ignorance is bliss" indeed has a strong basis in truth. Doestoevsky said, to paraphrase, that a smart person will have a natural tendency toward sadness because, unlike the average working class idiot, they realize just how deep the [censored] they are in is.
However, greater powers of perception and higher levels of intelligence are not the same thing. Intelligence can be seen as a malleable entity, not a static system like a car engine where the oil pressure will be such and such a value, and the gear ratio will be at some other value. IQ is one of the terms used by psychometricists to quantify their science; it is not a purely objective thing as say your abilities of hearing are.

The decision to do or not to do some drug seems to me to be an ethical situation. I see every situation where there is an oppurtunity to use one's power of decision as an ethical situation. How on earth could you say this isn;t one? I have an extremely addictive personality, and thankfully was scared away from hard drugs by the death of my father from drugs, this and watching my mother act like she was out of her mind told me clearly that it was not for me.

That said, I just fill in one thing for another. I simply try to be engaged in things that are not by their own nature destructive. I have actually been obsessed with religion as a child. Th addiction to study and prayer was destructive, but less so than the lure of illicit drugs. Now I am buffeted from one thing to another, and trying to make some sort of decent time of it.

I have to go back to work now

[Shadowrun]

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Ultimately, her parents are pretty ridiculous (i hear they have serious problems in their own right) and deserve as much vitriol as Lindsay is getting.

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Her dad seems like a loose canon. But can we blame the parents for the antics of a 20 yr old? I'm not sure about this.

I always thought the same way as you, that if I had a close family member who was an addict I would take them far away to a beautiful island and just remove them from their situation. But then I read up on rehab and I now see how this approach might fail to address some important points.

From what I read, one of the main components of rehab is sharing your story with other addicts. The more you hear other addicts talk about their problem, the more you see how you resemble that person and hopefully your eyes will be opened.

Some common goals listed for rehab are - identifying your "triggers", learning coping skills, setting your own personal goals and learning how to identify positive healthy people to surround yourself with. These all seem like worthy goals. Now how talented the people are at the rehab clinics is another question.

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Her mom is also pretty crazy, you dont have a normal mother/daughter social dynamic when the mother is living off the daughter. Also add the fact that the daughter is living the mothers dream and that the mother introduces herself as Lindsay friend often times, and you have a glimpse of the wacky family this is.

The dad is messed up too.

[katyseagull]

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However, greater powers of perception and higher levels of intelligence are not the same thing. Intelligence can be seen as a malleable entity, not a static system like a car engine where the oil pressure will be such and such a value, and the gear ratio will be at some other value. IQ is one of the terms used by psychometricists to quantify their science; it is not a purely objective thing as say your abilities of hearing are.

The decision to do or not to do some drug seems to me to be an ethical situation. I see every situation where there is an oppurtunity to use one's power of decision as an ethical situation. How on earth could you say this isn;t one? I have an extremely addictive personality, and thankfully was scared away from hard drugs by the death of my father from drugs, this and watching my mother act like she was out of her mind told me clearly that it was not for me.



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Very interesting post. I appreciate hearing your take on this question. Like I said, I know several highly intelligent people who enjoy pill popping and mixing pills with alcohol. I have never understood why they would do such a risky thing. It doesn't take much education at all to understand the danger of overusing prescription drugs and yet many people do it. Many extremely smart people. I'm with Blarg though, I'm not sure I associate ethics with this behavior.


I'm not a pill popper. I have a huge distrust of pills. I'm freaked out by the continuing practice of doctors to over prescribe medicine to patients. I'm also weirded out by my friends, both in real life and also on the internet, who pop pills like they were candy, who get excited about getting their hands on someone else's pain pills like oxycontin (or, alternatively, Ambien or muscle relaxers or whatever the case may be).

I would bet there are quite a few bright 2+2 posters who are pill poppers. In my experience it is more often bright men who do this. Now why is that? As for girls, I guess I always thought only dumb girls did this but then again isn't Lindsay Lohan supposed to be bright? And Winona Ryder is supposed to be bright too. Hmm. What does it all mean? I think my sample size is too small.

You associate the practice with lack of ethics and has nothing at all to do with IQ. Interesting. My point was that if you are so smart, theoretically wouldn't you realize the consequences of mixing drugs with alcohol?

Maybe bright pill popping guys are tortured souls, self medicating to calm their over active minds or maybe they are bored addicts who need some kind of buzz in their life to make them feel more alive. Not sure. I would hope that a genius would be worried about destroying his body.

[daveT]

I have met Lindsay Lohan.

I also live and work in Hollywood. Although many think that actors and performers are stupid, this is far from the case. There is no a way an idiot can make it in this city, nor have anything that resembles longetivity. They may act stupid, but it is probably an act. Some of the smartest people I have ever met act stupid: I think it is because they are trying to fit in with the rest of the flock.

Rehab does work. The problem is that it is like any other social-fixing institution (homeless, prison recovery). The old saying is that god only helps those that help themselves, and that is true of rehab. I helped a woman move who just came out of rehab a few years back. She was 35 or so. She said that the problem is that parents send their kids to rehab because they over-react. The fact is that many of these kids probably haven't partied more than anyone on this forum, but for some people who where born with too much money, thinking that there kid had more than one beer last night is alcoholism. In the end rehab will not work for any one who is not ready for it. Rehab is basically jail. You are not able to do prison/jail time for doing drugs.

Lindsay Lohan has been acting since she was a child. I have met actor-mothers before, they are crazy, sometimes giving their kids movie star names. I was on set one time and I was about ready to beat the **** out of an eight year old. A few other people and I told the mother that she cannot let her children behave like this, of coarse, we were the wrong ones here.

What is Lindsay like? She's actually very nice. Be rest assured that if she was rude, she would never be able to work with the likes of Rober Altman.

I am not attempting to make excuses for her, I just doubt that that she parties as much as people say she does.

[Sniper]

The June 11th issue of People mag cover story...

[Blarg]

Saw that yesterday. Kinda creepy.

[samsdmf]

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I have met Lindsay Lohan.

I also live and work in Hollywood. Although many think that actors and performers are stupid, this is far from the case. There is no a way an idiot can make it in this city, nor have anything that resembles longetivity. They may act stupid, but it is probably an act. Some of the smartest people I have ever met act stupid: I think it is because they are trying to fit in with the rest of the flock.

Rehab does work. The problem is that it is like any other social-fixing institution (homeless, prison recovery). The old saying is that god only helps those that help themselves, and that is true of rehab. I helped a woman move who just came out of rehab a few years back. She was 35 or so. She said that the problem is that parents send their kids to rehab because they over-react. The fact is that many of these kids probably haven't partied more than anyone on this forum, but for some people who where born with too much money, thinking that there kid had more than one beer last night is alcoholism. In the end rehab will not work for any one who is not ready for it. Rehab is basically jail. You are not able to do prison/jail time for doing drugs.

Lindsay Lohan has been acting since she was a child. I have met actor-mothers before, they are crazy, sometimes giving their kids movie star names. I was on set one time and I was about ready to beat the **** out of an eight year old. A few other people and I told the mother that she cannot let her children behave like this, of coarse, we were the wrong ones here.

What is Lindsay like? She's actually very nice. Be rest assured that if she was rude, she would never be able to work with the likes of Rober Altman.

I am not attempting to make excuses for her, I just doubt that that she parties as much as people say she does.

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The fact is whatever she is doing, she is doing it very well. Look at any magazine, any gossip website and its going to be Paris or Lohan somewhere on the cover.
Sort of going off topic but with all this hullabaloo about Paris going to jail I was wondering how much money she is going to make from this?
I heard somewhere that she owns a vast majority of stock images of herself, so when she appears in a magazine she makes money

She WILL sell her story for a large sum when she gets out

She has gained more column inches than any event in the last few years (that I can think of) and, as the saying goes; all publicity is good publicity, just think how Hugh Grants career exploded after his indecent conduct conviction

It seems that these stars know the value of being in the News all the time, I dont know if I am being overly cynical but it seems highly convenient that Lohan is going "back to rehab" so close to the time Paris is going to jail, perhaps an attempt to steal some of the limelight ??

I dont know if anyone has seen these highly attractive and slightly disturbing Lohan images that have been circling the web recently, I guess slightly NSFW so Im linking them but (hopfully) not too NSFW for The Lounge

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/1193/3012ll70br6.jpg
http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/783/3014ll31nl6.jpg

[Sniper]

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Rehab is basically jail

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I don't think this is true, based on what I have read. The top of the line places like where Lindsay is, seem more like going to school to learn how to get better.

[Sniper]

According to her father, in addition to alchohol, she's also addicted to Oxycontin.

Has anyone here taken this drug?

[context]

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Very interesting post. I appreciate hearing your take on this question. Like I said, I know several highly intelligent people who enjoy pill popping and mixing pills with alcohol. I have never understood why they would do such a risky thing. It doesn't take much education at all to understand the danger of overusing prescription drugs and yet many people do it. Many extremely smart people. I'm with Blarg though, I'm not sure I associate ethics with this behavior.


I'm not a pill popper. I have a huge distrust of pills. I'm freaked out by the continuing practice of doctors to over prescribe medicine to patients. I'm also weirded out by my friends, both in real life and also on the internet, who pop pills like they were candy, who get excited about getting their hands on someone else's pain pills like oxycontin (or, alternatively, Ambien or muscle relaxers or whatever the case may be).

I would bet there are quite a few bright 2+2 posters who are pill poppers. In my experience it is more often bright men who do this. Now why is that? As for girls, I guess I always thought only dumb girls did this but then again isn't Lindsay Lohan supposed to be bright? And Winona Ryder is supposed to be bright too. Hmm. What does it all mean? I think my sample size is too small.

You associate the practice with lack of ethics and has nothing at all to do with IQ. Interesting. My point was that if you are so smart, theoretically wouldn't you realize the consequences of mixing drugs with alcohol?

Maybe bright pill popping guys are tortured souls, self medicating to calm their over active minds or maybe they are bored addicts who need some kind of buzz in their life to make them feel more alive. Not sure. I would hope that a genius would be worried about destroying his body.

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I see what you mean that intelligent people should be able to asses the risks and avoid doing stupid things, i.e. hard drugs. But that logic only really applies to logical beings, not humans.

Humans take risks all the time, there is something inherently human in going too far, pushing boundaries and making mistakes. We've all heard the studies about seat belt wearing - when it becomes mandatory in a country/state people are more likely to have worse accidents as their increased feeling of safety causes them to drive faster/take more risks etc. They adapt to their safer enviroment and take more risks. I think there have been many studies which show that people do this instinctively.

We're driven by far more than a rational/logical brain and make mistakes accordingly. Horny guys offered sex on a plate will often take it if they think they can get away with it, they may even enjoy the thought of getting caught (did Clinton, the most guarded man on the planet, think those around him didn't get that he was banging an intern?) Drugs are easy to take and, come on, those bad things will never happen to us!

I wonder if the more active your brain is (and possibly having a higher IQ), the more likely you are to take drugs or take silly risks that in hindsight look stupid. If humans need to push boundaries, the more active brain will surely seek the further boundaries to push against? Of course, we have various checks and safeguards built within society to stop you going too far and many of us have ethical standpoints that prevent us doing much of what I've described (after all, you have to break the speed law to increase your risk while wearing a seat belt, or drive recklessly). Compare that to someone who lives in a world where many of societies rules don't seem to apply, or least those people, the Lohan's and Hilton's live with the impression that don't. Add in a few hangers-on who will get them what they want, when they want it. Slippery slope.