So you all have labeled him an alcoholic without even knowing. Maybe he just partied the night before and screwed up. Quit building a defense for him when you gave no clue.

 

I think many are having a problem calling it a disease.
Let's call it it something we can all agree on.
Alcoholism, chemical dependency...etc.

 

Kevin T. McCauley, M.D.
1. Is addiction a disease? What are the arguments for and against this notion?
People often disagree with the idea of calling addiction a disease in the same way we call conditions like diabetes a disease. The behavior of addicts is frustrating, ugly - even criminal. How can driving drunk be a symptom of a disease?
The best argument against calling addiction a disease states that addicts make the choice to use drugs and that their inability to stop is simply immature and irresponsible behavior. Diabetics, for instance, do not have a choice about whether or not to have a high blood sugar. These arguments make sense, and are often embraced for their intuitive appeal alone.
When doctors use the Disease Model of Illness to think about a disease, they think of a specific physical defect in some organ or physiologic system of the body. That defect, once discovered, provides a causal explanation for the patient’s symptoms and points the way to treatment. With diseases like diabetes, the defect is easy to understand.
With brain disorders however, it is not that simple.
Our understanding of brain disorders has not kept pace with our understanding of other diseases - like diabetes. A big part of our difficulty in calling addiction a “disease” stems from the fact that no one could ever find the defect in the brain that caused addiction. Without a physical brain defect to point to, addiction never earned the status of “disease” like diabetes did. The addict’s symptoms were assumed to be due to their intrinsic badness – their immaturity, their irresponsibility, or worse.
But guess what? In the last ten years we have learned a lot more about the brain. We know what the physical defect of addiction is and where in the brain it is. Addiction is a defect in the hedonic system, or the system that perceives pleasure, which is deep in the part of the brain that handles basic survival. Because of this defect, the addict unconsciously thinks of the drug as life itself. A beer is not just a beer anymore – the addict needs the beer to get through life and when the beer is unavailable they crave it.
While it is true that the addict may have a choice in whether or not to use drugs, they do not have the choice over whether or not to crave. If craving gets bad enough, even the strongest-willed, most mature and most responsible person will return to using drugs. No brain can ignore that survival imperative. One of the big reasons we have difficulty calling addiction a disease is our inability to grasp the true nature of craving. Craving is a very real mental suffering the addict endures when they come to the point in their addiction when they are using drugs even when they do not want to.
If you are in medical school and you write, “addiction is not a disease” on one of your exams – you will flunk. In medicine, we now know that the addict’s brain really is different than normal brains, and from a physiologic standpoint we now know how it is different. This explains a lot of the symptoms we see in full-blown addiction and helps us develop better, more effective treatments to help the addict recover. It also means that addiction fits the Disease Model of illness as well - if not better - than many other diseases.
Like say, diabetes.

 

Of course you're all for it. Please list the Airline 121 accidents attributed to pilot intoxication.

The TSA legally circumvents the 4th by:

"In 1973 the 9th Circuit Court rules on U.S. vs Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 908, there are key pieces of wording that give the TSA its power to search essentially any way they choose to. The key wording in this ruling includes “noting that airport screenings are considered to be administrative searches because they are conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme, where the essential administrative purpose is to prevent the carrying of weapons or explosives aboard aircraft.”
U.S. vs Davis goes onto to state “[an administrative search is allowed if] no more intrusive or intensive than necessary, in light of current technology, to detect weapons or explosives, confined in good faith to that purpose, and passengers may avoid the search by electing not to fly.”

And you want to ADD to this? Rubbish! Not the solution my friend. The solution is education and culture. Not more "punish the masses to persecute the few" ideas.

You get the socialist post of the year award. Congratulations. While your at it, go turn in your guns, put the breath interlock on your cars' ignition, and go blow yourself before you come fly on our airplanes. It's illegal to be boarded on a flight if intoxicated.

 

I haven't labeled him anything, but your post is the exact rationalization of someone who considers an airline pilot who gets drunk on a layover and shows up to pilot an airliner intoxicated as someone who just "screwed up". If someones alcohol consumption is that uncontrollable and their judgement that impaired, there is a problem.

 

First, I am giving no one a pat on the back for getting in a cockpit under the influence. And I highly doubt anyone else is. All some of us are saying is don't kick a guy when he is down, and don't assume everything is so black and white.

Second, alcoholism isn't a cold. And contrary to your simplistic view, not all diseases have symptoms the patient can identify (especially when his brain is affected by an intoxicating substance). When was the last time you heard someone say, "I think I am coming down with cancer," "My cardiac arrhythmia seems to be acting up again," or "I think I have a touch of chronic kidney disease"? Those are some of the conditions that can jeopardize a medical, but don't have significant symptoms.

 

You are helping to prove my point. I participated, as I'm sure others in this board have, in the excess of drinking and balls in the military. Those tides sure weren't changed 10-15 years ago. There's no denying that it was taking place, and if somehow it's stopped, that's not going to help the likely thousands of pilots that participated and thought it was part of the institution. Chances are those are the pilots flying airplanes today.

 

Here, here.

Ridiculous anyone would even make such a suggestion. It's bad enough having to put on a dog-and-pony show for "the public" by going through security, now you want me to be breath tested?! Where does it end. Maybe we can just not fly airplanes anymore - then we're really, really safe.

The government must love this guy.

 

I stick to my simplistic View.
If the pilot had been drinking an alcoholic beverage, he knew he would be under the influence of alcohol to some degree regardless of his tolerance or denial level. If he did not realize he would be under the influence of alcohol to some degree after drinking an alcoholic beverage he should not be a pilot period (among many other professions that he should stay away from).

Float all of the excuses you desire, I just don’t buy most of them.
Has more to do with something like responsibility, caring about your job, people's lives, and having the guts to own up to a problem you may have and do the right thing!

 

Dude was under the influence stop defending him, end of story. I can't believe this thread has so many posts. Drunk pilot go to jail see yaaa