A common legal defense is that demon alcohol made us do "it." The way to a lighter sentence is to commit to doing whatever it takes to eliminate the alcohol.
In the court of public opinion, Fergie is defaulting to that same alcohol defense. But it is unlikely to be a panacea for her image. Anyone with experience with alcohol abuse knows, to paraphrase that line from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," the fault is not in the alcohol but ourselves. Stopping the booze is just the beginning of the kind of change needed to change behavior.
So, what should judges do when encountering the miscreant who contends will end the drinking? They might take seriously the reality that we humans have an innate dark side or shadow self. Not that the concept is new. Christianity has long talked about how we have been tainted by original sin. The plays of Shakespeare see that as being cankered in the grain. Psychologist Carl Jung called it a shadow self. And spiritual leader Deepak Chopra is piggybacking on that.
In his new book THE SHADOW EFFECT, Chopra et al. explain why Americans like to resist the idea that we are filled with both positive and negative impulses. Because of this denial, there has been little effort to understand and manage what is dark in us. As a result, we are doing a Fergie or worse.
Alcohol is not the problem. The problem is the naive assumption that we are essentially good people. Rather, we are a mixed bag. Judges and those they bring in the loop have to find mechanisms for bringing the shadow to light, then under control.
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