Law And More

Substance Abuse Standard in American Culture - And, Some, Such as Jeff Adachi, Will Die From It

Maybe it's leveraged as a form of self-medication.

Often, it's simply a source of fun. 

And, there are theories about addiction.

For whatever reasons, what's labeled "substance abuse" has become standard in American culture. The form of the substance can be illegal and legal drugs, alcohol, food, and tobacco. 

Given that, premature deaths have to be expected. That's just that.

The medical examiner ruled the death of San Francisco public defender Jeff Adachi the result of a combination of cocaine and alcohol toxicity.

He had been a superhero as the legal advocate for the wrongly accused. For example, he prevented illegal immigrant Jose Zarate from being convicted of murder. At one time he even ran to be mayor of San Francisco. Here are more details form the LA Times. 

On March 19th, in the lesser known circles of Youngstown, Ohio Metro area recovery fellowships, a 30-year-old beautiful, brilliant, high-energy woman died. Cover stories quickly emerged to protect her family. But everyone knew. Death is commonplace in such niches in society. 

It's naïve to express shock that those with so much going for them will cave to what could take their lives. And along the way eat away at their professional success, nest egg, relationships, sense of self, and health. 

Different eras in the history of mankind have their own kill-offs. During the time of America revolutionary John Adams, it was small pox. When I was a child it was heart disease. After the popularity of substance abuse peaks and is over, it will be something else. 

May Jeff Adachi rest in peace.

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

 

Future of Squirrel Hill (Pittsburgh, PA) - In Hands of Policy Planners (retailers should hire lawyers, lobbyists)

The Tree of Life massacre seems so far away.

The Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania seems back to normal.

Yesterday when I was driving through, families were leaving Sabbath services at the temples.

Shopping, dining, and people-watching were brisk on the main drag - Forbes. In this era of the crash of brick and mortar retail, Forbes seems just fine.

But, I didn't decide to stop driving. There was no parking, except in pay-for-a-spot multi-level structures and pay-for-a-spot on-the-street. Those spots not tagged for payment frequently were categorized as only-for-an-hour.

So, the merchants on Forbes lost my business. So did the restaurants. 

And, in terms of Pittsburgh per se, those who have left the area are voting with their pocketbooks. Yes, the city is losing the kinds of residents who are unwilling to put up with either a capitalist ploy and/or a green measure to encourage leaving the car at home (Pittsburgh has excellent public transportation).

Regarding green, even lefty town of Cambridge, Massachusetts isn't having the expected success in reducing the number of cars owned and operated by residents. 

Other obstacles to the scaling of retail in the area include:

• High gas prices. When I left Austintown, Ohio, I filled up for $2.42 a gallon (that included 3-cents off for Giant Eagle rewards points.) Throughout the Pittsburgh metro area the price of a gallon ranged from $2.63 to $2.69. 
•  Rigid inspection of autos. A now OH neighbor who fled Pittsburgh complained about the need to replace his whole windshield. He had a nick stopped from spreading with one of those buttons. No go, ruled the inspection station. OH has no inspection.

My day trip to Pittsburgh will likely be my last. The area does not seem to want me. Overall, OH is lots more welcoming to human beings. There is plenty of free parking around cool spots like Lake Erie, including resort town of Geneva on the Lake.

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Courts, Medical Community, Society Must Move Beyond Alcoholics Anonymous

Darkness can move in slowly - but relentlessly.

Several years ago, Julian, Kristoff St John's son, committed suicide. St John, who portrays Neil Winters at "The Young and The Restless," threatened to take his own life.

Now, reports Daily Mail, law enforcement suspect that excessive consumption of alcohol caused St John's death at age 52. 

This is no stunner. Those from families with a suicide gene and members of substance-abuse recovery programs know that alcohol can frequently provide a form of passive suicide. Drink enough long enough and death will follow. The cause of death could be listed as from "natural causes" or a result of a fatal accident when driving drunk. 

Many times the decision to take this route to self-delivery is unconscious. To observers, there is simply the appearance of a person unable to stop drinking.

Sometimes, though, troubled human beings will admit to themselves and to others that they intend "to drink themselves to death." And often they achieve that goal. 

Can there be effective interventions on preventing the use of alcohol as a mechanism for suicide? The reality is that there are still so many unknowns about why some people become addicted to alcohol and most don't as well as why some stop and stay stopped and many don't.

A now seminal article in The Atlantic documented how well-meaning 12-step program Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has a low success rate. Yet, "sentencing" those convicted of crimes such as DUI and domestic violence remains standard practice. 

The wealthy who struggle or whose loved ones or employees battle alcohol abuse should fund research about alternates to AA.

Not only is AA essentially ineffective. Its fundamentalism drives too many away. Among the alienating beliefs are that the more meetings attended the better. How inefficient a mode of treatment. Another is the concept of surrender to a higher power. Although that might align with the best of zen, many who are troubled can't buy in.

This blog passes along deep compassion to those who cared about Kristoff St John. Two of my uncles, the family suspects, checked out through compulsive use of alcohol.

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

Stella Artois - Symbol for BigLaw of How Change Looks, Feels, Smells, and Tastes

Touchdown for Super Bowl commercials has been Stella Artois.

And it can function as a symbol for BigLaw for how the experience of change could play out. 

Next year, genius marketers, ditch the robots. 

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

Loneliness in the Legal Sector: Too Damn Tired to Make Friends

This weekend there will be those loading up their shopping carts with Doritos, dip, chicken wings, and beer.

They're the lucky ones.

They will not be watching the Super Bowl alone.

Then there are those trapped in the loneliness epidemic.

A symbol of this time when it's so difficult to build a social network that meets up in-person, they will be taking in the Super Bowl alone. They are probably self-conscious of being isolated - loneliness carries with it stigma - so they won't go to a sports bar to do the game.

Loneliness, of course, isn't new. The Beatles wrote a great song about it - Eleanor Rigby. There was also that best-selling book Bowling Alone. And, from the get-go way back in the 1930s, the two founders of the 12-step movement - Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson - warned about the link between isolation and problem drinking. 

What is new is that loneliness has become standard. That's no surprise.

Since it requires so much time to make a good living we have less energy to devote to nurturing friendships. In fact, we are so bone tired at the end of the work day that we are even reluctant to communicate. Increasingly, we send a subtle or even blatant signal: Leave me alone.

Those in the legal sector are at the top of the list who are forced to snatch in the welcome mat. Most lawyers simply have no choice. It's either extreme hours or no hours.

Being online so much on social networks also creates the illusion of having relationships in our lives. Only if we are delusional, though, does anyone step out from the iPhone or laptop and join us for real conversation over a coffee or beer.

Lunch? Hell, who has time. And we've been all told to save our pennies for retirement. Eating out is expensive. Also, more economic watchers are predicting an economic downturn. Recall in 2009 in the legal sector 6000 souls were put out on the street. You bet, watch the money.

In addition, in this era of rage we are losing our ability to tolerate  imperfections. This one or that one gets under our skin. No, we won't let them into our lives. And, the reverse is also the case. In their eyes, we aren't up to snuff, either. The mutual intolerance is palpable. 

Reflection: Make this the last Super Bowl you will take in alone. Resolve to develop at least one friendship in 2019. An executive coach is helping me with that. 

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

Super Bowl LIII, Coca-Cola, Diversity - What Seems to Have Already Gone Very Wrong

Of course, everyone wants to see Tom Brady do his magic in the Super Bowl this year. 

But, the suspense isn't red-hot. The Patriots is the favored team for winning. 

Yet, what CBS is charging for ad packages is high. According to Variety, it ranges from $5.1 million to $5.3 million.

For that reason, Coca-Cola is staying on the bench. It won't play in prime time. Instead it is airing a 60-second commercial pre-game. That is a public service message, delivered via animated characters, about diversity. The meme is: Different is beautiful.

Here you can view it. Essentially, it leverages Andy Warhol's democratic observation that a Coke is a Coke. Anyone, ranging from a celebrity to a thirsty farmer in the fields, can enjoy it. But, for me, it's too much of a stretch to get from that to the value diversity creates in the workplace. 

Clever, maybe. But Warhol is yesterday. And the deliverable is no wanting to give the world a Coke.

So, no, not very promising.

Sure, diversity is a difficult topic to position and package in a way that breaks through the clichés. As a ghostwriter and marcom content-provider, I have been struggling with that since the late 1980s. Nothing I have produced has won any awards - or generated a massive response to the Call to Action. 

However, given that diversity has been the issue in recruitment, socialization of the workforce, retention, and preventing litigation, Coca-Cola might have struggled to veer away from clever to dig for how diversity really is a positive factor in the workplace.

Perhaps the most engaging way to connect with the spirit of what is different is to feature how it actually operates in a successful business. One of those is Abovethelaw.com, which is in the glut niche of digital legal news. Yet it is thriving.

The founder is David Lat, whose family background is Filipino. Lat has also identified himself as gay.

The current editor in chief is African-American Elie Mystal.

Two journalists are females.

The majority of the small workforce are parents, which entails juggling. Those parents include Lat and his husband who adopted a baby.

The point of view at ATL has always been out of the box.

Diversity is too important an operational and legal issue in business to dance around with what might be too clever by far.

However, we have to wait until Super Bowl Sunday to bear witness to the impact this ad may have on the world. 

I may be underestimating the corporation and its ad agency Weiden+Kennedy.

The post-game analysis will involve a lot more than Brady's arm. More focus could be put on trends in commercial speech. Will Coca-Cola be a voice that is heard?

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

Booze Sales Down - Bad News for SmallLaw, Solos, AA Could Die of Natural Causes

A predicable piece of business for SmallLaw and Solos has been the DUI. 

But that could go poof, like so many other B2C niches in the legal sector.

The Wall Street Journal documents how the sale of booze keeps declining.

During 2018, it went down another 0.08%. Beer got hit the worse, with another 1.5%.

Seeing the handwriting on the wall, those in alcoholic beverages are diversifying. Soon enough they could be opening spas in southwestern Arizona. 

Without the DUI, SmallLaw and solos could be even more in a pickle to land enough work to keep the lights on. 

Another institution to take a hit - maybe even collapse - is 12-step program Alcoholics Anonymous. For several years its effectiveness has been questioned. Membership is down worldwide. And, critics frequently quote from the hatchet job done by the now iconic anti-AA article in The Atlantic.

Without a nation of boozers, AA would lose its reason for being. Of course it could rebrand as Opioids Anonymous but that's not what it is about at its core. The "trusted servants" who oversee AA probably wouldn't allow that. The organization tends to be fundamentalist.

How will America be as post-boozing nation?

Could be we will sip herbal tea while watching the Superbowl. Since there is already an epidemic of loneliness we will likely be experiencing that sporting event alone. Instead of bros and sistas, there will only be our dog next to us, along with our smartphone. 

Overall we seem to have given up on socializing, unless it has a definite professional agenda. Sure, I will meet you for a drink - only one - if there is a possibility of business. 

Several years back I took my last shot at the joys of human companionship. Somehow four former college classmates and I found our way back into each other lives. It should have been predictable that would be a disaster + BigTrauma.

My father bowled alone. I will do the SuperBowl alone.

Tonight we will watch another episode of supposed friends' saga "A Million Little Things." Could be we could pick up some tips about getting back into the human interaction game.

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

Mindfulness & Doritos - So 1st Decade 21st Century

LinkedIn Update, it turns out, is the Land of No Spin. Those tightly scripted (as well as the tightly wound) have few followers. Often their posts go without any likes or comments.

Those who flash raw sincerity are the ones who pull in the attention. And keep it. We keep our eyes open for what they will share next.

Who are they?

There's New York Metro area adjunct communications professor and lover of grammar - Don Heymann. He reminds us baby boomers of our fourth-grade teacher who never let a misplaced comma or too many of them get by her red pen. The era was the 1950s. That was before the self-esteem movement in education eliminated that kind of editing of any student behavior in the classroom.

Another is editor in chief of Odwyerpr.com Kevin McCauley. Most recently he turned the eulogy into an art form. The grabber? The person whose spirit he keeps recapturing for us is his late boss Jack O'Dwyer. There wasn't a boss I didn't have a long-festering resentment for.

However, the Pied Piper on all social networks is Elie Mystal. He heads out of the box legal news site Abovethelaw. With total cool, he mixes advocacy about all sorts of justice with the ethos of a daddy blogger.

Meanwhile, those BigBrandnames who rule over prestigious law firms and public relations agencies go unfollowed. Actually, they turn us off with links to what they consider seminal articles in the Harvard Business Review or Axios. Some of us are tempted to leave a comment: Hey, I surf the web too.

Consuming raw sincerity is analogous to doing a whole package of raw chocolate chip cookie dough in one sitting on a very bad day.

We flip the channel in our heads from despair to hope. That often pans out (no pun intended) better than mindfulness - or Doritos. 

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

Congress - Saving America from Extreme Holiday Marketing

No break between holidays.

Today, I swung by the Walmart which is open 24-hours. I was hoping that the Christmas paraphernalia would be all gone. It was.

But, the stunner: The night staff had stocked the shelves with Valentine's Day candy. There was everything from the fancy expensive boxes of chocolates to the cheap hearts with the stamped-on romantic messages. 

Right after Valentine's, the Easter candy probably will be loaded on the shelves, along with the cute stuffed rabbits. And, in 2019, the Christmas season marketing could begin before school starts. In 2018, it kicked off before Thanksgiving. 

Would there be support for a movement to lobby Congress to limit marketing of goods and services associated with any specific holiday to a certain number of days? For example, no promos for Valentine's dinners at restaurants until February 8th? And delay putting out the candy until January 31st? 

Out of the Box Communications = Unexpected Results

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Lawyers: AT&T Could Be Proved Public Nuisance, WW Shareholders May Need to Sue, Try AA Alternate

The 52-week high for WW (new moniker for Weight Watchers) had been 105.75.

Today, even with the addition of another celebrity face - Kate Hudson - it's under 50. Actually, the stock price dipped a bit, despite the announcement that Hudson is pairing with earlier WW spokesperson Oprah Winfrey.

In the WW announcement about Hudson there is all the high rhetoric about wellness and choice (one eating/work-out program doesn't fit all). Duh. This is the era of ear shutdown and eye glaze in response to that kind of stale public relations tactics.

So, the WW brand is nowhere.

It's not attracting a new gen of those focused on sensible eating. And probably with all the new messaging, it is alienating the traditional customer. 

What WW is ignoring is the very human phenomenon: A fresh diet approach works - once.

We roly-polys know that. That's why we keep researching what's panning out for others. Keto sounds promising. Why not give Paleo a try for the New Year?

In addition, as our business drops off now that the holiday season has kicked in, we can investigate the apps. Maybe I will order from Amazon one that stills my mind so that I don't take flight into stress eating. 

WW is hardly the only old-line brand that can't turn itself around.

Alcoholics Anonymous, launched in the late 1930s, is losing members and influence. On television, rehab ads are making explicit that the program is not 12-step, that is derived from Alcoholics Anonymous. 

Another is Campbell's soup. No one has the time to eat soup. And, if in public, who wants to do the good manners in how to consume soup. Also, what I had learned as a customer of WW, in the mid 1990s, was to avoid liquid anything. Instead invest calories in what can be chewed. That will emotionally satisfy and make the stomach feel full. No, don't drink a V8. Have half a grapefruit. 

Among the brands which roared back is Microsoft. Its customer service is splendid. And it's a complimentary add-on with a subscription to Office. Twice the folks on the Microsoft phone line spent about three hours with me when my system developed serious problems. 

A brand I hope to witness disappeared is AT&T.

I call upon plaintiff lawyers to organize class action lawsuits alleging that AT&T is a public nuisance. Here is my article on public nuisance published on Odwyerpr.com. 

In less than a month at this best time of the year AT&T's retail center in Austintown, Ohio and its customer service folks on its 800-number have driven me nearly to a drink. Back in 1981, yes, Alcoholics Anonymous worked great for me. It's still working great. But if I relapsed, I would try something new. That's the way it goes.

I give AT&T the vote for the worst brand of 2018. But not far behind is WW. 

Takeaway: Shareholders and franchise owners for WW should be the loudest voices in the room hammering for radical innovation. 

Full Disclosure: At the end of the 1980s, I was a contract speechwriter for WW. At the time, it was very humble about its mistakes and it did turn itself around.

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