The voting is done… and what I would have considered an ‘unlikely choice’ came out on top! How I tallied the scores: I gave a logo 5 points for a first choice selection, 4 points for a second choice, and 3 points for a third choice. The points came out as follows.
Logo number, followed by total points:
#9, 48 points
#2, 30 points
#1, 19 points
#6, 18 points
#7, 17 points
#5, 13 points
#12, 13 points
#11, 12 points
#10, 11 points
#3, 8 points
#4, 5 points
#8, 0 points.
I myself was rooting for #2– as one person put it, it was the one that doesn’t look like it came from a pharmaceutical companies brochure. I also liked all of the little ‘heads’ with the cut-out balloon inside. But I knew going into this that I am not good at reading the likes and dislikes of the populace at large– a lack of skill that I assume I inherited from my father, since ever four years he had a big poster on the wall picturing the next losing presidential candidate.
Trivia question: Which one-time presidential candidate had a daughter who died from complications of addiction? A hint: She died right here in Wisconsin, in the worst of ways; Oh what the heck, I’ll just tell you– Terry McGovern died by freezing to death after falling into a snowbank in a vacant lot in Madison Wisconsin. In his book about her life, George McGovern estimates that his daughter had been detoxed or treated by hundreds of treatment programs, including six in the last four weeks of her life. Her demon was alcohol, at least according to the accounts of her written by her family and others.
One of the least pleasurable parts of my job is working with parents of active addicts who are trying to decide whether to toss their child out on the streets, or rather to continue letting their child live in their house, out of work and actively using drugs. I almost always counsel the parents to put the child out, where he/she will experience the consequences of addiction, for it is the consequences that bring people to treatment. An addict using with protection from the consequences will have no reason to stop using, and will die a slow death at home. But how hard it must be to turn a child out, knowing the possible outcomes and knowing that one would likely feel guilty for the rest of one’s life, should something happen to the child. For what it is worth, George McGovern writes that he regrets following the advice he was given at the end, to ‘disengage’ from his daughter. He writes, in his book about her life and death,
“But if I could recapture Terry’s life, I would never again distance myself from her no matter how many times I had tried and failed to help her. Better to keep trying and failing than to back away and not know what is going on. If she had died despite my best efforts and my close involvement with her life up to the end, at least she would have died with my arms around her, and she would have heard me say one more time: ‘I love you, Terry.”
How sad. And people do not realize that this is repeated in their home towns over and over each day.
As for the logo… I have the list of choices, by e-mail account. If you want a copy of the tapes, send me an e-mail with ‘send the tapes’ in the subject line, and if you are on the list I will send you a code that will allow you to download the tapes without charge (so use the same e-mail you voted with). Those who have purchased a copy– thank you; please let me know if they were helpful in any way.
1 Comment
angelo212 · March 16, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Thanks for sharing that story on President McGoverns daughter. His words sounded like he was in such pain for his choice but I guess it’s the right choice. I wouldn’t have been able to do it to my daughter. I ran the streets for years and know what’s out there. I just couldn’t do it although like you agree that it is consequences that bring people to treatment. Your a good a guy Doc.