What presidents, if any were drug addicts, alcoholics or mentally ill while in office

[TruCelt]

I met Ronald Reagan the same day that the Contra funding went up for vote. I asked him about a small point related to the Contras, and he had no idea what I was talking about. He looked up at Admiral Poindexter with the look of a deeply concerned but confused four-year-old.

He was in the process of walking to the helicopter for the first leg of a trip to his ranch to "rest."

When I heard about the Alzheimer's, I just thought "Oh, so that was it."

[ralph124c]

Originally Posted by Derleth

I suppose you could argue that having sex in such a clearly inappropriate and dangerous fashion is a sign of some unbalance, but humans do stupidly dangerous shit all the time and, in particular, using power to get sex is so common it alone can't be taken as diagnostic of anything beyond being human.

I really don't understand this attitude. Clinton was the PRESIDENT-he should have had some respect for the office. Doing what he did was childish and self-indulgent.
But heck, maybe I'm wrong-maybe the White House should be visited by hookers-is that OK?

[md2000]

Originally Posted by ralph124c

I really don't understand this attitude. Clinton was the PRESIDENT-he should have had some respect for the office. Doing what he did was childish and self-indulgent.
But heck, maybe I'm wrong-maybe the White House should be visited by hookers-is that OK?

"The man with two brains..."

Obviously his sex antics were something pathological, beyond the desire for pleasure. (Although that's always a good motivator). It's like he needed to prove something. Note that Wag the Dog, and True Colors, both written as thinly veiled take-offs of Clinton, also make allegations of sex with underage girls.

But then, it seems JFK had a similar need to prove something. As did many other men...

Maybe I don't understand this because I'm nobody important or charismatic and women don't throw themselves at me...

[handsomeharry]

Originally Posted by Derleth

I suppose you could argue that having sex in such a clearly inappropriate and dangerous fashion is a sign of some unbalance, but humans do stupidly dangerous shit all the time and, in particular, using power to get sex is so common it alone can't be taken as diagnostic of anything beyond being human.

Wrong!
It wasn't what he did that prove his madness, but with whom!

[santosvega]

Originally Posted by Clothahump

Not so much for those reasons; people drank more because they didn't have clean water. The boiling and fermentation process killed off germs, which is why light levels of alcohol ("small beer", etc.) were so popular.

Nitpick: primarily going off of UK history here, but low alcohol levels were never popular. Small beer was for servants, brewed from the leavings of the regular beer; think reusing the same coffee grounds for a second pot. We have records from the major breweries starting nearly from the time it was possible to accurately ascertain the alcohol content of beer back in Victorian times, and they place the average ABV of beers consumed at around 6-7%. It's likely that the 'Dinner Ale' that most breweries produced, at around 3-4%, was what would have been served to children, as much of the water at the time was indeed undrinkable. It wasn't until the lean times of the First World War that alcohol content as a whole began to drop.

So prior to the twentieth century most Britons were probably properly tipsy much of the time. There is some evidence to suggest that it wasn't quite at the same level in America. Colonial America didn't have a brewing industry, favoring cider and rum. And they had likely had access to drinkable water, as Benjamin Franklin, during his time in Britain, was frequently the subject of mockery over his desire to drink water. He earned the hilarious nickname 'Water American', proving that the famous British wit has made some advances over the last few centuries.

More to the subject of the thread, the point is that alcoholism was and is a tricky thing to judge, given different tolerance levels between individuals and different standards of consumption over different societies. Nixon and Kennedy were pill-poppers, Reagan may or may not have been suffering the early effects of Alzheimers. Anything else is pure speculation.

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by ralph124c

I really don't understand this attitude. Clinton was the PRESIDENT-he should have had some respect for the office. Doing what he did was childish and self-indulgent.

This is getting off topic, and none of those things indicate mental illness.

[Guinastasia]

Originally Posted by ralph124c

I really don't understand this attitude. Clinton was the PRESIDENT-he should have had some respect for the office. Doing what he did was childish and self-indulgent.
But heck, maybe I'm wrong-maybe the White House should be visited by hookers-is that OK?

So was JFK -- what's your point? (The guy was banging one chick after another, including Marilyn Monroe. Bobby Kennedy was even worse.)

[etv78]

With regard to early Presidents driking: remember, drinking water wasn't universally safe until about 100 years ago.

[Derleth]

Originally Posted by ralph124c

I really don't understand this attitude. Clinton was the PRESIDENT-he should have had some respect for the office. Doing what he did was childish and self-indulgent.
But heck, maybe I'm wrong-maybe the White House should be visited by hookers-is that OK?

You're shoving words into my mouth, which, all things considered, is better than some of the alternatives.

I never defended any of what Clinton did with Lewinsky as moral, intelligent, or anything any other leader should emulate. I merely noticed that, since time immemorial, people have had sex even when it wasn't a good idea, and that people in power have used their power to have sex.

Hell, Clinton's practically a celibate monk compared to what was happening in the Vatican in the 1500s. Sex, power, and bad judgement have always gone together.