Beats giving him more money to put up his nose or pump into his veins, as his work performance becomes more erratic and less satisfactory.
One of the motivators that finally helped keep me clean and sober was the knowledge that if I screwed up and relapsed again, I’d be fired.
Dr. Drew can have a new patient on his show next time.
And of course your experience is universal.
The idea is to help an addict in every way possible except ignoring or minimizing the problem. Support is very important, but it has to be the right kind of support. And there has to be very real consequences to failure. Addiction can be a very selfish thing, and believe me, I know whereof I speak, both in my own experiences, and those of other addicts.
That being said, there’s never any guaranteed way to “cure” an addict. What works for one person might drive another past the breaking point.
Of course it is! 
I get so frustrated with Artie because he so strongly reminds me of myself. I too tried for a long time to avoid taking responsibility for my addiction, and my outcomes were disastrous.
Besides, there is a solid body of medical evidence showing that having to face consequences for their behavior improves the recovery rate for addicts and alcoholics. The American Society of Addiction Medicine alone has a lot of data in this area.
This article The Case for Chronic Disease Management for Addiction explains it fairly well, and cites the primary evidence on outcome improvement when enabling is reduced.
Essentially it boils down to: Make sure that the addict’s behavior results in logical and appropriate consequences.
Or: Don’t shield them from the shitstorm they’ve stirred up, nor minimize the good things that may come their way when they’re doing what they’re supposed to do.
That’s pretty much how it works on “Intervention,” although I don’t know what their success rate is.
Yeah, I suspect that’s the best course of action too, although of course there’s no guarantee it’ll work.
I really enjoyed Artie on The Norm Show and the few times I’ve heard him on Stern. Hope he can get through this, clean up his act and have a much better life.
Montage with Hurt playing. He was a different guy when he was going out with Dana.
So…any news on how Artie is doing?