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His once-promising career in tatters, his family and finances ravaged by his drug addiction, former Party of Five star Jeremy London is now claiming he was kidnapped and forced to get high. Jacob Bernstein talks to addiction specialists about what to make of the tale.
The way Jeremy London later told it, it was one of the worst days of his life.
On June 10, while attempting to change a flat tire on his car, he was abducted by three men and taken on a 12-hour joyride, during which he was forced to smoke crack cocaine and distribute drugs and alcohol in a gang-infested part of Palm Springs.
“It’s been an absolute nightmare,” the Party of Five star said in a video statement provided to RadarOnline. “First of all, I want to say [the incident] actually did happen... I thought I was going to die. Thank God I made it out alive.”
He added: “I had a gun put to my head. I had my family threatened. We’re working closely with the Palm Springs Police Department to get the rest of the guys. There’s one guy in custody. There’s two more out there.”
“I think that when people are found with drugs, just as when they’re found with lipstick on their collar, they have all sorts of excuses.”
If he suspected people might be skeptical, that’s because they were.
Indeed, in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, the case has been a source of particular fascination and gallows humor. While to other segments of the population the story has seemed terrifying and bizarre, with recovering addicts there’s been a knowing nod—a remembrance of what it was like to minimize one’s problem and tell outrageous tales to keep from getting caught.
London’s personal history hasn’t exactly helped establish his credibility. He has a long history with substance abuse, and a neighbor recently told reporters that he’d been begging to wash their cars for cash. And London’s twin, Jason, said his brother’s story didn’t “add up.” He urged him to get “psychological help.”
Last week, Radar reported that London had recently lost custody of his child and was being regularly subjected to drug testing. A positive test could have terrible consequences for him. (His spokesman, Dominic Friesen, confirmed that actor is being tested, telling The Daily Beast, “Jeremy is currently undergoing drug testing for his custody case and has passed all thus far.”)
One recovering addict I spoke to had posted a status update on his Facebook page: “Look! It’s the old ‘They kidnapped me and forced me to take cocaine excuse.’ Yawn.” Another said, “I immediately thought of the Six Feet Under episode where the gay guy gets kidnapped and forced to do drugs. Anytime something sounds too much like a television episode, it’s suspect.” A third said, “I’m sorry, but that’s such a lie. I have a friend who told that same story. When she withdrew all the money from her grandmother’s bank account, she claimed she was kidnapped and that they stole it from her. She even said she was raped.”
Plus, this person pointed out, most people who resort to crime because of their drug use don’t want to share their goodies with resistant kidnap victims. “For someone to say they were abducted and forced to do drugs is absolutely ridiculous. Who the f--- is going to force you to do drugs? For what? It makes no sense.”
That skepticism was echoed by three out of three addiction specialists reached by The Daily Beast. Combined, they have more than 60 years’ worth of experience treating drug addicts; all three were listed recently in New York magazine’s recent Best Doctors issue.
In each case, the specialists said they wanted to avoid casting aspersions on a man they hadn’t treated, but that they'd never encountered a person who was forced to consume illicit substances against their will.
“I can’t recall anyone ever being forced to take drugs, though I’m sure in the history of humanity someone has been,” said Kenneth Rosenberg, an addiction psychiatrist in private practice on the Upper East Side and a member of the voluntary faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College.
“People experience peer pressure, but I myself haven’t ever encountered anyone who’s been forced to take drugs,” seconded Marc Galanter, a professor of psychiatry at New York University with a practice on the Upper West Side. “Often you see people in denial that are greatly at variance with reality. It wouldn’t be surprising for someone to make a statement that seems nonsensical.”
Added Carol Weiss of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell, “I think that when people are found with drugs, just as when they’re found with lipstick on their collar, they have all sorts of excuses.”
In 2006, recent Harvard grad Alexa von Tobel was headed for a job at Morgan Stanley. But though she would soon be managing the bank’s investments, she realized she didn’t know the first thing about her own finances. Most financial guides seemed to be written for middle-aged readers with millions in assets, rather than recent college grads. "I was reading every book I could find, but none of them spoke to me," she says. So she came up with the idea for LearnVest, an online personal-finance resource for young women like her, and ended up writing an 80-page business plan.
After two years at Morgan Stanley, von Tobel entered Harvard Business School in 2008. But upon winning a business plan competition held by Astia, a non-profit that supports women entrepreneurs, she took a five-year leave of absence and invested $75,000 of her Wall Street earnings to start LearnVest in November. She quickly enlisted advisors, including Betsy Morgan, the former CEO of the Huffington Post, and Catherine Levene, the former COO of DailyCandy, to help develop the site’s content and technology. In January 2009, she secured $1.1 million in seed funding from executives at Goldman Sachs.
LearnVest’s site launched a year later and has since signed up more than 100,000 members. It offers online budgeting calculators, video chats with certified financial planners on the company’s staff, and free e-mail tutorials on topics such as opening an IRA. The company earns revenue from advertising and by referring its users to companies such as TD Ameritrade. In April, after just four weeks of fundraising, von Tobel closed a $4.5 million investment round led by Accel Partners, which has also invested in Facebook and Etsy. (Incidentally, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lived in the same dorm as von Tobel at Harvard.)
Von Tobel likens LearnVest to an online version of The Suze Orman Show, but with the goal of reinforcing positive finance habits early on. “Suze Orman helps 45-year-old women get out of debt,” she says. “Why not reach 20-year-olds to keep them from getting into debt?”
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Intuit's Quicken was one of the software programs that was bundled with the first computer I owned and I have been using it ever since. What I love about Quicken is that it uses a familiar and user friendly interface that makes sense to the average user. Working in Quicken is just like balancing your checkbook.
Quicken's most powerful features are released by linking your accounts to the program. This can be accomplished in one morning of work if you are organized. I have all my checking accounts, savings accounts, mutual funds, mortgages, and auto loans linked to Quicken. When the program is opened the latest financial transactions are downloaded from your various accounts and you have an instant snap shop of your financial picture.
Twice a month I spend a couple of hours in Quicken planning my cash flow. At the start of the month I estimate all of my income, I input my fixed expenses and estimate my other expenses. (These tasks can all be automated if you prefer). In the middle of month, I do an update to see where I am. My bank account downloads all of my transactions and I compare them to my beginning of the month plan. It has been a great way to get control of my finances.
Quicken has many features beyond basic cash flow planning. It has excellent charts that allow you to see how your money has been spent, what your income and expense trends have been and are projected to be and that gives you a snapshot of your net worth. You can print out very detailed reports with the program, print your checks and sign up for Quicken's bill paying service.
A feature that users in today's financial climate will find especially useful is the programs debt elimination wizard. This wizard collects all of your financial data and helps you create a strategy for getting rid of debt as quickly possible. The wizard also tracks how you are doing on your plan and offers suggestions for getting you back on track.
Quicken's retirement and investment planning features and wizards are very helpful and easy to use. These give you a realistic picture of what you need to do in order to reach your investment goals and tracks how you are doing.
Quicken is an old standby in the financial software market that still does the trick.
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