Dear Straight Talk: I still have the photo. I’m at my best friend’s house and her mom and stepdad are serving us whiskey and Coke. I am 15. It was my first alcohol. From that point on, drinking, driving, partying, that’s what weekends were for. Typical high school stuff? Not really. My parents didn’t drink at all.

Fast forward 30 years. Sick of throwing up, hiding bottles, waking up not knowing where I am, I check into treatment. Alcoholism is sneaky when you can get A’s, hold down a career, and stop for periods of time. I am writing to tell you: Drinking too young is the surest way to become an alcoholic — and it doesn’t always happen right away.

— Barbara S., Reno, Nev.

Dear Barbara: Congratulations on your recovery. You are correct on both counts. For those who start drinking before age 21, almost one in 10 become alcoholics. For those who start after 21, only 3 percent do. The younger you are when you start, the more your chances rise. It is a myth that in Europe, where drinking ages are younger and serving alcohol to minors isn’t taboo, that there is less alcohol abuse. Europe has the highest worldwide rates of alcoholism and binge drinking — both significantly higher than America.

The other way you are correct is that alcoholism often follows a responsible period long after the initial onset of drinking. Below are snapshots of underage drinking. To all who drank heavily at first and now seem to have it under control, please beware as you get older.

—Lauren

Justin, 24, Redding: I was 18 the first time I got drunk. I partied some senior year, but compared to most kids, I had little under-age experience with alcohol. My biological father is an alcoholic, so my mom was strict about never letting me drink with them, even at gatherings where other kids were allowed. Lots of serious substance abuse is shrugged off as “partying.” It’s not normal to get blackout-drunk EVER.

Brie, 20, Santa Barbara: I was 15 when I started drinking. I got the alcohol from friends. My weekends pretty much became drinking parties for a while after that. Now I work two jobs and go to college full time so my blackout days are over. I don’t have time to deal with hangovers and I worry because alcoholism runs in my family.

Jennifer, 17, Sacramento: A friend always talked about her parents sharing booze with her, but I couldn’t quite imagine it. Then I was somewhere else and the mom was making margaritas. She pressed me relentlessly to have one and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I finally accepted and ditched it secretly. It was so awkward! The kids in these households glorify their parents, but I have no respect for them.

Gregg, 20, Los Angeles: My first drunk was from alcohol stolen from my dad. I was 15. As I got older, adults often offered me beer or wine at barbecues and parties. Ironically, I’ve had less success “Hey Mistering” than being offered booze by other parents.

Molly, 19, Berkeley: I was allowed the occasional drink at holidays and such, so alcohol wasn’t a real big deal as I got older. Most of my heavy drinking was in high school but I never did anything terribly out-of-character and even when blackout drunk, I was responsible. While I still drink occasionally, it’s not worth feeling sick the next day anymore.

More from Lauren: It’s very important for parents, relatives, and other adults to not let young people drink until they are 21. People reporting first-use of alcohol under age 15 are five times more likely to become alcoholics than are those whose first use is at age 21. Even first-use between ages 18 and 20, while better, still ups the odds considerably for being alcoholic later. There is scientific evidence that the younger you are, the more alcohol triggers the genes that encourage alcohol dependency — even without alcoholic relatives.

The European model of serving kids alcohol in the home as a way of “normalizing the experience” has been whoppingly wrong-minded. We now have hard statistics from the European Union showing that it has the highest rates of binge drinking and alcoholism in the world. Our rates are much lower on both counts. Don’t believe me? Google it.

Alcohol is the most commonly used drug by young people in the United States — more than tobacco, pot or other regulated drugs. Young people ages 12 to 20 drink 11 percent of all alcohol consumed in this country and more than 90 percent of that is “binged.” (A binge is five-plus drinks per male or four-plus drinks per female, per occasion, a “drink” being one beer, one glass of wine or one shot of hard liquor.)

In the United States, about 50 percent of first-use alcohol is offered freely to minors from parents, relatives and other over-21-year-old adults. In other words, alcoholism could be substantially reduced if we “grown ups” simply stopped giving alcohol to minors.

Readers: How did you start drinking? Share your experiences on our website comment section.

Visit http://straighttalkTNT.com/ or write POB 963 Fair Oaks, CA 95628.

For a while, Gavin And Stacey star James Corden looked invincible – until his subsequent sketch show with Mathew Horne was panned and he discovered London’s bar and clubbing scene. The father-of-one tells Sarah O’Meara how he turned it all around, as his autobiography is released.

“The person I look back on I don’t really recognise as me,” says 33-year-old James Corden in a thoughtful, reflective voice, sounding absolutely nothing like his cocky alter ego Smithy from Gavin And Stacey.

Remembering times of partying, drinking, ignoring phone calls from his family and being rude to his agent, he’s still embarrassed about letting the hype go to his head.

“I wasn’t in AA or anything. I just got a bit lost. I was heartbroken and a little bit famous… and that’s a bad mix,” he says, momentarily allowing his childish grin to break through the introspection prompted by his new autobiography May I Have Your Attention, Please?

The past decade has been a rollercoaster, Corden admits. After landing a part in West End musical Martin Guerre aged 17, he went on to star in ITV’s Fat Friends – where he met future Gavin And Stacey writing partner Ruth Jones – was cast in the National Theatre’s international tour of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, which ended in a film adaptation, and then created and starred in seminal comedy Gavin And Stacey, a series that garnered a level of public devotion not seen since the likes of The Royle Family.

For its 2010 finale, the Gavin And Stacey show he co-wrote with Jones pulled in 10 million viewers.

Backstage though, as television’s chubby golden boy explains in new book, he wasn’t happy. And Corden fans probably won’t need an autobiography to tell them why.

Riding high on a crest of professional success, when mediocrity hit it was a bitter blow. His sketch show Horne & Corden, debut film Lesbian Vampire Killers, and even James Corden’s World Cup Live, an apparently harmless ITV presenting gig, were labelled as drivel by critics. And Corden is nothing if not honest about why he failed to deliver the goods.

“Trying to write a TV show, or be in things and be good, and going out all the time, are mutually exclusive. You just can’t do them both.

“You feel like you can, because you’re still handing in the work – it’s just not very good. Not to say it’s awful, but it’s not good enough.”

As well as the heady rewards of fame, Corden was also struggling with being single for the first time, after his nine-year relationship with Shelley finished in 2007, and his Gavin And Stacey co-star Sheridan Smith ended their ‘turbulent’ affair two years later as he finished filming Gulliver’s Travels.

So Corden rented a fancy north London flat with Mamma Mia’s Dominic Cooper, and his socialising took on an epic quality.

“At one point, for about two weeks, all Dom and I had in the fridge was some vodka, a bottle of pink vitamin water and a Lindt chocolate bunny,” he writes.

Soon his conscience, and his family, came to make their feelings known.

After his parents made an awkward, impromptu visit, terrified by reports in the papers of him falling out of clubs and bars, their worried looks were enough of a rebuke.

“There were no 12 steps, it was as simple as saying I’m going to stay in, and I’m not going to kiss anyone unless it could be ‘someone’.

“Of course I didn’t always stay true to that – but it worked on the whole,” he smiles.

That’s a huge understatement. Corden’s now in a steady relationship with charity worker Julia, has the lead in One Man Two Guvnors, transferring to the West End this autumn, and is the proud father of six-month-old Max.

“It was my birthday yesterday, and me and Jules ate sushi and watched Breaking Bad. And we didn’t even finished the second episode. The baby started murmuring, we were asleep by 9.50pm.”

While he and Cooper are still best friends their mutual party days are behind them, for now.

Another friend he’ll never lose is Ruth Jones. “The truth is, if you get to sit in a room with her for a few hours a day, it’s the luckiest place in the world to be.

“She’s the most amazing company, coupled with an incredible creative mind. And when I was sort of, you know …” he stops and laughs ruefully about his partying days. “Well, one time I turned up at Ruth’s at six o’clock, fell asleep on the sofa and didn’t wake up until nine o’clock the next day. She’d put a blanket on me.

“It’s the absolute truth that for a couple of years she was absolutely my only constant. My anchor.”

Corden is still learning to reconcile the highs and lows of his career.

Today, he looks slimmer, and admits to having a personal trainer, but an even leaner silhouette seems unlikely at this stage.

“Sandwiches are amazing – they make me believe in God,” he says. “They can only have been sent by a supernatural being bigger than all of us. And cake. And as much as I love a fruit salad, it’s never the same.”

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By Elizabeth Cook

ecook@salisburypost.com

People who encounter mental illness have a choice to make, according to Jim Mallinson.

They can find out what the illness is, learn more about it and either get treatment or advocate for the person who needs treatment and others in similar circumstances.

Or, he said, they can remain uninformed and potentially prejudiced about mental illness and suffer the consequences.

Mallinson, a licensed clinical addictions specialist, spoke Thursday at a luncheon marking Mental Illness Awareness Week. Organized by the Rowan branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the luncheon was held at Rowan Public Library.

Mallinson was both keynote speaker and — to his surprise — recipient of NAMI Rowan’s Professional of the Year Award. A graduate of Catawba College, he was a substance abuse program director for many years before joining UNC Charlotte as an alcohol and drug specialist and, later, director of student health services.

Since retiring in 2006, Mallinson has formed Carolina Counseling Services, where he provides counseling and consulting services and clinical supervision.

Mallinson told the group people who have mental illness may feel their situation is hopeless. He has seen addiction rob people of everything — job, family, friends, health, home — and it often is accompanied by other diseases, such as depression, anxiety or psychosis. Change occurs, he said, when new choices are made.

The choice to seek treatment is a crucial one, he said, because behaviors can be mislabeled, and sometimes they have a physical cause.

Others often accuse people suffering with alcoholism, drug addiction, depression or anxiety of merely lacking will power, he said, but volition is only part of these disorders.

There are four components to the treatment of disease, he said:

• Each disease has physical attributes that the person was born with, developed over time or acquired through accidental or environmental events and influences.

• The psychological and emotional component arises from the challenge to the person’s sense of wellbeing —why me? —and what others say about them. “Words often hurt,” he said.

• Social and cultural influences may limit a person with mistaken beliefs and reactions, such as believing addiction is simply a lack of moral fortitude. That just increases the guilt and shame, he said.

• And there’s a spiritual element, which Mallinson defined as being much broader than organized religion. It’s a person’s relation to the world, whether he feels and acts as though he is totally alone or that there is something greater than himself.

Mental illness is often misunderstood, he said. People make assumptions and act on preconceived notions and prejudices. They then discriminate as a way to control others.

Being complacent or silent and not challenging such discrimination allows it to continue, Mallinson said. Advocates for people with mental illness have to speak up, he said. Be consistent and assertive. By bringing attention to mental illness and the real facts about it, the demystify the diseases and allow help to be provided for people who need it. He thanked NAMI Rowan for doing exactly that.

Celebration of Success recognition went to two individuals recognized for successful recovery efforts: Bill Broussard and Shanna Dixon.

Mayor Susan Kluttz read the proclamation designating Oct. 2-8 as Mental Illness Awareness Month.

Officers for the coming year are Peggy Mangold, president; Major Sampson, vice president; Carol Greene and Jim Mangold, secretary; and Sarah Keller Boyd, treasurer.

With retirement comes reflection, and Cleve Thompson, who retired last week as Clark County’s drug and alcohol program manager, can look back on significant accomplishments. He:

• Secured inpatient beds so Vancouver residents would not have to go as far as Sedro-Woolley or Spokane for residential treatment.

• Successfully lobbied — making a key phone call to a U.S. senator — for the $39 million Center for Community Health, which required unprecedented cooperation among local, state, federal and tribal governments and nonprofit agencies to consolidate services.

• Pitched the idea for a drug court for nonviolent addicts to Clark County Superior Court judges. The pilot project, in which defendants committed to treatment could stay out of jail, proved so successful the county now has seven targeted therapeutic courts including ones for veterans, juveniles and the mentally ill.

As people praise Thompson, 63, as a champion advocate and master grant writer who built the infrastructure for substance abuse treatment in Clark County, they acknowledge a lot of the services he’s fought so hard for could be gone by the end of the year.

Because while retirement calls for reflection, a $1.4 billion state budget shortfall calls for reality:

• The state Department of Social and Health Services has proposed to meet a 10 percent budget reduction by, among other things, eliminating “all alcohol and substance abuse services for adults” with the exception of pregnant women and mothers whose children are younger than 1. That would affect more than 55,000 people statewide.

• Depending on the state cuts, Clark County Commissioner Marc Boldt said the county might have to redirect money from therapeutic courts to pay for inpatient treatment.

• Lynn Samuels, executive director at Lifeline Connections, the county’s only inpatient substance abuse treatment center, said if the state stops paying for low-income/indigent people she’d lose approximately one-quarter of patients, lay off as many as 35 employees and give up some of her space at the Center for Community Health.

Approximately 6,500 people, including those with private insurance, are treated at Lifeline Connections a year.

Thompson earned $80,640 a year; his position will not be filled.

A co-worker in Clark County’s Community Services Department, youth program manager DeDe Sieler, will pick up Thompson’s duties, including managing three federal grants.

“What I learned from Cleve is you have to be great partners with community providers,” she said. “And your one and only goal is to capture, garner or leverage as much funding for our community as possible.”

It’s too soon to tell what exactly will come out of the special legislative session, set to convene Nov. 28.

By then, a second negative revenue forecast will likely have been released.

“My only option is across-the-board cuts,” Gov. Chris Gregoire said Sept. 22.

She hopes to finalize a budget, with healthy reserves, before Christmas. She’s asked state agencies to prepare budgets with 5 to 10 percent cuts.

Since the national recession began, the state has made nearly $10 billion in cuts, according to Gregoire’s office.

Since 2007, Thompson has lost 40 percent of his state funding, from $12.8 million in the 2007-09 biennial budget to $7.7 million in the 2011-13 budget. State funding currently accounts for 65 to 70 percent of his budget. After the next round of cuts the number will likely drop to less than $500,000 a year. The county would also lose Medicaid dollars, as it currently gets 50 cents for every $1 the state pays for alcohol and drug treatment.

Clark County commissioners don’t know how they are going to continue offering services in light of the state cuts, and said last week they want to lobby state lawmakers to consider alternatives to cutting money for treatment.

State Rep. Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver, said there aren’t any easy cuts to make.

“Everything is on the table,” Moeller said. “We have to have a balanced budget.”

Costly mess

Thompson knows from his 19 years with the county that cutting funding for treatment will shift costs elsewhere, and the government already pays far more for cleaning up the mess caused by addiction than it does for getting people help.

“We’re at the tipping point right now, where we’re going to see the loss of resources,” Thompson said. Drug and alcohol services have fallen behind mental health services because of a surge in advocacy for the mentally ill; there’s crossover in the populations and Thompson sees both services as essential.

“There’s a lot of stigma,” he said of addicts. “People think they can change by themselves, ‘Just pull up your bootstraps and stop.’ It’s not so easy once you are addicted.”

Thompson first observed the consequences of addiction in his previous career. He spent two decades in public education, first as a teacher, then as an assistant principal in Roseburg, Ore. As assistant principal, he was in charge of security and discipline. (“I flushed a lot of chew down the toilet,” he said.)

“Ten percent of the families take 90 percent of your time,” he said. The students caught with tobacco or alcohol typically came from families where one or both of the parents had substance abuse or mental health issues.

He spent the majority of his time dealing with the fallout from addiction; governments spend accordingly.

A 2009 study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse examined how government spends money related to substance abuse — prevention, treatment and the morning-after consequences.

Columbia University researchers broke it down this way: For every $100 spent by the state of Washington in 2005 on drugs, alcohol and related costs, $2.81 of that $100 was spent on prevention, treatment and research.

The amount spent “shoveling up” the mess (crime, health and social services related to addiction) was $85.34.

The balance was spent regulating state-operated liquor stores.

“I learned early on it’s a rationed system,” said Thompson. “We treat about 20 percent of the need in the community … if I knew money was being underused (in the state) I would figure out how to get it.”

When addicts go untreated, they burden the health care, criminal justice and social service systems, Thompson said.

“If we didn’t have detox, they would be in the ER, jail or squad car,” he said.

Unequal funding

When Thompson came to the county in 1992, people detoxing from drug or alcohol addiction had nowhere to go but a hospital; people in need of a longer inpatient stay were sent to Yakima, Spokane or Sedro-Woolley, north of Everett.

While other counties of Clark’s size were funded at $5 to $6 per capita for detox treatment, Clark had fallen far behind.

“We were funded at $1.13 per capita,” Thompson recalled.

During a state meeting with his counterparts, everyone agreed it wasn’t fair, he said, but nobody wanted to give up money. Thompson suggested the highest rates would be frozen, and new dollars would be distributed to Clark and other underfunded counties. It worked.

“They thought I knew something about funding formulas,” he laughed.

Another one of his major achievements was his work on the Center for Community Health.

In 1997, Clark County sold property to Clark College, displacing headquarters for what was then the Southwest Washington Health District and other social service agencies.

At the same time, the county’s Department of Community Services was starting to work with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to better serve veterans.

Thompson remembers sketching on a sheet of paper a rough idea for what became the four-story Center for Community Health, 1601 E. Fourth Plain Blvd.

It took years of negotiating to get local, state, federal and tribal governments, as well as the nonprofit service providers, under one roof. While the project was still in the planning stages, there was moment of panic when then-U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi said he was not going to commit to any new projects.

For the deal to work, the VA would have to lease property to the county.

Thompson made a call to U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

“She was able to do what senators do,” Thompson said. “It was approved the next day.”

Initiated drug court

Comparatively, getting Clark County Superior Court to start a pilot drug court in 1999 was simple. He gave judges a presentation on drug courts, where nonviolent addicts stay out of jail as long as they are committed to treatment and comply with other terms. It was modeled after a program started in Florida’s Dade County (home of drug-plagued Miami) in 1989.

Only Judge James Rulli was willing to try it.

Rulli started a court for nonviolent felony drug offenders; a similar program was started in District Court for misdemeanor offenders.

Through 2010, 346 people have graduated from felony drug court.

The 33 people who graduated last year, by avoiding county jail and state prison terms, saved the county and the state a total of $830,000.

Of felony drug court graduates, recidivism rates at five years post graduation is 17 percent; similar offenders who do not go through treatment court have a five-year recidivism rate of 62 percent.

Also last year, nine babies were born drug-and-alcohol free to drug court graduates.

The county expanded the model, and its seven specialty courts include a Family Treatment Court, for parents trying to reunite with their children, a Juvenile Recovery Court for youth addicts and a Veterans Therapeutic Court.

The veterans court, which received a three-year federal grant of $350,000, was started because 89 percent of military veterans booked into the Clark County Jail admitted to having substance abuse problems.

In addition to spearheading treatment courts, Thompson always managed to find the funding, Rulli said.

“That’s why he’s going to be so sorely missed, because in these times it’s going to be even more difficult to try to find funding,” Rulli said. “It’s all so up in the air.”

Rulli added that even skeptics on the Superior Court bench have come around to endorse treatment courts.

“Many studies have verified it’s simply the best way to spend money.”

Vancouver resident Ken Jennings, a drug court graduate, will celebrate nine years of sobriety in November.

Jennings, 42, was first booked in the Clark County Jail when he was 18. Two dozen arrests later, he signed up for drug court. He went on to serve on the county’s Substance Abuse Advisory Board, but hasn’t been able to attend meetings since he started a swing shift at a Portland steel mill.

He and his wife have a blended family of seven children.

When he first signed up for drug court, he had an aversion to authority figures. But Thompson drew him out, and later encouraged him to tell his story in Olympia to lawmakers who weren’t convinced drug courts could work.

“They think that drug court is a ‘hug a thug’ program,” Jennings said.

Without drug court, “I’d either be dead or in jail, that’s for sure. I believe that with all my heart.”

Thompson helped him not only with sobriety, but to become a better father.

“If you times that by the thousands of people he’s helped, I don’t know how anyone could come up with a word or a sentence or a paragraph to describe what he’s done,” Jennings said.

While retired, Thompson doesn’t plan to stop being an advocate, and will continue to let lawmakers know they need to fund treatment.

Despite the constant fighting for money, he said it’s been a wonderful job.

True, he’s seen relapses — “that’s part of the recovery process” — and received heartbreaking calls about addicts who accidentally overdosed or committed suicide.

But triumphs, such as Jennings, have kept him going.

Samuels, of Lifeline Connections, said Thompson was the best at securing grants because he worked the hardest.

“For Cleve, he always thought, ‘Well, if my staff and I do extra work, that’s one more person who can get treatment who wouldn’t get it otherwise.’”

Stephanie Rice: http://www.facebook.com/reporterrice; http://www.twitter.com/col_clarkgov; stephanie.rice@columbian.com.

As I mentioned in an April column, I carry on a love-hate relationship with food.

Some guys are suckers for bad women. I’m a sucker for bad chow. I’ve never met a cheeseburger or a chocolate chip cookie I didn’t want.

That’s why a recent Washington Post opinion piece by Eugene Robinson caught my attention.

Robinson highlighted the obvious: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is fat. Very fat.

Christie doesn’t disclose his weight, Robinson said, but the 5-foot-11 politician “appears to exceed the 286 pounds that would place him among the 5.7 percent of American adults the (National Institutes of Health) classifies as ‘extremely obese.'”

Robinson wasn’t being mean. Or at least he wasn’t merely being mean. Christie conceivably could end up running for president (although Christie has said he will not seek the office), Robinson said, and obesity is a serious personal and public health problem.

About one-third of American adults are obese, which increases their risks for illnesses ranging from diabetes to heart disease to certain types of cancer.

Health care costs for obese people are 42 percent higher than for people of normal weight. “It costs Medicare $1,723 more a year for an obese beneficiary than a non-obese one,” Robinson wrote. “For Medicaid the differential is $1,021, and for private insurers it’s $1,140.” That means we all pay for other people’s spare tires.

Christie, Robinson said, should prove himself a real leader by losing his excess weight and keeping it off. “Today, I’d just like to offer him a bit of unsolicited, non-partisan, sincere advice: Eat a salad and take a walk,” Robinson concluded.

To his credit, Robinson did say that the causes of obesity are complicated. He prefaced his advice for Christie by implying that his own suggestion might be simplistic.

But a lot of people seem to think it’s really that easy.

Fat people are one of the few groups it’s still OK to judge and dismiss, to talk down to.

However, like alcoholism and many other addictions and personal problems, overeating usually results from a complex cocktail (sorry for the pun) of causes, not simply from sloth, lack of willpower or ignorance about how calories function.

A guy like Christie doesn’t become a governor and a possible contender for the U.S. presidency by being lazy, weak-willed or stupid. There’s some other cause, or multiple causes, for his lack of control over his weight.

There are indeed countless contributors to obesity: bad genes, the side effects of medications, family environments, depression, grief, low self-esteem, the hormonal high that food gives certain people, the marketing campaigns of fast-food and junk-food companies. Even religion can play a role. Some Christian groups make gluttony an acceptable way of coping with stress. And can anyone say “potluck dinners”? The triggers for an individual’s obesity, then, can be biological, medical, environmental, psychological or spiritual — or all of the above.

I’ve been battling my waistline my whole adult life. I’ve thought endlessly about why I eat too much, choose the wrong foods and don’t exercise as I should. I still don’t have a clear answer.

I grew up in a nurturing two-parent family, was popular in school, was a reasonably accomplished athlete, am well-educated, mainly have worked at jobs I enjoyed and have been blessed with fulfilling personal relationships.

Yet I’ve never been able to overcome overeating. I partly conquer it all of the time, or else I’d weigh 600 pounds. I totally conquer it part of the time, and shed three or four belt sizes. But I never permanently beat it. The fat I lose invariably comes back.

I probably inherited fat genes. My mom was a wonderful woman but quite obese.

I also think I arrived on earth with an addictive personality. Maybe I had another chromosome that zigged when it should have zagged. As a friend of mine put it, for me anything worth doing is worth doing to excess. At various periods, I’ve battled alcohol and cigarette addictions, too. I even became addicted to exercise once. For a year or more I was running 5 miles a day, doing scores of sit-ups and push-ups and bench-pressing nearly 300 pounds. In the process I damaged my shoulders, back, hips and feet.

I licked booze and smokes with God’s help, and by summoning a fair measure of willpower and perseverance. The exercise addiction cured itself. I reached the point where I was in such chronic pain I could barely crawl out of bed; I hurt too much to damage my bones and muscles any further.

But none of those things — prayer, willpower, determination or physical discomfort — has enabled me to defeat my food issue. It’s the stubbornest addiction of all.

So I agree with Robinson that obesity is a national health problem. I agree that Christie, and I, need to shed some pounds. But I get frustrated when leaner people become judgmental and dismissive toward those who struggle with their weight. They assume fat people aren’t trying. Most overweight people have spent years and a small fortune trying to get thin.

I don’t know exactly what the cure for obesity is. I do know that arching an eyebrow and telling a hefty person to eat a salad isn’t it.

The Watertown-Mayer school board on Sept. 27 ratified a recently agreed upon contract between the school district and the teacher’s union that will freeze teachers’ salaries with no increases or steps for the next two years.

The two-year contract, which covers this school year and next, was agreed to by negotiators for the school board and the teachers’ union several weeks ago. The next week, the teachers’ negotiators met with their staff to get the contract ratified, and it was finally ratified by the school board at its Sept. 27 regular meeting.

The contract includes a hard freeze with no pay increases in either the 2011-12 or 2012-13 school years. On June 30, 2013, the salary schedule will be compressed from 16 steps down to 12 steps, and staff will receive one step increase on that date, the last day of the new contract.

“The staff has really stepped up to the plate,” Watertown-Mayer superintendent Dave Marlette said at the board meeting. “They really rolled up their sleeves to help us get through these next two tough years with no increases in pay.”

Among the most significant changes agreed upon in the contract is a new wellness bonus system designed to keep teachers in the classroom as much as possible and reduce the need for substitute teachers. At no additional cost to the district, a staff member will have the opportunity to earn a bonus of up to $1,000 based on the number of times a substitute teacher is hired in their absence.

Each teacher’s bonus starts at $1,000, which they would receive if they don’t need a substitute all year. For each sub that is hired in their place, their bonus is reduced $100. The new policy essentially has teachers pay for their own substitutes, thus encouraging them to be in the classroom more often.

Marlette said the district spends $140,000 a year on substitute teachers, and with the change in the policy, the district will continue to spend $140,000 per year on a combination of substitute teachers and teachers’ wellness bonuses. The policy is a way to put more of that money in the pockets of the district’s regular teachers instead of substitute teachers, but most importantly, Marlette said keeping teachers in the classroom as often as possible often will be beneficial to the students.

“I firmly believe, and there are studies all over the place, that when a teacher is out of the classroom and a sub is hired, the learning for that day is reduced by 50 percent,” Marlette said. “My whole objective is the more days I can keep my teachers themselves in the classroom, the better student learning will be.”

Hennen promoted

In other news from the Sept. 26 school board meeting, the board approved the promotion of Bob Hennen from middle school dean of students to full principal status. The move was made at the recommendation of superintendent Dave Marlette in an effort to give Hennen the ability to evaluate staff, something he did not have the power to do as a dean of students.

“I feel that one of the most important things to driving student achievement is good solid evaluations between my principals and my teaching staffs,” Marlette said. “Principals can make a world of difference in how that teacher is working with the kids in the classroom.

“Bob is outstanding, and it’s like we’re tying his hands by having him a dean of students. We need to let Bob go in and do evaluations and promote better teaching.”

Hennen first became dean of students at the middle school in July 2010 after 12 years in the district as a high school social studies teacher. Marlette first expressed his preference at the board meeting at the end of August that Hennen be made a principal, and the board took formal action last week.

The promotion will include an additional $19,500 in salary and benefits, but will not add to the school district’s budget. The budget for this year included $63,000 for the new superintendent to reorganize the district’s administration in a way he felt would best help the district’s goals.

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Moms are supposed to nurture, love, and support their offspring. Nonetheless, that’s not always the case. Movies about dysfunctional families are par for the course in Hollywood. Often at the root of that on-screen dysfunction is a troubled Mom. The downward spiral into drugs or alcohol is often a common theme in these movies. But even darker obsessions are explored on film. Our hearts bleed for the messed-up movie moms who are based on real people. But for the most part, these questionable characters provide hours of entertainment. From the least offensive, to the most—here are some of Hollywood’s Troubled Movie Mothers.

(SPOILERS ALERT!)

Susan Sarandon – “The Lovely Bones” (2009)

The “messed-up” Mom in this movie is actually a grandmother portrayed by Susan Sarandon. The smoking, pill-popping alcoholism is downplayed a bit in this screen version of Alice Sebold’s novel. Grandmother Lynn’s character flaws are evident. But she’s so busy holding the family together during a tragedy that we can’t help but excuse them.

Julianne Moore – ” Boogie Nights” (1997)

We could feel sorry for Amber waves, the coke-snorting porn queen whose profession cost her a child custody loss. Julianne Moore‘s scenes as an estranged mom are far and few in 1997’s “Boogie Nights.” But they are just as convincing as her risque performances.

Maggie Gyllenhaal – “Sherrybaby” (2006)

Maggie Gyllenhaal makes it a little difficult to consider her a loving Mom in this 2006 indie flick. In “Sherrybaby” Sherry is a former heroin junkie who’s just been released from prison after a three-year stint. (Great start, huh?) The film follows her attempts to integrate herself back into her child’s life. Her personal setbacks are both predictable and heart wrenching.

Viola Davis – “Antwone Fisher” (2002)

The true story of Antwone Fisher makes many people uncomfortable. Rightfully so, considering the history of abuse and neglect Antwone endured as a youth. Actress Viola Davis is Eva Mae-the woman who gave birth to him behind bars. And her near catatonic state of existence is about as pitiful a display as one could see on film.

Marisa Tomei – “Danika” (2006)

“Danika” may be one of Marisa Tomei‘s “quieter” films. But this display involves her as a mentally crumbling, obsessive-compulsive housewife whose life hits rock bottom after she accidentally kills her children in a car crash.

It’s relatively easy to feel sorry for these distraught movie moms. In the end, they don’t really mean any harm. On the other hand, some movie mothers are downright despicable. They’ve got some of the same problems. But they take dysfunction to a whole new level.

“Dishonorable Mention” Movie Moms:

Kim Basinger – “The Informers” (2008)

Perhaps ‘despicable’ is too harsh a word to describe Kim Basinger‘s character, Laura in “The Informers.” We might even excuse her fragile, pill-tossing temperament if she were not sleeping with her son’s best friend.

Amy Ryan – “Gone Baby Gone” (2007)

Losing your kid to a child molester, kidnapper, or some other deviant is perhaps the most harrowing thing a parent can endure. But this situation is even more complicated when said kid is your child, lost while under your watch—while you’re floating on drugs and booze.

Piper Laurie – “Carrie” (1976)

Ordinarily, one might not think of religion as the source of madness (or perhaps you might). Still, actress Piper Laurie conveys this effortlessly as “Carrie’s” Bible-thumping mother. The havoc her evil wreaks is explosive, literally.

Mo’Nique – “Precious” (2009)

There are few on-screen mothers as dreadful as Mary, the uber-abusive mother in “Precious.” A testament to that evil is the Academy Award for the role, earned by comedienne/actress Mo’Nique.

Asia Argento – “The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things” (2004)

Asia Argento’s character allows her son to be abused, abandons him, dresses him as a girl and calls him her little sister (to stay close to a psychopathic boyfriend); these are just a few of the atrocities revealed in “The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.” A special place in the universe has been reserved for this movie mom.

More From This Contributor: Seven Politically Incorrect Female Coming-of-Age Films

Five Reasons Why Smart Women Choose to Date Mr. Wrong

Celebrity “Mother’s Awards”

Note: This was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Join the Yahoo! Contributor Network here to start publishing your own articles.

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