Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau’s admission of alcohol problem puts spotlight on national issue
The Wellington Mayor’s admission of having an alcohol problem has shed light on a wider issue in New Zealand.
Tory Whanau spoke out about her addiction after an alleged drunken incident at an inner-city bar two weeks ago.
But she was lucky enough to get professional help at a time when others were having to wait for it.
I’ve never liked boozers.
Alcohol has never really been my drug of choice.
Which has made socialising in NZ so difficult because we are such emotional tight arses we can only ever allow feelings to flow out after we’ve gotten drunk.
Ugh.
There are better drugs out there for you people, booze ain’t one of them!
I hate the way the booze barons get to open booze outlets everywhere.
I hate the way blunt force trauma alcoholism is allowed to cause unmanaged carnage in our communities from domestic violence, to car accidents to negative health outcomes to Fetal alcohol syndrome – booze can be a great relaxant and social lubricant at the end of a long hard day or it can become a sick addiction that destroys the addict in the most deplorable way while causing enormous damage to everyone who cares about them.
When people get stressed, booze is there, so acknowledgment that Tory Whanau has a drinking problem should surprise few.
Bit it wasn’t ‘brave’.
It would have been ‘brave’ if she had told everyone before a video of her drunk started circulating.
What she did was the least she could do.
Tory is a talented next generation Leader of the Left and a large amount of investment has gone into her, but being naive enough to get pissed and filmed at a bar to undermine her is just dumb.
Tory’s team has to remind her that she has made a lot of enemies, many for simply being a young female Māori who can articulate a vision for a better New Zealand that is immensely attractive electorally.
Those enemies will use any reason to attack her, providing them with the ammunition seems churlish.
She is better than this and her team is better than this.
Step up.
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She is a narcissistic idiot behaving like a narcissistic idiot.
A perfect Green leader for Wellington.
Sounds like she’s better suited to the National Party.
Youre just a prude who hates women who drink and have sex.
Bless you millsy that cracked me up.
I would rather have her than a old WCTU wowser like you anyday.
I don’t know enough about Tory Whanau to comment about her being a narcissist. I’ve read a lot and observed on screens a lot about Donald Trump. Much of those considerations were from acknowledged experts on human behaviour. The words ‘narcissist’ and ‘narcissistic’ get mentioned a lot.
Tell us what leads you to the conclusion that Whanau is narcissistic. Do you consider the manifestation of the condition in sufferers of they condition makes them all the same?
She needs to take up a different addiction. Eating or walking or both. Something else like, more work less play?
Martyn – She is not giving alcohol…she is a very poor performing Mayor, who attends meetings via Zoom, and never turns on the video, or audio…or simply does not attend…She needs to move on.
You think she is poor performing just because doesn’t want to close libraries and sell assets.
If she was an old white fucker she would be seen as a great bloke because she likes getting pissed .But because she is a she and brown suddenly its a crime to take a legal drug .
Ban it along with fags and watch nz grow into a healthy fast foward country .
If she was an older white person this blog would be heaping condemnation not trying to excuse them.
Yep, bang on there Trev and I’m sure “privileged” would be mentioned…
You just hate the idea of a woman having fun. Also you resent the fact that she doesn’t want to close libraries and sell off parks. Like all right wingers.
There are functional alcoholics in all lines of work and throughout the power system that’s nothing new. Mayor’s with so called drinking problems have been running towns since NZ first started having towns. What’s new is video phones and a media that is overly interested in politicians personal lives. It wasn’t that long ago in NZ that a minister of transport could keep his job after being picked up for drink driving. There should be some push back against the media wowsers attacking Tori Whanau and Kiri Allan.
>> Tory is a talented next generation Leader of
>> the Left and a large amount of investment
>> has gone into her
Wrong, she Was, however her drunken behavior has made her liability to the Left and any future employers. With the possible exception of AA or some other similar addiction service and ever then that will be far into the future she is far too toxic for any political party, company or NGO to attach their brand.
Better she resign as Major so she doesn’t become a distraction to the serious work need to occur within the city.
Oh Jesus! Who cares? Get pissed, say what you like and give no fucks! The end of humanity will be when the last one of us finally successfully manages to shove their head up their own arse hole.
Get drunk! But be good at it and by that I mean don’t fuck with anyone else, first.
Wellington’s a wank soaked pretense where the best thing about it is the dump shop.
Tom Waits said ” I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. ”
Charles Bukowski said ” If you’re gonna be anything be an alcoholic. Dope smokers are all like Heeeey maaaan. “
Martyn I guess you don’t live in Wellington or you would realise that she is the useless head of a useless organisation, and no that has nothing to do with her age, sex or ethnicity.
And of course she isn’t “brave”
Joe Bloggs from Ekatahuna – Amen to that…she has been given enough cover by most of the media…evidence, nothing has been reported on the sexual nature of the incident that was filmed,,,yet Tory’s team admits it…
Okay, she’s the useless head of a useless organisation. What are you doing to change that, or have done to try to change that?
I voted for someone else. That’s generally how we try to change things.
The right wingers on here just cannot handle the idea of a single sexually liberated brown woman who likes to have fun running Wellington.