Journalists’
stories are like movies. Some of the work ends up on the editing room floor,
leaving outtakes.
That was the case
from my recent interview with Judge Mary Chrzanowski of Macomb Circuit Court in
Mount Clemens.
I talked her
about her upcoming appearance on “Dateline” and her judicial style and personal
story. A lot of the recorded interview got cut.
·
She said
she always wanted to be a judge, and her older cousin, Robert Chrzanwoski, now a retired jurist,
served as her inspiration. As a young adult she used to come to court and
observe her cousin in action. She didn’t want to become a lawyer but rather a
judge because she wanted to help people.
“I
don’t like to argue. I don’t like to fight. I like to make people happy and get
them on their way.”
·
She said
she has become more approachable over her 20 years on the bench.
“I don’t think I’m special at all. I’ve never
felt special. I always feel like anyone else walking around streets.”
But her brother
told her one time that I have an impact on people
“After my brother
said that, I realized it is part of my job. To let people know that I’m human
and yet by the same token it gives them the opportunity to say, ‘Oh, I met a
circuit court judge.'"
·
Regarding
her decision to stop drinking 10 years ago after a 15-year alcohol addiction:
“The guilt after
you have that drink after 18 months. Why did I do it? You drink more. And you
try to stop again. It’s just a continuing process. I wish there was a defining
point when you say to someone, ‘This is going to happen and you’re going to be
committed.’ But it’s just got to be an internal decision that you make. … It
first starts with a decision in your mind that you want to do it. And you have
to be stronger than that voice telling you to get the drink or the drugs.”
Her mother died
that year at 56 and brother got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Her dad died
at 46.
“It was a lot of
things that came together at the moment.”
“I realized that
life was so short. I didn’t want to die early. I want to live a long life. I
want to enjoy life. I want to enjoy every moment of life.”
·
On her
continuing recovery:
“I never had any
urges to drink again. I was very strong in my commitment and I still am. I
don’t even think of alcohol that’s something as an urge. It’s like when you
know, when you’re a kid, you don’t like eating liver. I didn’t like eating
liver. I don’t like eating liver and I don’t like drinking alcohol.”
·
Chrzanowski
serves as a Drug Court judge.
“I can’t really
correlate alcohol with drugs because they say there’s a difference, and I don’t
know what the difference is, other than the physical need to continue the
addiction. It’s a terrible thing you look at alcohol as becoming your best
friend. It’s a terrible thought and not something that I’m proud of that I ever
did.”
·
She has
noticed that a lot of drug and alcohol addicts relapse after a loved one dies.
“They’ll have
lost someone. So you point out to them, ‘What did your drinking and drug use
after their death do?
“It didn’t bring
them back. It didn’t bring my mother back. I try to point that out to them, so
now what have we accomplished. It didn’t accomplish anything. It just got you
in more trouble.’”
·
On her
decision to go on Dateline and admit she’s a recovering alcoholic:
“It’s a major
decision to have to tell the nation that. Would you like to tell the whole
nation you’re an alcoholic? I look at it as, if I can help one more person out
there What I want this to be with Dateline hopefully is to bring that awareness
out. Look at your brothers, Look at your cousins. Look at your wife. Is your
wife at home doing prescription drugs, taking too many. You can hide the addiction
for a long time. All the money in the world can’t cure an addiction. It’s an
awareness that’s going to cure the addiction. It’s an awareness that has to
come from the families. Families have to be attentive, have to be attentive.
They have to be active. Sometimes they have to be tough. Sometimes they have to
have tough love. They have to kick them to the curb.”
·
But she
probably won’t watch the episode, like she hasn’t watched the part of the
Michael George comic book trial that included her.
“I will never
watch myself. I don’t like to hear myself and I don’t like to watch
myself. … I didn’t watch comic book
murder.”
“I don’t need to
see myself. I live this. I do it every day. I’m not that arrogant I need to see
myself every day.”
·
She
revealed she may not run for another term after her current one expires in
2016.
“I may quit at
this term or maybe one more (term). I’m tired.”
She quipped she
may move to her favorite place, Hawaii, and sell t shirts to tourists.
·
She copes
by riding her bicycle 26 miles per day, 13 miles lunch, 13 miles after work, in at
least 55 degrees weather. She also lifts weights and does cardio at the YMCA in
Mount Clemens.
“It gets rid of
the frustrations and the aggravations. You get into a zone where you forget
about what’s going on every day because you have the watch the squirrels and
the cars, your minds is on the road, even on the trail. People walking their
dogs and their dogs walk in front of you. I slammed on my brakes once and went
flying over the handlebars.”
·
But she
gets her therapy serving on the bench.
“What’s
therapeutic for me and my substance abuse problems with alcohol is being in
court every day, is lecturing people, is sharing my perspective with them. As
I’m lecturing them I’m also lecturing myself. So there’s therapeutic to me
every morning.”
·
Although
she acknowledges she's a “recovering” alcoholic she doesn’t like the word.
·
She went
through a two to three month period when five or six of her heroin addicts on
probation died from overdoses.
“Heroin is just
unbelievable. You don’t know what your’re buying. You putting into your system
and you don’t know what it is.”
“It’s just
disappointing. It makes you want to put
them all in jail and put them all into rehab immediately
and you can’t do that with everyone because we don’t have the room
·
She
admitted she didn’t like serving as a family court judge presiding over divorce
and child custody disputes because the litigants blame the judge. She called it
“a challenge.” She now hears an all-criminal docket. She had one litigant stalk
her.
“Some people …
blamed the judge when they don’t get their way.”
RSS
