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  File: William M. Finch

  Page 1 of 14

  Eden Veil Center

  This is a CONFIDENTIAL file.

  Accessible only to authorized individuals

  who have been granted written consent

  from the Executive Director of

  The Eden Veil Center for Recovery

  File: William M. Finch

  Page 2 of 14

  Eden Veil Center

  Patient Profile

  Patient Name: William Marc Finch

  Nationality: American

  DOB: 29 February 1980

  Birthplace: Asbury Park, NJ

  Current Residence: San Francisco, CA

  Occupation: Reporter

  Employer: San Francisco Post

  Education: Graduated Sir Winston Churchill High School, Montreal, Quebec, 1997; BA,

  Journalism, New York University, 2001; MA, UC Berkeley Graduate School of

  Journalism, 2008.

  Military Service: 1st Lieutenant, US Army, 2002-2005, assigned to duty in Abu Graib

  Prison, Baghdad. Awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Honorably Discharged.

  Marital status: Widower. One son, deceased.

  Next of Kin: Mother, Céline Beauchamp, deceased; Father, Jerome Bennett Finch,

  deceased; Siblings, none.

  In case of emergency contact: Wallace Gimbel, Managing Editor, San Francisco Post.

  File: William M. Finch

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  Eden Veil Center

  Case Summary: William Marc Finch

  William Marc Finch, of San Francisco, CA, voluntarily registered for treatment in the

  Center on April 20 following the death of his son, Buddy Desmond Finch, ten days

  earlier. The child’s death was the result of a car crash in a vehicle driven by Mr. Finch’s

  partner, Bethany Hutt. Following the accident, Ms. Hutt registered a blood-alcohol level

  of 0.18. Mr. Finch was not present during the accident or at the time of his son’s death.

  Prior to entering Eden Veil, Mr. Finch had been arrested under Penal Code 647(f),

  known as California's "drunk in public" (or "public intoxication") law. He was remanded in custody of the San Francisco Police Department following a three-day drinking binge.

  At the time of his arrest, he was found unconscious at the street curb outside a

  Townsend Street bar in the Mission. The court offered Mr Finch the option of serving a

  sentence of 30 days in detention or admitting himself to a rehabilitation center for the

  treatment of alcohol addiction. He choose the latter and was referred to Eden Veil. He

  was admitted to the Center the day after his court appearance. He has no previous

  criminal convictions nor any history of alcohol or drug abuse.

  Mr Finch completed intensive rehabilitation therapy under my supervision. During the

  treatment program, he proved to be a willing patient who resolved several traumatic

  personal issues that included the death of his son. His progress was steady and he

  requested, and was granted, an early discharge from Eden Veil after three weeks of

  residential treatment. I have determined that, despite the circumstances that led to his

  arrest, Mr. Finch does not suffer from chronic alcoholism — or any other form of

  addiction — and that the best course of treatment is to support Mr Finch's return to work

  and independent living.

  As part of his treatment he has learned a number of therapeutic techniques (yoga,

  mediation, mindfulness) to reduce his anxiety which he has been practicing

  independently for a week prior to his release from Eden Veil. Out-patient support

  therapy is available to Mr Finch at his request.

  File: William M. Finch

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  Eden Veil Center

  In accordance with the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

  Mr Finch has been diagnosed with bereavement disorder. His condition was considered

  acute and satisfies the two-week minimum duration applied to the syndrome. His

  prognosis is guardedly optimistic; the possibility of a complete recovery is unknown.

  Certified on this day by:

  Dr. Michael Petersen

  MD, PsyD

  Head of Therapeutic Services

  Eden Veil Center for Recovery

  Approved by:

  Dr. Eileen Salmon

  MD, PhD

  Executive Director

  Eden Veil Center for Recovery

  Therapeutic Treatment Notes

  File: William M. Finch

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  Eden Veil Center

  Therapist: Dr. Michael Petersen

  Client: William Marc Finch

  20 April

  Following his admission and orientation to the Center, I introduced myself to Will Finch

  (WF). Initially, WF was unable to shake my hand. Furthermore, he was unwilling to

  make appropriate eye contact through our hour-long session. We covered mostly

  biographical details. Toward the end of the hour he apologized for his "incoherency" and claimed he was in the "throes of a three-day hangover." He stated that the drinking

  episode that resulted in his arrest was the worst — and the only — binge he'd ever been on. When I asked him to describe the experience, he covered his eyes and turned

  away. I terminated the session and he returned to his room.

  In addition to my daily one-on-one treatments with WF, he joined the afternoon group

  therapy session comprised of ten other residents. Given their chronic addictions and

  repetitive treatments, most of these patients were used to disclosing intimate details of

  their lives as part of the therapeutic process. However, group therapy presented a new

  situation for WF. Nonetheless after two days of complete silence in the group, he began

  to participate when one patient, Susan (SS), asked him why he shook his head when

  another group member, Janice (JB) said she “couldn’t kick her addiction.” The edited

  transcript of the session follows:

  24 April

  WF: “Until today I just didn’t get why I can’t let go. I realize that maybe I’ve got it just as bad as everyone else here.”

  SS: “What does that mean? What does maybe I’ve got it just as bad as everyone else mean?”

  File: William M. Finch

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  Eden Veil Center

  WF: “That maybe I can’t kick it. I just didn’t figure it out until now. Until Jenny (JB) just

  said that. That she couldn’t kick it.”

  JB: “What I can’t shake is twenty-two years of drinking alcohol every day. So what are

  you talking about? Juice? Pills? Mainlining?”

  WF: (after a hesitation) “No. The six years of having him at my side.”

  SS: “Sweet mother of Mary. Who are you talking about?”

  WF: “My son.”

  JB: “So why’d you leave him?”

  After a long silence, I asked, “WF, do you want to answer that question?”

  After another hesitation WF continued: “I didn’t leave him. He was taken from me. Killed

  in a car accident.”

  25 April

  During our one-on-one session, WF admitted that until that confrontation in group

  session with JB and SS, he hadn’t spoken about his son’s death to anyone “let alone a

  group of strangers.” When I asked how that felt, he admitted that it provided so
me relief,

  “not from the pain — but from the guilt of allowing it to happen.”

  We then explored the nature of his feelings of guilt. He expressed his regret that he’d

  allowed himself to fall victim to the manipulations of a woman, Bethany Hutt, after the

  death of his wife, Cecily Finch. Bethany was driving the car during the accident that

  resulted in his son’s death. A tox screen following the accident revealed her blood-

  alcohol level was 0.18.

  File: William M. Finch

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  Eden Veil Center

  26-29 April

  Over the next four, one-on-one sessions we explored alcohol dependency and how it

  influenced his social and solitary life, the history of alcoholism in his family, etc. This

  lead to an account of his childhood. His mother, Céline, a French-Canadian originally

  from Montreal, died of cirrhosis of the liver five years after his family moved from New

  Jersey to Quebec where WF’s father, Jerome Finch, found employment in his father-in-

  law’s jewelry store. WF claimed that his mother drank to excess every day. While she

  was able to remain functional, his mother lapsed into daily bouts of bitter sarcasm that

  inevitably finished with long rants and screaming. During WF’s last year of high school

  Céline’s illness took a final turn.

  Following her death, WF returned to New Jersey with his father who found casual

  employment driving trucks. Although his father was rarely more than a social drinker, he

  fell into cycles of depression and was unable to hold a job for more than a few months.

  IN 1997 WF obtained an academic scholarship and was admitted to NYU and

  completed a BA in Journalism. During the next four years he saw his father less

  frequently and stayed in his father’s apartment only during routine holiday visits,

  Christmas and Spring Break.

  Each summer, WF secured employment at various weekly newspapers in New Jersey

  and up-state New York. When I asked how that made him feel, WF expressed a strong

  sense of relief. “I was free. Free from my father and the long shadow my mother cast

  over both of us.” During this period he drank no more than two or three beers a week

  and only with co-workers — never alone.

  30 April

  In our 5th one-on-one session, WF revealed that his father died during the final

  semester of WF's journalism program at NYU. When I asked what effect this had on

  him, he explained that it wasn't so much the loss of his father that hit him but how he'd

  died: alone at the side of the railroad tracks west of Asbury Park, NJ. In mid-February

  File: William M. Finch

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  Eden Veil Center

  Jerome Finch was discovered without a jacket, no socks, no shoes. The three

  teenagers who found him claimed they'd seen no muggers lingering about. The police

  could find no evidence of a crime. It was as if, WF claimed, his father had simply set off

  along the rails, stripped down and waited for the winter to take him. The Medical

  Examiner concluded that Jerome Finch had died from hypothermia following a bout of

  acute depression.

  The summer following his graduation from NYU, WF said, "In a moment I later came to

  regret — at a time when I knew I had to completely change my life — I enlisted in the

  Army.” Following his basic training he was recruited into Military Intelligence and

  assigned to Abu Graib Prison outside Baghdad. His cover was as a Public Affairs

  Specialist.

  I asked if he was breaching US Army confidentiality by telling me this. He said there was

  no breach in revealing that he was in Military Intelligence, but there would be if he

  revealed what he'd witnessed in MI operations. He said that what he'd seen would make

  "your eyes roll up the back of your head."

  1-2 May

  In the following two sessions WF was unable to move forward. I viewed this as classic

  blocking behavior. He could express no genuine remorse for the loss of his father or

  mother. "It's simply ‘case closed’ with them," he insisted.

  3 May

  In his eighth session he revealed the following episode he'd experienced in Iraq.

  On the road from Baghdad to Abu Graib, his vehicle struck an IED. WF was at teh

  wheel. Two enlisted men and a captain were passengers. The explosion caused the

  truck to flip into a ditch. As WF and the captain — whose arm was severed at the elbow

  — climbed out of the wreck, two Arabs armed with AK47s approached from the far side

  of the vehicle and opened fire. The two enlisted men were killed instantly. WF returned

  File: William M. Finch

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  Eden Veil Center

  fire, killing both attackers. For his actions in saving the life of the captain while under

  fire, WF was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

  I assumed this episode was not part of WF’s confidential Military Intelligence record. He

  replied that it was “most definitely on the public record” and the fact he was given a medal demonstrated it. He explained that while he felt some remorse for killing the

  Iraqis, it was in self-defense in a combat situation. His deepest regrets were about what

  happened on a day-to-day basis in Abu Graib Prison. That, he said was off record and

  would remain so, not just because of his oath of secrecy, but also because he could not

  bring himself to speak about it. However, he now seemed comfortable enough to openly

  discuss his life after his tour of duty.

  Three months after his medal award, he secured an honorable discharge from service

  and returned to civilian life. With a new sense of purpose, he completed a masters of

  journalism degree at Berkeley and found employment at the San Francisco Post. Less

  than a year ago WF accepted a job with the digital division of the newspaper .

  In 2007 he married Cecily Armstrong. In 2008 she gave birth to their son. In 2013 Cecily

  died of breast cancer — a crisis, WF said, “that I just didn’t see coming.” I asked him to

  describe how this affected him. He shrugged off the notion and said, “next question.”

  When I pressed him, he told me “any talk about Cecily is off limits.”

  4 May

  In group therapy today, JB asked WF about the accident that took his son’s life. The

  following is transcript of the recorded session:

  JB: I don’t mean to pry, but earlier you told us about your son. About what happened —

  without telling what really happened.

  WF: (struggling to reply) What’s that supposed to mean?

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  Eden Veil Center

  JB: So, for example … were you driving?

  WF: (hesitation) No. Bethany was.

  JB: Were you there?

  WF: No, I was at home fixing his bike…. And why exactly is this any of your business?

  JB: So she’d been drinking?

  WF: (silence)

  JB: And you’d been drinking with her, right? Look, everyone in this room knows how it

  works. There’s no hiding whatev —

  WF: (cuts in with a burst of emotion) Damn right I drank with her! I’d just lost my wife the

  year before. And then Bethany took everything over. I didn’t know what … what to …

  Unable to finish his sentence, WF left the group meeting.

  4 May, addendum

  An hour following the g
roup therapy session I met with WF alone in my office. He

  seemed to have recovered his composure and asked “now that everything about my

  wife and son is out there — how do I go on?”

  Good question, I told him. But only he could answer it for himself. He scoffed at the

  suggestion. I told him that while he might have the disposition for it, I didn’t believe he

  was a classic alcoholic and that his drinking binge following his son’s death was a one-

  off. Since he didn’t appear to be possessed by any addiction, I explained that his future

  appeared much brighter than almost anyone else in the Center — including some of the

  File: William M. Finch

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  Eden Veil Center

  staff. He seemed shocked to hear that and asked, “Then why do I still feel like a piece of

  cold crap?”

  I told him that I thought he was in a state of acute bereavement and that his son’s death

  triggered an episode that unearthed all the repressed grief he’d managed to bury going

  back to the deaths of his parents, Cecily, and the men he’d killed in Iraq. “You never

  properly mourned any of them,” I explained. He nodded in mute agreement.

  I then drew WF into a gestalt session. Over the next two hours I coached him to express

  the grief he suffered from each person he’d lost or killed. It was traumatic for him, but he

  stuck with it as we peeled away each layer of remorse until we cleared the final episode

  with Buddy’s accidental death.

  I asked if he wanted to turn the corner — away from grieving — to celebrating the life of

  his son. He wondered if this would ever be possible. I asked for a picture of the child.

  We went to his room. He showed me a 3 x 4 print he kept in his suitcase. We admired

  the image for a few moments — the boy sitting beside his mother. At this point WF

  expressed a deep affection for Buddy. I pointed out that this was the first time he’d

  spoken his name aloud in front of me. He nodded with a look of surprise and when I

  pressed him, he repeated Buddy’s name several times.

  I then set the picture on his bedside table and propped it between two airline-size

  bottles of Dos Manos tequila. It was a therapeutic technique that Dr. Eileen Salmon and I have both used several times in the past. I suggested that WF set the picture of his