An Account || September 4, 2007

A long missive was posted by Sorta bassist (and Albrecht's roommate) Danny Balis this morning. It's a sad, kind homage from one best friend to another, and I assume it won't be hard to find on MySpace and the like. But most importantly for Albrecht's public image, which has taken a blow with details of domestic abuse in the latest police reports, comes this surprising, sad story:

this was not the carter albrecht i knew. the police report failed to mention that for the previous week, he and his girlfriend were trying quit smoking with the prescription drug, "chantix". they had both started the program at the same time, and had been on it for a week. monday was supposed to be their quit day. carter had not slept much the night before, and had consumed approximately five cocktails in a two hour period on sunday eve. this was not unusual, as carter had a very good tolerance for the drink. chantix does clearly state on the box that it's drowsy effects could be intensified by alcohol. the two also complained of having crazy, insane, almost horrific dreams that week. they jokingly referred to them as "chantix dreams" when comparing them. i later learned through a close friend that he had firsthand knowledge of two separate couples who had tried to quit smoking using chantix, and in each case, one spouse had tried to kill the other with no previous domestic conflct. one was successful, and many refer to this drug as a psychotic.

was it a combination of sleep deprivation, booze, and the stop-smoking pills that sent him off? it's the only explanation i can even think of. what was described to me sounded like a walking black out. in my years of knowing him, and all the girls he dated, i have never once heard of him getting abusive or physical with them. it was not his character. especially with the woman that i know for a fact he loved dearly. unfortunately, the morning news story paints him as a batterer to the casual reader that did not know him. this, he was undeniably not.