In case you didn't know, Cindy McCain is a recovering pillhead. Why is this news? Well, the doctor who lost his license for writing prescriptions for Cindy under the names of various employees just gave an interview to the Washington Post. Would you believe the whole sordid affair sort of ruined his life? Yeah so let's get to the real mystery: how did it not end hers? Because the available evidence suggests that Cindy was taking an unbelievable amount of painkillers as the height of her addiction. We went back and consulted the insane excerpts of the "Diary of a Madwoman" kept by her old employee (and registered — and convincing-looking! — Republican) Tom Gosinski. (Tom marked good days as "on Percocet" or "OP"; not good days were "NOP" but she seemed to enjoy Vicodin as well.) Did you realize Cindy had five doctors writing prescriptions for this shit? (Four of them didn't really know; Cindy just sorta hacked their DEA numbers.)Experts say she could have faced 20 years in prison if not for the whole centimillionaire heiress Senator's wife thing. But forget prison, how did she not die? Alternet estimates she was taking between 30 and 50 pills a day during the height of her addiction, but only the DEA knows for sure, and the sheer quantity of pills referenced in Gosinski's diary — in one case two prescriptions for 400 or 500-count bottles of painkillers written by the same doctor in two weeks — suggests, per the typical addict's "just-in-time" fulfillment policy, that she was probably up at least into the 70 or 80-a-day range around September 1992. 80 pills a day! Who lives through that? (Much less quits cold turkey, as Cindy allegedly did.) Well, this guy did, but he looks like he might have a somewhat hardier constitution than Cindy McCain. In any case, we have something newfound — respect? awe? complete bafflement?? — for Cindy McCain, who Gosinski described as a very hard worker in his early days working for her MASH-modeled charity team, before she turned into the Anna Nicole of the NGO community:

August 28, 1992: Work has been crazy—Cindy decided we should take a load of supplies to the Miami area to assist in the Hurricane Andrew relief efforts. It would be simple to complete the task if Cindy would not interfere with the rest of us doing our jobs, however, she is constantly stirring things up. We are also contemplating a trip to Somalia—Mark Salter in John McCain's Washington office has stated that the State Department and the Department of Defense believe it is not safe to travel to Somalia or the northern regions of Kenya. Cindy insists that we are going to go on the trip and that it may be wise for us to pack guns. She is absolutely crazy—I don't know how to load a gun let alone shoot one. . .

Ha ha ha, Cindy knows a little lady who can help you with that! But seriously John McCain, to "not notice" your wife is a straight-up junkie is like…not noticing that country that sprouted on the "Iraq-Pakistan border" a couple thousand years ago. Which is to say, apparently not the sort of character flaw that takes any sort of toll on your reputation as an honorable family-oriented foreign policy veteran patriot with the record it takes to run the country! Opiate For The Mrs.