Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless

D Magazine, Jun 01, 2003 by Rogers, Tim

If the books at DDH Aviation contain false entries, that may support the notion that a conspiracy existed among the company's top officers. And given the interconnected nature of the senior ranks of DDH and ACS, there may be a number of DDH and ACS officials involved. That means there are a lot of people walking the halls at ACS who might have a very good reason to cooperate with any official investigation.

The 19th Hole

Back to the Kahlua and Diet Coke. Remember Deason's signature drink? Well, another chapter in the Deason canon relates how Deason had become an alcoholic at the age of 37.

He had taken to carousing every night. When his friends went

to breakfast in the wee hours of the morning, Deason would

find himself, he says, sitting in the car, drinking scotch out of

the bottle. He knew he had a problem.

So Deason went to see a doctor at Medical City, who prescribed for him the drug Antabuse, which produce copious vomiting, among other unpleasant reactions. when combined with alcohol. Continued drinking while taking Antabuse can be lethal. Driving home from that doctor's appointment, Deason wadded up the prescription and threw it out the window. He told himself, "I am not going to be such a weak-willed son of a bitch that I am going to have to take a drug that could kill me to stop drinking." So he quit cold turkey. That's the story that's been printed more than once.

From his house in Palm Desert, Deason admits, though, that the story doesn't end there. After he threw the prescription out the window, he set to drinking his entire liquor cabinet, getting oiled every night, until the cabinet was empty. Then he really did quit cold turkey. Except for the Kahlua and Diet Cokes.

"I have to trick myself," he says. "After about three of those, sometimes two-they're so sickeningly sweet that I just get sick of them and I won't drink anymore of them-and then I'll just go to soda with Rose's lime juice and a lime. When I drank up my liquor cabinet, I figured out what I didn't like. I don't like Kahlua." He says he's been drinking it with Diet Coke for 25 years.

Darwin says he's slowed down in other ways, too. In 1995, he anointed Jeff Rich the CEO of his beloved ACS. Now, instead of getting up at 4 every morning, Deason rises at 5. He does a stretching workout and plays golf at Big Horn, where he's a member (he's also a member of Dallas National). After two surgeries to treat spinal stenosis (and two cancer surgeries), he's had to adapt a "natural" golf swing, he says, and his handicap has climbed from 6 to 12. After golf, he lifts weights about five days a week. Somehow, he squeezes in about four hours of ACS work per day.

And he finds time for his current girlfriend, 35-year-old Katarina. When asked about her, Deason jokes in his thick Arkansas accent, "If you want to print that I lee-uv in see-un and I'm not married-yes, Katarina lives with me. She's much younger than me."

And he says he's selling the Cartoush II. Now Deason is building a 203-foot yacht in Italy. It's called the Apogee. In court papers, Robert Holly says it will cost $26 million.