Yet Another Dead Celebrity

Part of me wanted to resist writing about Michael Jackson, but as I’ve been reading the stories and information coming out, I thought, this is such a sad tale of the power of addiction. I just have to say something.

I don’t mean to be callous with the title – but it is so very true that we seem to forget all the pain and suffering caused by drug addiction until someone famous is taken down by it.  Frankly, our health care system, our laws, and our attitudes do not help the situation.  We are better than some at dealing with addiction – Human Rights Watch has been trying to end the death penalty for drug-related offenses, a common practice in Asian countries.  The death penalty?

I believe the war on drugs here has been misguided, pushing punishment over treatment even for minor drug offenses.  Clearly, it hasn’t worked, so it’s hard to argue that it has been a good policy.  Remember, the biggest drug problem facing the United States is not cocaine or heroin. The biggest drug problem is prescription drug abuse and addiction.  The statistics bear this out – and we should recognize that these celebrity deaths almost always involve prescription opiates.

Opiates are hard-core. They are utterly addictive and tolerance builds rapidly.  Sometimes it’s amazing just how well the human body deals with the frightening levels and combinations of drugs that some take.  When you hear someone was taking Xanax, Klonipin, Oxycontin, and Vicodin – you think “death cocktail.”

I had a friend many years ago who hurt his back working on movie sets. He became addicted to pain killers.  I can’t say whether he legtimately needed pain killers, but I can say he did NOTHING else to ease his pain. He didn’t follow exercise regimens, didn’t continue his physical therapy, had disdain for meditation and other practices that are known to help with pain. The drugs became the only solution, and they killed him pretty quickly. He was about Michael Jackson’s age when he went to sleep and never woke up.

I remember when Amy Winehouse won her Grammy’s. I thought, “Oh that’s not going to do her any favors.”  I think it is infinitely harder to hit bottom when you have a coterie of people profitting from your celebrity protecting you from the consequences.  Extreme wealth is probably one of the worst things an addict can have – it shelters them from the typical consequences of addiction.

I hit bottom with alcohol when I became afraid I might lose my job and I knew I was one rent payment away from not having a place to live. I hit bottom when I thought – no one is going to fix this for me. I hit bottom when I realized my life would not get better, ever, if I kept going this way. I hit bottom when I knew I had two roads to choose from: misery or recovery.