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Another Actor Dead of Heroin Overdose


Californiaman

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I guess know one gets it yet... Drugs will do you in one way or the other.. its a death sentence of its own..

 

He made no secret of his addiction... had been in rehab, etc. Was clean for so long.

 

In this case, it was not about "getting it". Addiction is an illness. It's like saying, after someone dies of cancer, that "No one gets it... cancer will kill you, so don't come down with it.". It's tragic.

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He made no secret of his addiction... had been in rehab, etc. Was clean for so long.

 

In this case, it was not about "getting it". Addiction is an illness. It's like saying, after someone dies of cancer, that "No one gets it... cancer will kill you, so don't come down with it.". It's tragic.

 

i completely respect everyones right to their opinion, but i disagree with the "illness/sickness" theory of addiction. yes, some people seem to have obsessive tendencies, addictive natures, but ultimately it's a choice. you make a decision to use. one of the good aspects of the "sickness" theory is that it helps addicts self esteem. helps them to not beat themselves up so hard, which can trigger a relapse or continued use.

some will agree with me, some won't. heck, it might be somewhere between the two. this april 16th will be my 20th year of being drug free. so i've had awhile to think about it. i'm not faulting you at all with your belief that it is a sickness, but i don't like the cancer analogy.

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I recently saw a report about some new brand of heroin making the rounds that is mixed with fentanyl. It has already killed dozens in Maryland. I wonder if he got hold of some of that stuff? :-k

 

My wife, who is also a pharmacist, was telling me about this. Fentanyl is some *strong* stuff. OD'ing on it is easy as pie. A leaky fentanyl patch is what killed Wilco's Jay Bennett.

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i completely respect everyones right to their opinion, but i disagree with the "illness/sickness" theory of addiction. yes, some people seem to have obsessive tendencies, addictive natures, but ultimately it's a choice. you make a decision to use. one of the good aspects of the "sickness" theory is that it helps addicts self esteem. helps them to not beat themselves up so hard, which can trigger a relapse or continued use.

some will agree with me, some won't. heck, it might be somewhere between the two. this april 16th will be my 20th year of being drug free. so i've had awhile to think about it. i'm not faulting you at all with your belief that it is a sickness, but i don't like the cancer analogy.

 

Karloff nailed it !!

i've yet to meet anybody that's injected or snorted cancer to get high....so that analogy just doesn't wash.

addiction IS a very real thing......but an illness? nope.

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My wife, who is also a pharmacist, was telling me about this. Fentanyl is some *strong* stuff. OD'ing on it is easy as pie. A leaky fentanyl patch is what killed Wilco's Jay Bennett.

Had a kid from my high school OD on just Fentanyl, he had cut a patch of it in half and put them on his palms. RIP Mr. Hoffman, one hell of an actor.

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Hoffman was indeed a great actor. I can honestly say I enjoyed many of the movies he was in and also his diverse roles.

 

There have been reports of an epidemic of heroin overdoses already this year, because people are cutting the dope with fentanyl. In fact, I heard that report just last night. They say it's 20 times the strength of heroin.

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Very sad news...

 

We await the full story to learn from and add to our general knowledge...

 

Adrenaline IMO is a powerful thing and can contribute to addictions etc of performers of many types, sportspeople, actors, comedians, musicians et al...

 

V

 

:-({|=

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Bunch of addiction experts on here today. Thanks for the education! :rolleyes:

 

There's lots of trouble now with people on high powered opiates for pain and then going to heroin because it's cheap.

 

Substance abuse is a gigantic issue in music. Lots of people are either fighting it or scared to death of it. I'm not sure which people are worse. From a band management standpoint, the worst are the former substance abusers who insist on a sterile environment so they won't be tempted.

 

I'm a tea totaller but my kind of music was built on substance abuse. It depends on substance abuse every single night. You take that away and the whole business is gone.

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Bunch of addiction experts on here today. Thanks for the education! :rolleyes:

 

There's lots of trouble now with people on high powered opiates for pain and then going to heroin because it's cheap.

 

Substance abuse is a gigantic issue in music. Lots of people are either fighting it or scared to death of it. I'm not sure which people are worse. From a band management standpoint, the worst are the former substance abusers who insist on a sterile environment so they won't be tempted.

 

I'm a tea totaller but my kind of music was built on substance abuse. It depends on substance abuse every single night. You take that away and the whole business is gone.

 

i know what you mean. and even though i dont do anything these days, i accept that there will be "that stuff" around, with some musicians that i'm in a band with. it doesnt bother me to be around it. it's gonna be around. all i ask of them is to have it together when it comes time to play the gig.

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i completely respect everyones right to their opinion, but i disagree with the "illness/sickness" theory of addiction. yes, some people seem to have obsessive tendencies, addictive natures, but ultimately it's a choice. you make a decision to use. one of the good aspects of the "sickness" theory is that it helps addicts self esteem. helps them to not beat themselves up so hard, which can trigger a relapse or continued use.

some will agree with me, some won't. heck, it might be somewhere between the two. this april 16th will be my 20th year of being drug free. so i've had awhile to think about it. i'm not faulting you at all with your belief that it is a sickness, but i don't like the cancer analogy.

+1

 

Congrats on your sobriety man.

Also from here, Karloff! [thumbup]

 

Karloff nailed it !!

i've yet to meet anybody that's injected or snorted cancer to get high....so that analogy just doesn't wash.

addiction IS a very real thing......but an illness? nope.

+1

 

Bunch of addiction experts on here today. Thanks for the education! :rolleyes:

 

There's lots of trouble now with people on high powered opiates for pain and then going to heroin because it's cheap.

 

Substance abuse is a gigantic issue in music. Lots of people are either fighting it or scared to death of it. I'm not sure which people are worse. From a band management standpoint, the worst are the former substance abusers who insist on a sterile environment so they won't be tempted.

 

I'm a tea totaller but my kind of music was built on substance abuse. It depends on substance abuse every single night. You take that away and the whole business is gone.

Since I know personally from classical musicians and other actors, obviously the whole entertainment scene is affected more or less, let alone management and politics. There was and still is lots of hypocrisy.

 

i know what you mean. and even though i dont do anything these days, i accept that there will be "that stuff" around, with some musicians that i'm in a band with. it doesnt bother me to be around it. it's gonna be around. all i ask of them is to have it together when it comes time to play the gig.

Four of my over two dozens former bandmates had problems with drug abuse. One died from heroin, another one from amphetamine about thirty years ago, two others luckily are clean since decades. Especially for the one with an LSD addiction, it took many years until the flashbacks were gone. He often had to deal with some unexpectedly.

 

I guess myself lucky to have never taken any of these stuffs. It is bad enough for me still abusing caffeine and nicotine... [unsure]

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Here's first a tip of the hat to Karloff... and my concurrence entirely with what he said.

 

As for the death of an actor, in ways it's just the single one of thousands we may think about because he was famous. Others die in filth or worse thanks to drugs.

 

Although I find it odd, I have a hunch we will find increasing pressure to make such drugs, from mary jane through H, legal. The libertarian in me sez, "fine, let 'em do it and die," but then the not-so-libertarian in me sez, "but how many will they take with them, directly and indirectly, when they do?"

 

That's just one of the dilemmas of life now and in the past.

 

I find it interesting that when I traveled overseas I hadda head for a doc just to get a few antibiotics in case I had a tooth ache or some other basic infection to carry me over until I got home. Tobacco use is demonized but smoking mary jane is legalized. One can get about anything that affects the mind on a street corner.

 

I think I'm lucky by being in high school before drugs became a really big thing and watching a friend fry his brain on "diet pills" and not sleeping for four or five days and still pilling it up. Yes, he coulda died.

 

m

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I don't get the cancer analogy either. I lived through the sixties, and thought by now, some folks would get a little smarter than they are now. I guess not.

 

 

Karloff nailed it !!

i've yet to meet anybody that's injected or snorted cancer to get high....so that analogy just doesn't wash.

addiction IS a very real thing......but an illness? nope.

 

 

You may or may not like darling67’s analogy to cancer. He wasn’t suggesting, I’m sure, that someone “ingests or snorts cancer”. But the analogy to a disease still holds. The unfortunate reality is that one of the major deterrents to treating alcoholism and drug addiction is that it is still viewed as a lack of will power rather than the disease that it is.

 

We would never say to one with cancer, “Just don’t get it”.

 

But, to the alcoholic, we will say that he “just doesn’t get it.” Or, that “some folks would get a little smarter than they are now”. In other words, “Just don’t get alcoholism”.

 

Karloff, I congratulate you on your sobriety. Your comment on this not being an illness shocks me. But I absolutely agree with you that we respect each other’s opinion on this. Yes, it’s a choice. But I do think that you will agree that the alcoholic needs help of some sort initially in that choice, in not picking up that first drink.

 

And, yes, I speak from experience. My sponsor will be giving my chip for 13 years of sobriety tonight.

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You may or may not like darling67's analogy to cancer. He wasn't suggesting, I'm sure, that someone "ingests or snorts cancer". But the analogy to a disease still holds. The unfortunate reality is that one of the major deterrents to treating alcoholism and drug addiction is that it is still viewed as a lack of will power rather than the disease that it is.

 

We would never say to one with cancer, "Just don't get it".

 

But, to the alcoholic, we will say that he "just doesn't get it." Or, that "some folks would get a little smarter than they are now". In other words, "Just don't get alcoholism".

 

Karloff, I congratulate you on your sobriety. Your comment on this not being an illness shocks me. But I absolutely agree with you that we respect each other's opinion on this. Yes, it's a choice. But I do think that you will agree that the alcoholic needs help of some sort initially in that choice, in not picking up that first drink.

 

And, yes, I speak from experience. My sponsor will be giving my chip for 13 years of sobriety tonight.

 

thats excellent ! congratulations...

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+2 to you Karloff

 

By the time I was in my early 20s I knew enough to get away from illegal drugs. Strictly grape juice for me now, in moderation :)

 

It's really sad. What more could this dude have wanted from life, and is it really found in a needle?

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