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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Phillip Seymour Hoffman and other addicts and death
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I heard on the BBC world service an interview with Simon (yes, that Simon) where the issue of celebrities and addiction versus the common person and addiction was discussed. I may not do it complete justice, it was in one of my typical insomnia times that I heard it, where I am between the real world of dreams and the sorry nightmare of real life.
As I understood it, the celebrity gets the response of tragedy, sorrow and praiseful eulogy. The common addict gets scorn, discussion of their criminality and blame.
Why the disconnect?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
My cynicism prompts this response: they did the decent thing by croaking and relieving the rest of us of dealing with fallout of their habit.
I've seen similar reactions to the homeless who freeze to death here every winter: vilified and trampled while alive, regretted and praised in death.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I suppose the obvious point, is that somebody like Hoffman offered something superlative and even transcendent in their performances, and we value that. I guess we are wrong to value this over the dead-beat in the gutter, but we do.
Well, I rate him very highly indeed, up there with the other triple name, Simon Russell Beale.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
As I understood it, the celebrity gets the response of tragedy, sorrow and praiseful eulogy. The common addict gets scorn, discussion of their criminality and blame.
Why the disconnect?
Because in a way we know the celebrity, and have formed an emotional connection. You don't cry when you read obituaries of people you don't know, do you? It would be strange if you did, and that has nothing to do with the value of the human who died. We just have formed emotional connections to people we know personally or through their work in a way that we have not with anonymous addicts. It's not that the anonymous addict is less valuable than someone you know- to the people who know him, it is a tragedy when he dies (I've been there). It's just a matter of emotional connection.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I suppose the obvious point, is that somebody like Hoffman offered something superlative and even transcendent in their performances, and we value that. I guess we are wrong to value this over the dead-beat in the gutter, but we do.
Well, I rate him very highly indeed, up there with the other triple name, Simon Russell Beale.
It is about what we value, yes. I would argue it is not about transcendent performance though. If Keanu Reeves popped his clogs today, Hoffman would be erased from the headlines.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, I should have referred that to myself - I mourn Hoffman as a great actor. His addictions don't really interest me.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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MrsBeaky
Shipmate
# 17663
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Posted
I wonder if it also about (as alluded to above) that many people feel an emotional attachment to their favorite celebrities and so also suffer when they suffer.....so just as in real life when someone we love dies because of addiction, some people because they loved them will perhaps minimise the enormity of such a death and magnify the good of their life, so such people give the celebrity with whom they feel a connection the same treatment just as they might if it was their own brother.
The addict in the street has no relationship to such people and therefore there is no felt connection to produce that same response.
Whether or not this is right and good is another matter entirely!
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"It is better to be kind than right."
http://davidandlizacooke.wordpress.com
Posts: 693 | From: UK/ Kenya | Registered: Apr 2013
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I think it is chilling, though, because an addict can tell themselves, if only my life didn't suck so hard, I wouldn't need to turn to (name it). Hoffman was riding high on acclaim , respect, and material comfort. He was also 22 years sober. So he was supposed to be a success story-- "when I clean up, my ability to lead a successful life will kick in."
Which of course is a ridiculous oversimplification of sobriety, but ideas like that do linger.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Seymour Hoffman first started using drugs because of a wrestling injury he experienced in high school. He was prescribed painkillers, but apparently he is one of those people who relied on them more and more, eventually becoming addicted.
The tragedy of this is many young adolescents are getting addicted to pain killers because of athletic injuries. It seems to happen at a time when the brain is rewiring itself for adulthood. It does not happen to everyone, but when opiates are introduced during this time, the brain easily adapts to them.
In Seymour's case, he was clean for 28 years, but because his brain was wired the way it was, when a physician again prescribed pain killers it was like he had never stopped using and he went downhill very, very fast.
Since many young athletes are getting to the point that they are being prescribed pain killers, I have to ask two questions:
1) Are the sports the kids are playing too violent thus causing the injuries? American Football comes to mind. I would imagine Rugby or Australian football are also up there. Wrestling (as in the case of Mr Hoffman). But even soccer is violent--my son tour his ACL after an illegal sidekick waylaid him.
2) Are physicians over prescribing opiates, especially for young people? What other alternatives are there?
A couple of years ago our first son experienced a horrible accident, falling about two stories from a skywalk unto pavement below. His facial bones were broken, a wrist was also broken, and he had a compound fracture in one of his legs. Needless to say, he was prescribed some very heavy medication. He was totally out of it for a few days. Then in one of his more lucid moments he told the doctor he did not like how the drugs were making him act and feel. He asked that he be weaned from them. They were able to get him off of them within the week. First son was 28 at the time of the accident. His brain was pretty well wired for the rest of his life. I wonder what it would have been like, though, if the accident would have happened when he was 14 or 16. Would the outcomes be different.
Similarly, five years ago I slipped on some ice and broke my foot, ankle and leg in five places. When I was admitted into the emergency room, the first question I was asked was how much pain I was in with 0 being no pain to 10 being extreme pain. My reply was about a 4. The staff did not believe me. After surgery they put me on Oxycontin but I had an allergic reaction to it. So they put me on morphine. It suppressed my breathing so much that they almost lost me a couple of times. Finally they put me on Hydrocodone, which I could tolerate. When I was discharged they gave me a 30 day supply where I was supposed to take three a day. When I got home, though, I did not feel I needed them. Of course, I was in my late 50's at the time. But, again, what if it had happened during my adolescent years?
Most people getting hooked on painkillers are young people suffering from some athletic injury. They switch to heroin because you can by a bag for around $5. Oxies are around $80 a pill on the street. Doesn't take much of a genius to go the cheaper route.
On the East Coast of the United States, there is some pretty wicked stuff that is going around. It is laced with Fentanyl, which is 100 times more potent than morphine. Fentanyl is usually prescribed for end of life palliative care of cancer patients. It is very easy to overdose on this.
There is still some question as to whether Hoffman had gotten some of this sh!t.
While we have discussed Hoffman's death, we should not forget the thousands of other deaths that happen each year because of drug overdose.
But, the question remains, are doctors introducing such opioids to kids way too early?
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
(currently watching State and main and trying to analyze why it is hitting me so hard. It's a comedy.)
It occurs to me that, aside form roles like Capote Hoffman's resume is built largely on working-class, humble, everyman characters (Like Joseph White in the above film). This means, in movie after movie, we the audience have been encouraged to relate to him strongly as "one of us."
When you are interacting with an addict in your presence, their behavior might give you more chances to detach form them-- you might felt compassion for them, want to help them, wish them well- but you certainly don't want to think that you are anything like them. Hoffman's brutal shift from "everyman" to "dead addict" strips us of that luxury. He is one of us-- and it happened to him Therefore...
And there is the separate issue of the sense of what you will be missing in the future. The last time I felt this strongly about a celebrity death is when Brittany Murphy and actress/ director Adrienne Shelley died- both very young and both unexpected. Shelley was stabbed to death by a mugger, and Murphy-- I think it was a speed-induced heart attack. Both of them had just pulled off impressive projects that only gave us a taste of the potential they had. Hoffman's catalog was much more extensive, but there is still this sense that he was just at the beginning of what he had to offer. I think there might be a feeling of being cheated somehow- an irrational one, sure, but there you are.
We are hardwired to learn through stories. When a particular storyteller- be it actor, director, author, or musician-- reaches us and increases our learning... well, some will no doubt laugh at this, but in a small way it becomes a love relationship. A loss of a storyteller is still a loss. And loss provokes grief.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
(crosspost with Gramps-- great post!)
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
It occurs to me that, aside form roles like Capote Hoffman's resume is built largely on working-class, humble, everyman characters (Like Joseph White in the above film). This means, in movie after movie, we the audience have been encouraged to relate to him strongly as "one of us."
I think it is the attachment of identity, yes. For some it will be the "one of us", for some it will be the "who we want to be".
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
His addictions don't really interest me.
It fascinates me. Not the morbid aspect, but the mechanisms. Gramps gave a good rundown of possibility with Hoffman. However, this does not answer the same question in regards to other celebrities. The question of how someone with everything treats it as if it were nothing.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, that is interesting - how someone with everything acts as if they have nothing.
I think the first thing is to deconstruct 'everything'. Do they really have that? For example, do they know who they are?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
I am not convinced most people truly know who they are. And having more, it is strange. Our level line, our "normal", adjusts to our circumstance.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I just think that being successful or rich does not drive away the demons - for example, the idea that I'm a worthless shit; in fact, it can exacerbate them. So 'having everything' seems a kind of materialistic idea, and leaves out your personality.
This has come up a lot in sport, when you get somebody very successful, who goes down with depression, and you hear people say, 'but they're so successful'. Geez Mareez, are people really that dumb?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
I do not think we are too far apart in what we are saying. Though we might be further in what we draw from it. Not by miles, but maybe by metres.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I just think that being successful or rich does not drive away the demons - for example, the idea that I'm a worthless shit; in fact, it can exacerbate them. So 'having everything' seems a kind of materialistic idea, and leaves out your personality.
Celebrity and money can indeed just bring your demons to the surface.Probably the best things in the world to do just that.
The whole "recovery" angle complicates things, though-- better functioning in your life is supposed to be one of the fruits of recovery. Not necessarily that everything will go smoothly, but just you, personally, can navigate your life more functionally. So, while Hoffman's downfall is a shock to the public at large, it might be especially frightening to those who are battling addiction themselves.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I can feel this morphing into the other thread - about creative people feeling depressed. That's rather different, since this is about success/wealth not healing you.
I don't think it does, and in fact, with some people, it drives them crazy, and makes the demons hop around like demented wolves in the night. Hence, drink, drugs, sex addiction, blah blah blah. Dylan Thomas always springs to mind.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I just think that being successful or rich does not drive away the demons - for example, the idea that I'm a worthless shit; in fact, it can exacerbate them. So 'having everything' seems a kind of materialistic idea, and leaves out your personality.
Celebrity and money can indeed just bring your demons to the surface.Probably the best things in the world to do just that.
The whole "recovery" angle complicates things, though-- better functioning in your life is supposed to be one of the fruits of recovery. Not necessarily that everything will go smoothly, but just you, personally, can navigate your life more functionally. So, while Hoffman's downfall is a shock to the public at large, it might be especially frightening to those who are battling addiction themselves.
Yes, it is a shock to see how fragile recovery can be, as if you are always just one step from falling into a black hole again. It sounds very frightening.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
In Seymour's case, he was clean for 28 years, but because his brain was wired the way it was, when a physician again prescribed pain killers it was like he had never stopped using and he went downhill very, very fast.
WTF? Why is no one asking why a recovering addict accepted a prescription for pain-killers? It's something taught early in recovery: YOU are responsible for your recovery, your doctor, lover, spouse, parent is still in denial and WILL try and diminish the past effect of your addiction and at some point will assume you are over it.
Not even going to comment on the sickening idolisation going on. The Cult of Celebrity demands that all who achieve the upper rung’s shit don’t stink. The man died an awful lonely death in the arms of his old lover whom he (we) all long for and miss. Real World people never get that we love “it” more than we love you, fame, money, dignity, sanity. It is always ready to take us back.
Fly Safe,
Pyx_e
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Pyx_e wrote:
YOU are responsible for your recovery, your doctor, lover, spouse, parent is still in denial and WILL try and diminish the past effect of your addiction and at some point will assume you are over it.
That's very sharp and perceptive indeed. In fact, it's a generalized phenomenon, whereby many people are in denial about addiction, and also things like depression and other kinds of illness. People tend to assume that it's not as bad as it is, that it should be easy to get over it, and there is no reason to regress. What bollox.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
I have a story almost exactly like Gramps'. Leg broke in several places, told the ER people my pain level was a 3 but they still started me on painkillers. Oxygen saturation went way low. All through my three week stint in the nursing home, they kept trying to get me to take more, my rehab person would end each session with, "You'll be needing those pain killers tonight!" They sent me home with a prescription for 30 that I never filled.
The area I live in around the Kentucky, West Virginia borders is the worst pocket in the U. S. for this type of drug abuse and yet the doctors are so free with them. I don't get it.
Pxy_e's description is a good reminder of the everlasting call of the addiction.
My favorite Hoffman movie is Owning Mahouney about a man addicted to gambling. After embezzling millions form his bank and finally getting caught, someone asks him if he really wants to win. "Oh yes." he says. Why? "So I can keep gambling."
From time to time, Hoffman may have asked himself what was the point of all his fame and fortune if he couldn't use it to get the one thing he wanted most in the world.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
That's a cue for a reference to the idea that for some addicts (not all), the drug is confused with the numinous, or rather the drug experience is confused with it.
See Jung's famous letter to Bill W. of AA:
"His [i.e. Jung’s patient's] craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God."
But Jung also argued that this might require breaking with the traditional religions.
Just to repeat - not true of all addicts.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
In Seymour's case, he was clean for 28 years, but because his brain was wired the way it was, when a physician again prescribed pain killers it was like he had never stopped using and he went downhill very, very fast.
WTF? Why is no one asking why a recovering addict accepted a prescription for pain-killers? It's something taught early in recovery: YOU are responsible for your recovery, your doctor, lover, spouse, parent is still in denial and WILL try and diminish the past effect of your addiction and at some point will assume you are over it.
Not even going to comment on the sickening idolisation going on. The Cult of Celebrity demands that all who achieve the upper rung’s shit don’t stink. The man died an awful lonely death in the arms of his old lover whom he (we) all long for and miss. Real World people never get that we love “it” more than we love you, fame, money, dignity, sanity. It is always ready to take us back.
Fly Safe,
Pyx_e
Yes. This is what I was groping to say, when I was saying the idea of someone twenty years sober might be more frightening to an addict than to the general public. The idea that there are no guarantees.
As for the "sickening idolization part" -- I for one am not going to apologize for liking someone, or feeling bad about what happened to them, or for feeling gratitude for what impact they had on me, even if I didn't know them. There are many, many people IRL I have felt grief over and gratitude toward. I grieved when my stepdad died, I grieved when my nephew committed suicide, I grieved when a 30 year old dear friend of mine died of cancer. I also grieved when Asimov died, and Vonnegut died,and I was furious at Spaulding Grey for killing himself. I bit my nails with a million other people when Garrison Keillor had a stroke, and when Stephen King got hit by a truck. I cared in a different way than I would for someone I know personally, of course, but why should I consider myself weird, or shallow, or whatever? I certainly wasn't alone.
Maybe in a way the distance from the object makes the grief more tolerable, more manageable in size, than grief you have to face that is right in your face.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
quote:
sickening idolization
yes that was harsh, sorry.
Media wise the lack of any subtle attempt to balance his many gifts with the (maybe) avoidable death (it is possible to stay sober/die sober) and the impact that death will have on those who knew him and loved him beyond what he gave us in his career is what I was struggling with.
Along with the shock I always feel when someone with extended sobriety uses. My unhelpful languge was in part a response to that, again my apologies. May he find now the Peace he never found here.
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
quote:
sickening idolization
yes that was harsh, sorry.
Media wise the lack of any subtle attempt to balance his many gifts with the (maybe) avoidable death (it is possible to stay sober/die sober) and the impact that death will have on those who knew him and loved him beyond what he gave us in his career is what I was struggling with.
Along with the shock I always feel when someone with extended sobriety uses. My unhelpful languge was in part a response to that, again my apologies. May he find now the Peace he never found here.
Ok, that I agree with. Especially the part about his family.
I guess part of what I am struggling with is, why the heck AM feeling grief for someone I know pretty much zilch about except I loved him as Joe White and the nurse dude from "Magnolia"? And the conclusion I reached in my last line, I guess, is it becomes a lightning rod for a bunch of other grief, in a more manageable size.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
Ahh, he showed you beauty and truth, I'm sorry, I see now. For me he did not do this, others do and I will be moved when they die. I see now.
I am not being disrespectful when I say "it's a Lady Di thing" maybe?
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I think I get it-- although I don't think the current situation will reach anything near Lady Di levels.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
It's a very sad situation. And I'm a little sad, even though I don't think I ever saw him act.
But, since his death, I've seen/heard some interviews with him. He seemed like an interesting, decent guy--especially when talking beyond the borders of his career. And he had a great combo of eyes and smile.
I don't know much about addiction. I know that people get tripped up and relapse, even after long sobriety. (Maybe, sometimes, *because* of it??) The news reports referred to the huge amount of varied drugs in his home. I don't know how long it would take to go through them. If he bought them on his own, ISTM that he was stocking up, planning to share/sell some, or planning to kill himself. AFAIK, his blood tests aren't back yet, so we don't know what drugs--if any--he took.
One anomaly in the news story; he reportedly withdrew $1000 (IIRC) from an ATM, that same day, in the company of two other men. Maybe it had nothing to do with the drugs. Maybe the men's presence was perfectly innocent. OTOH, maybe something was going on that wasn't entirely of his own choosing. AIUI, the cops made a couple of arrests at a nearby drug house, so maybe an explanation is forthcoming.
His death didn't hit me hard, since I hadn't developed a felt connection with him. But I've been hit hard by deaths of other people, famous to varying degrees and for various reasons. Mother Theresa, Madeleine L'Engle, Kate Hepburn; JFK, RFK, and MLK; and Pope JP I, to name a few. People who were heroes (in the American sense of role models). Pete Seeger's recent death would've hit me harder if he hadn't been in his 90s.
Diana's death hit me hard, too. I'm not a fanatic about royals. But American culture pushes the ideal of little girls becoming princesses. We grow up with that influence, even if we don't particularly want it. That was one key to all the attention Diana got in her life and death: here was the princess story, actually come to life! And as it unfolded, she wound up playing out a tangle of both the story and of real life--which made her even easier to identify with. So our death hit us hard: it wasn't just about Diana; but about *us*, and stories, and real life, and the impossible mess that sometimes results from mixing them.
(And Kelly, I, too, bit my fingernails when Garrison Keillor had his stroke. Many long, happy, and healthy years to him and to his "Prairie Home Companion" show.)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
I had a similar reaction to that of many commentators I've heard over the past week - a sense of loss for the performances he had yet to give.
PSH was an extraordinary actor. He had the ability to transform without the type of Christian Bale tricks of losing 40 lbs and then gaining 30 lbs, etc. His roles in "Doubt" "The Talented Mr Ripley" "The Master" etc. couldn't have been more different. But they were all extremely raw and vulnerable somehow.
I came across an article that mentioned that his first role was in Season 1 of "Law and Order" which conveniently I had recorded on DVR when the Fox UK channel aired it a few months back but had yet to watch. And when I did, I saw a very young, very red-haired PSH playing...a cocaine and heroin dealer. Knowing his familiarity with that world just made the performance that much more heartbreaking.
So I don't mourn him as a celebrity - as far as I'm aware he was very low key in his personal life and his children went to public school (i.e. state school) in New York City - but as an exceptional actor.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I had a similar reaction to that of many commentators I've heard over the past week - a sense of loss for the performances he had yet to give.
PSH was an extraordinary actor. He had the ability to transform without the type of Christian Bale tricks of losing 40 lbs and then gaining 30 lbs, etc. His roles in "Doubt" "The Talented Mr Ripley" "The Master" etc. couldn't have been more different. But they were all extremely raw and vulnerable somehow.
Not to turn this into a memorial thread, but one of the things that impressed me about Hoffman was that he took on some scary, uncomfortable roles-- like the creepy phone stalker in "Happiness" or the camera operator with the unrequited crush on Mark Wahlberg in"Boogie Nights."
And I guess part of it is wanting to shake someone and say, don't you see how much more you, personally, are worth than anything a drug can provide? But that just takes us back to what Pyx said.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
Addiction is a disease. It is progressive and it is insidious. Even an addict who has been in recovery for a long time can go straight back where they were before they quit and worse when they use an addiction cohort drug. In fact, it is highly likely to be worse than before because the disease of addiction continues to progress even in recovery.
Addiction is the only disease of which I am aware that can only be effectively treated by the sufferer. A sponsor and a 12 step group are necessary and big factors in recovery. As useful as they are, they cannot cause a cure or a remission without the active participation of the addict.
Hoffman was a great actor according to many and I do not disagree. He is not the subject of my hero worship. Nor is he the object of my scorn and condemnation.
His death can, I hope, serve a good purpose. There are addicts out there who are "successful" on some surface level of having money and or acclaim. They are nonetheless addicts and need help. Seeing a highly successful person die of their addiction might just be the signal to another addict that it may be time to admit they have a "problem" with their drug of choice.
His death can also serve as a reminder to those who have been clean for many years that addiction is still a monster waiting for one slip to come back in an torture them to death.
So, should the press spend time highlighting Hoffman's death? Yes. Yes, for the good that might come of it in some quiet corner of some apartment where a bottle is poured down a drain in favor of going to a meeting and asking for help. Yes, for the good that might come with an old timer chairing a meeting who thinks they have their drug licked and can try it - just once - for old time's sake. Yes, if a doctor takes long enough to ask the potentially embarrassing question of "Have you ever had a problem with substance abuse?" before prescribing a pain medication.
Is it a shame that a celebrity gets such attention when normal dead addicts don't? I don't know. Not my problem really, I choose to let God run the universe instead of me.
Does that sound like recovery talk? It should. It is.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
Addiction is the only disease of which I am aware that can only be effectively treated by the sufferer. A sponsor and a 12 step group are necessary and big factors in recovery. As useful as they are, they cannot cause a cure or a remission without the active participation of the addict.
After i wrote the thing about shaking someone,I started to post something about a young relative of mine, who has proclaimed himself an addict. At a recent gathering he had several members of the family gathered around him and giving him the Talk. When I had a moment with him, I thought, here's my chance to get him into program. After trying to think of an I found myself talking about non-violent protest instead. He knows I am in program; I just sensed that he woudn't hear it if I started in.
I ended up deleting it, brcause I am still troubled about it.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
I believe that until someone is ready to recover, getting them into a program or a treatment center is just a waste of time, energy, and effort. Just because the young man proclaims himself an addict doesn't mean he believes it. Or, if he does believe it, that he understands his addiction will let him live only because it can torture him longer that way.
If you ended up talking about something else it was because you could sense the effort would be wasted. He will be ready when he is ready.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
Ya, it’s an odd one but true (for me who has had to learn the hard way). The only good my words do is at a rock bottom. And only then. And God knows I have tried to persuade/help/encourage addicts into meetings. On the whole it’s a waste of time and breath. Occasionally it has been pure ego on my part too. The only time I stopped drinking was when I hurt enough, why should it be different for them? Never talk to a drunk who is drunk, always talk when they are hung-over, bleeding, in debt, with family going out the door and go The Fear on the size of London.
Also a funny thing: admitting to a problem and doing nothing about it makes the problem get worse 10 times quicker. I suppose the armour of denial is stripped away.
Fly Safe,
Pyx_e
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
Occasionally it has been pure ego on my part too.
TBH, I think this is what stopped me. The kid had a table full of adults lecturing him, but when he came and sat with me, I heard this little voice whispering, "Ah, but you are different, you can Relate to Young People, you have skilllz."
And that's when I knew I definitely had to keep my mouth shut. So we started talking about King versus Malcolm X.
Back to the celebrity thing-- as I hinted above, maybe the reason we feel free to rend our garments and wail about a Jim Belushi or a Phil Hoffman is because we are reassured that it is completely out of our control. We can speculate and judge away. Real-life situations are so messy and complicated and doubt-ridden that they are less easy to analyze, both practically and emotionally.
[ 12. February 2014, 08:02: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
And the saddest thing is knowing that someone is drinking themselves to death, and there isn't a damned thing you can actually do about it. Because they won't help themselves, even though, by doing so, they are losing family, friends, livelihood and everything else in the process. ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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