Philip Seymour Hoffman's Overdose

It's the latest story of a very successful artist dying from addiction. I didn't say celebrity because he didn't strike me as such. A celebrity is someone famous who is compelled by fame to continue his or her work. I once saw him in Othello that had been readapted by a living playwright and staged at NYU. I found it unbearably pretentious and long, but then again everyone hated it including all the critics. Still, even as an unsophisticated theater viewer I felt his amazing stage presence; it was clear he was an artist, a very serious artist. 

Studies have linked creativity to susceptibility to mental illness. And the connection between mental illness and addiction is undeniable. “Mental illnesses can lead to drug abuse. Individuals with overt, mild, or even subclinical mental disorders may abuse drugs as a form of self-medication,” according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse — addiction is a mental illness. The problem is that drugs, especially opiates are extremely addictive (psychologically and physically) and the possibility of overdose increases as tolerance builds — the longer you use you need a bigger dose of the drug to for the same level of euphoria. 

What's more troubling is that when a recovering opiate addict relapses, they face a greater risk for overdose. It's because physical tolerance decreases during recovery, but the psychological craving for the drug persists. 

Sadly, the often-quoted AA/NA mantras "one day at a time" and "once an addict, always an addict" ring too true.

There are tons of interviews and articles about PSH talking about acting and his struggle with addiction. After attending NYU as an undergraduate, he went to rehab and was sober for 23 years. This past year he publicly admitted to relapsing on painkillers that led to sniffing heroin. He then went into a drug treatment program for ten days, which really means he detoxed from opiates for ten days. 

Why did PSH only spend ten days in "treatment"? If he did get treated in a proper rehab program (28 days or longer), would I be writing about him along with so many others?

Relapsing after 23 years of sobriety, he does "rehab" for ten days. And less than a year later he is found dead in a luxurious bathroom with a needle his arm, in his underwear, next to baggies of heroin. 

Of all the great movies he's been in, I remembered Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, a dark comedy (the internet says a thriller) about a very anxious man, his dysfunctional family and the desperate measures he takes to escape his life. PSH plays the man who plans to "rob" his parent's jewelry store with the help of his useless brother. Things go wrong, and his situation worsens. And behind all his trouble is his addiction to heroin. Near the end of the movie, we find him in a luxury apartment, no ordinary shooting gallery. He makes his purchase, shoots up and is left alone to nod off on very expensive furniture.