Philip Seymour Hoffman dead

[tabs]

Originally Posted by nostatic

You didn't read the rest of my post...

Your right I did miss, " That pretty much describes everyone" part?

However the ringing of the bell clarity so far in this discussion is the following. That Mr Hoffman had a hole or pain in himself which was part and parcel of who he was. That pain and the expression of it made him a great artist, where he could capture the essence of a character. Yet he chose to negate himself (who he was) right off the planet. He could not find the clarity to feel and to resolve that hole and or pain, much as one undoes a ball of twine. That would not in turn make his life peachy keen as he still has that feeling of loss to deal with as the set of card one is dealt in life, but understanding it helps one let go and not be bound as Prometheus was to the rock of a behavior.

So the question becomes why does this discussion continue even though a clear definition of what happened to Mr Hoffman has been presented? The answer is that the correspondents on this Thread are upset and need to find some resolution for their feelings. In other words your all trying to make sense of it...and you are all working it out on your own level of clarity and perception.

Ones own dissatisfaction is that it doesn't delve deeper into the emotion and soul. It tends to stay on the level of, I just don't know whyyyyy..and the answer is yes you do know why. But perhaps you do not want to hear the answer.

In the end it comes down to your desire to live, your willingness to face the source of your pain, accept it and live with it as being a truth of your life.

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by Nathans_Dad

I think as a society we seem to have decided that life should always be happy and pain or sadness should not exist. If it does exist, then you should be able to take a pill or a drug to make it go away. I don't get that. Life is not all happiness and roses. Life sucks sometimes and the answer does not lie in a pill bottle or a syringe.

For a long time I have thought this.

Originally Posted by Nathans_Dad

No, I think it's something people are probably born with a propensity towards. Whether you give in to that propensity is a choice, however.

Thought this since high school.


I think addiction is like cancer in a way. People say cancer, and they think all cancer is the same, which is not the case. I think addiction is similar, in that it is not one thing, rather many. Something that helps one person, does nothing for another. I can't imagine that cancer will ever be "cured," same with addiction. As Todd suggests, it is nature and nurture, not one or the other. How you assign a value to what role each plays, or even how they play that role is going to be different for each person. Like trying to draw a picture of something you have never seen.

Regarding the recently deceased Mr Hoffman, sad case, sadly not as uncommon as it ought to be.

[tabs]

Originally Posted by Tobra

For a long time I have thought this.

Thought this since high school.


I think addiction is like cancer in a way. People say cancer, and they think all cancer is the same, which is not the case. I think addiction is similar, in that it is not one thing, rather many. Something that helps one person, does nothing for another. I can't imagine that cancer will ever be "cured," same with addiction. As Todd suggests, it is nature and nurture, not one or the other. How you assign a value to what role each plays, or even how they play that role is going to be different for each person. Like trying to draw a picture of something you have never seen.

Regarding the recently deceased Mr Hoffman, sad case, sadly not as uncommon as it ought to be.

There is a thing called collective memory, which is embedded in our DNA...Therefore if you exhibit a behavior, you learned it form you parents behavior who are predisposed to act in a certain way because of of the embedding in their DNA...Got that


And isn't science loverly...

Oh and sometimes in the random selection of dominate genes it may skip a generation or two, only to pop up again unexpectedly

Isn't the comprehension of complexity a wonderful thing...

[stomachmonkey]

Very well written, insightful, open, honest and raw piece from last year by Russel Brand.

Well worth the read.

Russell Brand on heroin, abstinence and addiction » The Spectator

The last time I thought about taking heroin was yesterday. I had received ‘an inconvenient truth’ from a beautiful woman. It wasn’t about climate change (I’m not that ecologically switched on). She told me she was pregnant and it wasn’t mine.

I had to take immediate action. I put Morrissey on in my car and as I wound my way through the neurotic Hollywood hills my misery burgeoned. Soon I could no longer see where I ended and the pain began. So now I had a choice.

I cannot accurately convey the efficiency of heroin in neutralising pain. It transforms a tight white fist into a gentle brown wave, and from my first inhalation 15 years ago it fumigated my private hell. A bathroom floor in Hackney embraced me like a womb, and now whenever I am dislodged from comfort my focus falls there.

It is ten years since I used drugs or drank alcohol and my life has immeasurably improved. I have a job, a house, a cat, good friendships and generally a bright outlook.

But the price of this is constant vigilance, because the disease of addiction is not rational. Recently, for the purposes of a documentary on this subject, I reviewed some footage of myself smoking heroin. I sit wasted and slumped with an unacceptable haircut against a wall in another Hackney flat (Hackney is starting to seem like part of the problem), inhaling fizzy black snakes of smack off a scrap of crumpled foil. When I saw the tape a month or so ago, what was surprising was that my reaction was not one of gratitude for the positive changes I’ve experienced. Instead I felt envious of this earlier version of myself, unencumbered by the burden of abstinence. I sat in a suite at the Savoy hotel, in privilege, resenting the woeful ratbag I once was who, for all his problems, had drugs.

That is obviously irrational, but the mentality and behaviour of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and, unless they have structured help, they have no hope.

This is the reason I have started a fund within Comic Relief, ‘Give It Up’. I want to raise awareness of, and money for, abstinence-based recovery. It was Kevin Cahill’s idea — he is the bloke who runs Comic Relief. He called me after reading an article I wrote after Amy Winehouse died. Her death had a powerful impact on me, I suppose because it was such an obvious shock, like watching someone for hours through a telescope advance towards you, fist extended with the intention of punching you in the face. Even though I saw it coming, it still hurt when it eventually hit me.


What was so painful about Amy’s death is that I know that there is something I could have done. I could have passed on to her the solution that was freely given to me. Don’t pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It sounds so simple, it actually is simple, but it isn’t easy — it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring. Not to mention that the whole infrastructure of abstinence-based recovery is shrouded in necessary secrecy. There are support fellowships that are easy to find and open to anyone who needs them, but they eschew promotion of any kind in order to preserve the purity of their purpose, which is for people with alcoholism and addiction to help one another stay clean and sober.

Without these fellowships I would take drugs. Because even now the condition persists. Drugs and alcohol are not my problem — reality is my problem. Drugs and alcohol are my solution.

If this seems odd to you, it is because you are not an alcoholic or a drug addict. You are likely one of the 90 per cent of people who can drink and use drugs safely. I have friends who can smoke weed, swill gin, even do crack, and then merrily get on with their lives. For me this is not an option. I will relinquish all else to ride that buzz to oblivion. Even if it began as a timid glass of chardonnay on a ponce’s yacht, it would end with me necking the bottle, swimming to shore and sprinting to Bethnal Green in search of a crack house.


I looked to drugs and booze to fill up a hole in me. Unchecked, the call of the wild is too strong. I still survey streets for signs of the subterranean escapes that used to provide my sanctuary. I still eye the shuffling subclass of junkies and dealers, invisibly gliding between doorways through the gutters. I see the abundantly wealthy with destitution in their stare. I have a friend so beautiful, so haunted by talent that you can barely look away from her, whose smile is such a treasure that I have often squandered my sanity for a moment in its glow. Her story is so galling that no one would condemn her for her dependency on illegal anaesthesia, but now, even though her life is trying to turn around despite her, even though she has genuine opportunities for a new start, the gutter will not release its prey. The gutter is within.

It is frustrating to love someone with this disease. A friend of mine’s brother cannot stop drinking. He gets a few months of sobriety and his family bask, relieved, in the joy of their returned loved one. His life gathers momentum, but then he somehow forgets the price of this freedom, returns to his old way of thinking, picks up a drink and Mr Hyde is back in the saddle. Once more his face is gaunt and hopeless. His family blame themselves and wonder what they could have done differently, racking their minds for a perfect sentiment wrapped up in the perfect sentence, a magic bullet. The fact is, though, that the sufferer must be a willing participant in their own recovery. They must not pick up a drink or drug. Just don’t pick it up — that’s all.

It is difficult to feel sympathy for these people. Can there be any other disease that renders its victims so unappealing? Would Great Ormond Street be so attractive a cause if its beds were riddled with obnoxious little criminals who had ‘brought it on themselves’?

Peter Hitchens is a vocal adversary of mine on this matter. He sees this condition as a matter of choice and the culprits as criminals who should go to prison. I know how he feels. I bet I have to deal with a lot more drug addicts than he does, let’s face it, I share my brain with one, and I can tell you first-hand they are total nightmares. Where I differ from Peter is in my belief that, if we regard alcoholics and drug addicts not as bad people but as sick people, then we can help them to get better. By we, I mean other people who have the same problem but have found a way to live drug- and alcohol-free lives. Guided by principles and traditions, a programme has been founded that has worked miracles in millions of lives. Not just the alcoholics and addicts themselves, but their families, their friends and of course society as a whole.

What we want to do with Give It Up is popularise a compassionate perception of drunks and addicts and provide funding for places at treatment centres where they can get clean using these principles. Then, once they are free of drugs and alcohol, to make sure they retain contact with the support that is available to keep them clean.

I wound down the hill in an alien land; Morrissey chanted lonely mantras. The pain accumulated and I began to tell myself the old, old story. I thought of places I could score. Off Santa Monica, there’s a homeless man who I know uses gear. I could find him, buy him a bag if he takes me to score.

In my mind, I leave him on the corner, a couple of rocks, a couple of $20 bags pressed into my sweaty palm. I get home, pull out the foil, neatly torn. I break the bottom off a Martell miniature. I make a pipe for the rocks with the bottle, lay a strip of foil on the counter to chase the brown, pause to reflect and regret that I don’t know how to fix, only smoke, feeling inferior even in the manner of my using. I see the foil scorch. I hear the crackle from which crack gets its name. I feel the plastic fog hit the back of my yawning throat. Eyes up. Back relaxes. The bottle drops and the greedy bliss eats my pain. There is no girl, there is no tomorrow.

Even as I spin this web I am reaching for my phone. I call someone, not a doctor or a sage, not a mystic or a physician, just a bloke like me — another alcoholic, who I know knows how I feel. The phone rings and I half hope he’ll just let it ring out. It’s 4a.m. in London. He’s asleep, he can’t hear the phone, he won’t pick up. I indicate left, heading to Santa Monica. The ringing stops, then the dry-mouthed nocturnal mumble:

‘Hello. You all right, mate?’

He picked up. And for another day, thank God, I don’t have to.

[speeder]

He can really string words together and he's a very sweet guy in the gravity world, where it counts.

[creaturecat]

Liking Russell Brand.
Thanks for quoting, stomachmonkey.

[M.D. Holloway]

That guy just rose some serious levels in my book...Thanks for posting

[berettafan]

With all due respect to those who have personal battles with chemical dependency.....the romanticizing of drug addiction as done in stomachmonkey's quote is bull****.

Claiming to be a recovering addict while making a concerted effort to tell others how wonderful it is and make a buck off doing it is intellectually dishonest. Why not just say 'I can't say no' and leave it at that? Do we prop perennial welfare junkies like this? No because it's not romantic enough that someone is lazy enough to avoid working their entire life.

Both are failures to function. Both can be explained the same way.

Just bull**** to continue to put this mysterious romantic vibe on drug addiction. I don't care what the man says he's advertising addiction.

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by berettafan

....the romanticizing of drug addiction as done in stomachmonkey's quote is bull****.

Claiming to be a recovering addict while making a concerted effort to tell others how wonderful it is and make a buck off doing it...

Just bull**** to continue to put this mysterious romantic vibe on drug addiction. I don't care what the man says he's advertising addiction.

Let me guess; English is your second language.

[yazhound]

It is fallacious to believe you can even think about curing addiction without understanding the attraction to it for those who use. Keeping your head in the sand, the proverbial ostrich, will keep you from understanding a part of addiction to those addicted. Accepting the attraction is just being realistic. Not accepting and addressing that facet will leave you without credibility among those you are trying to help.

[AFC-911]

Originally Posted by berettafan

Just bull**** to continue to put this mysterious romantic vibe on drug addiction. I don't care what the man says he's advertising addiction.

You're so full of it! Brand was describing the daily struggle and the constant temptation.

[island911]

Originally Posted by DARISC

Let me guess; English is your second language.

He made a good point. Deal with it. (and not with petulant fits)

I help my best friend get beyond his drug addiction. He did not romanticize it like RB did. It was more like "it's amazing how resourceful you can become when physical pain -injuries from long ago- are screaming at your brain to find some relief."

That's one of the problems with smack - it mimics ones natural endorphins (pain killers) such that the body quits producing them. Then, when the drug stops the pain comes on - hard.

What RB wrote was relatively womby happy happy...I just needed my safe zone.

[pavulon]

Perhaps he should have thrown in a "whilst"

[speeder]

The bottom line is that there is a human quality that allows (some) people to understand difficulties which they themselves have not experienced. It is called, "empathy". It is present in greater and lesser degrees in various people and apparently is completely missing in some. Thankfully these people are the exception.

[AFC-911]

Originally Posted by island911

He made a good point. Deal with it. (and not with petulant fits)

I help my best friend get beyond his drug addiction. He did not romanticize it like RB did. It was more like "it's amazing how resourceful you can become when physical pain -injuries from long ago- are screaming at your brain to find some relief."

That's one of the problems with smack - it mimics ones natural endorphins (pain killers) such that the body quits producing them. Then, when the drug stops the pain comes on - hard.

What RB wrote was relatively womby happy happy...I just needed my safe zone.

What RB wrote was that the temptation is constant and that having people who understand your addiction can help keep it at bay.

He goes on to say that knowledge of that fact could have saved Winehouse.

I don't think he's romanticizing it at all, but he is trying to explain what the addiction is like to those who don't know the reasons why people do get addicted to heroin.

I get that the struggle is constant and he is always faced with a choice to stay sober or not. He makes that perfectly clear in telling the story of his recent bout of temptation.

Was his retelling filled with detailed prose about what he felt at the time. Sure, but I don't know where you get that it was a happy editorial about heroin. It's not.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by berettafan

With all due respect to those who have personal battles with chemical dependency.....the romanticizing of drug addiction as done in stomachmonkey's quote is bull****.

Claiming to be a recovering addict while making a concerted effort to tell others how wonderful it is and make a buck off doing it is intellectually dishonest. Why not just say 'I can't say no' and leave it at that? Do we prop perennial welfare junkies like this? No because it's not romantic enough that someone is lazy enough to avoid working their entire life.

Both are failures to function. Both can be explained the same way.

Just bull**** to continue to put this mysterious romantic vibe on drug addiction. I don't care what the man says he's advertising addiction.

You missed the point of his piece.

In a nutshell it does not matter how much better his life is now or how much happier he is or how much of a better person he has become his addiction is a persistent part of who he is.

For people like him it's a constant battle to not return to what he knows is a miserable existence with a pretty much forgone conclusion that it will lead to his death. Yet that reality is not by itself enough to keep him clean.

He is acutely aware that like him there are others who can not go it alone and need support.

That's it, the whole thing.

I fail to see how he is romanticizing addiction or profiting from it.

Question, have you ever heard / seen him speak?

If you read that with familiarity of who he is and the passion he has for things you would come away with a different appreciation vs simply reading the written word.

[stomachmonkey]

Long, you don't need to watch more than 10 minutes to understand his agenda.

Agree with him or not he is passionate and committed to it and the guy is not stupid. Reminds me a bit of the Late Frank Zappa in that regard.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by berettafan

A theory I have long held.

And this is why the desperate need to embrace pot in this country just makes no sense to me.

Um... yeah... cuz pot is exactly like heroin...

I know nothing about heroin... but that seems like a lot of drugs for one person... perhaps there were some other people involved?

[sammyg2]

Good, honest, caring worthy people die every day and are barely missed.

Looser junkies off themselves and it's the hot topic of the day.
Why is that? It isn't an accident, it isn't a shame, it isn't a tragedy, it's irresponsibility and weakness taken to the level of murder.
Oh, I feel bummed, gotta do heroin. Oh, I got my feelings hurt, I need to do illegal drugs right away. BOO HOO LOOOSER!!!!!
Whatever you do, don't MAN UP AND DEAL WITH IT!

This type of thing deserves nothing more than distain and to be shunned.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

This type of thing deserves nothing more than distain and to be shunned.

That's sticking your head in the sand.

Watch that video I posted, from 8:00 to 10:40.

As an added bonus watch till 12:17.