Phillip Seymour Hoffman

A shame but he knew what he was doing when he went back to that dealer. Addiction is nothing like cancer. You have that mental urge to go back for more, that addiction. Be tougher than the addiction. I know people that fight with it every day. They are the only ones that can fight it. Hoffman had more money that most of us will ever see, he should have had the funds to help beat the addiction easier than most.
 
jackknife said:
Yes, I think this sums it up very nicely.

I'm sorry, but there's been many many more actors that have felt with fame and fortune and actually done something decent with the money. Steve McQueen come to mind, being dumped by a prostate mother, ending up in reform school, and then going back t the reform school when he made it and counseling the kids to go strait. He donated a lot of bucks to the boys ranch he spent time at. Then there's Brad Pitt. Spent millions of his own money on building hurricane prof homes in ZNew Orleans after Katrina, and he and his gorgeous partner adapting kids that didn't have promising back grounds. There's a host of others who have used their wealth and fame and not a little money to make a difference where it counted.

But to just go out with a needle in the arm, leaving a partner and three kids? Sorry, I can't find any pity in my for the idiot.
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I wonder if you would feel the same if this happened to your brother or father...
 
If you don't understand something, it's best to not make insensitive remarks from a position of ignorance.

The government and the medical profession consider addiction a disease, just like cancer. It's physical changes in the sufferer's brain that cause it. Deformed receptors, defective emitters, poor hormone uptake, and that's just addicts that are past the stages of physical withdrawl. It's genetic in that some people are more prone than others (just like cancer).

Yeah, it did take using a drug to set off the disease, but that's surprisingly similar to the things that can set off cancer; smoking a cigarette, going out in the sun, using products that have carcinogens present for your convenience (basically all modern inventions). There are millions of addicts that had that choice made for them when their doctor gave them opiates for an injury or their dentist gave them lortab when they had their wisdom teeth removed. I'm prejudice too, I think people with cell phones are DBs. If you use a cell phone and die of brain cancer, I guess that's your own fault and I will have a hard time feeling any empathy (it's not sympathy because I don't cell phone, and it's not like I would ever share in a human experience like death or anything, that only happens to drug addicts and cell phone users)

Using the kind of thinking I see here, I guess when you get prostate cancer I won't cry at your funeral because it was your laziness that led you to drink carcinogen tainted water from the public supply instead of venturing to the mountains and seeking clean water from the source. When you die from heart disease it's not a disease because you were affectionate for twinkies. We all make choices, and some of those choices will eventually lead to your death. Car crash? You deserved it because you could have walked, or better yet because you drove a Toyota (if it's just the act of ingesting heroin that brings out your prejudice, why not share the same outrage for beer drinkers or coffee drinkers? They're both addictive substances that often contribute to deaths).

You know who else ignores conventional wisdom and mainstream science, judges the choices of others and makes heartless remarks in the wake of someone they did not knows' death? Westboro Baptist Church. I've never met anyone that is so far above reproach to rank the death of another human in some kind of arbitrary order.

If you really want to bash drug addicts, you need a lot more wisdom and experience than having a family member that used to be on the needle or working at a rehab; do some actual research from authoritative sources, then save up $1200 and we'll put you on a regimen of Heroin and Oxymorphone for a week or two. After you show us how much it's a choice and not a disease and gained some perspective, you can make your remarks from a standpoint of authority - it sounds like the people here that you would consider authoritative seem to agree with the medical experts.
 
IGNORANCE for those who """HAVE NO CLUE"" IS """""""BLISS"""""""""
 
Well, that looks like a slap in the face to cancer patients to me. To say that addiction is LIKE type II diabetes is one thing. To compare it to cancer, in it's entirety, is just plain ridiculous.

Type II diabetes is brought on by diet and exercise. Lack of those, coupled with past family history, can lead to type II diabetes. Trying any drug once can lead to an addiction. Use and family history, okay. You tried it once, you are now an addict, that's just the way of it. Recreational drugs mind you. What about all of the cancer patients out there that never smoked, never did anything they weren't supposed to, but end up with cancer anyway? Are they at fault for their cancer? Little kids too, because that's what you implied? That's asinine.

If you are an addict, you tried a drug once and keep reaching for that better high. Some people die trying to get something similar to that first high. They screwed up with drugs, and I know people for whom it is a constant struggle to not relapse. My heart goes out to them, I care about them. They are the only ones that can change the course of their lives. I will admit it is not easy. Drug addiction can have a similar effect on the body, it can be a disease of the mind, but it is nothing like cancer. Go and tell a cancer patient that their disease is nothing worse than what an addict goes through. Tell an addict in a sober/straight state of mind that their addiction is the same as what a cancer patient goes through. I call bs.

Another thing. I was in a bad accident a couple years ago. Broke my back, ribs, leg. I was in agony. Started off on morphine, got oxy everything, then hydrocodone. Guess what, thank God, no dependence issues for me. When the oxy stuff was done, run out, I was thankful, the benefits were definitely not better than all the trouble I had with the meds. I already have enough vices, obesity the main one. I hope all of my friends and family who are on drugs stay clean, they have my back.
 
Why the need to compare diseases and disorders at all? It's not like a game show. Nobody likes suffering and no patient deserves suffering.
 
Smarter people than you and me have identified drug addiction as a disease. I listened to 3 medical professionals argue about drug addiction on NPR the other night, and they had some very conflicting views - but no matter what they thought the best approach to treating it was, they all agreed it was a disease. It's widely accepted in the medical field, and the government agrees. Prevailing knowledge doesn't agree on when life starts, and nobody agrees on what happens after you die, but it's widely accepted throughout the industrialized world that addiction is a disease.

The NIDA link was a great source of information, and it verified the reasoning that I applied to it -

NIDA said:
Drug addiction shares many features with other chronic illnesses, including a tendency to run in families (heritability), an onset and course that is influenced by environmental conditions and behavior, and the ability to respond to appropriate treatment, which may include long-term lifestyle modification.
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I don't see the point in saying one disease is worse than another, especially if you've experienced neither. None of them asked for their disease (it's not like running a marathon, it's not a race). The similarities between diseases is what makes Doctors worth their salt - The symptoms of many types Cancer in its onset is similar to arthritis, and it's often misdiagnosed for many diseases. The pain and suffering, and many symptoms, that you're associating with cancer has as much to do with the treatments (radiation, chemo, cancer drugs) as it does the disease.

I think you'd be surprised if you asked a Heroin Addict that recovered from Cancer to rate these 5 experiences in terms of suffering - the best time of their life: the Cancer, the Withdrawls from heroin, or the treatment they applied to the cancer, normal life, and the first time they used heroin. Giving a subjective view on 2 diseases you've never had is disrespectful to anyone with either disease.
 
I call it weakness.

I've been addicted to a host of drugs, nicotine, and knives (haha).
Nose candy and cigarettes aren't near heroin in terms of addiction, but WILL POWER is key. My friend was heavily addicted to oxycontin and methadone (free if you ask rehab) and took him years to defeat, but just takes will power.
 
Lifestyle modification? As in removing yourself from any temptations? How does that compare to cancer? Are you a recovering addict justice, or have you survived cancer?

If you take a drug, such as heroin or cocaine you've made a choice to most possibly be an addict. For whatever reason. Whenever I eat bad foods I make a decision. I don't want to have a heart attack but I have made a decision. If you are a recovering addict I hope you do not relapse but if you do it is your fault. The medical complications from drug addiction are real. Your will is still the deciding factor in your fate and you still brought this upon yourself. We are all adults here. Smoking, drugs, food. We are responsible for our actions. Hoffman screwed the pooch on this one. He was an addict on his early 20s, died in his 40s. He most certainly didn't want to leave his kids but he screwed up.

It may be a medical condition, but like diabetes it can be controlled. Stop comparing it to cancer.
 
HwangJino said:
I call it weakness.

I've been addicted to a host of drugs, nicotine, and knives (haha).
Nose candy and cigarettes aren't near heroin in terms of addiction, but WILL POWER is key. My friend was heavily addicted to oxycontin and methadone (free if you ask rehab) and took him years to defeat, but just takes will power.
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I guess I missed the scientific publication where this was demonstrated?
 
DB willpower is the only way. An addict can be helped or incarcerated, they have to want help but they have to want sobriety most of all. In these detox clinics, in prisons, drugs can be had easier than out on the street. Many times from guards etc. it is a tough mental and physical struggle that I would never want. But I am humbled by those with enough willpower and help from family and friends to keep this atrocity at bay. It is all on them in the end.
 
So willpower alone can change brain chemistry to reduce or eliminate compulsive behavior?
 
As a current man with Cancer, all major organs, spine, right breast . Who was told June 2, 2013, "you have 3 weeks" . Who 17 days later , at 4am walked naked, only the bedroom slippers , because a nurse would not bring my clothes, and I ain't a theif, I left the gown, out of the hospital with nurses, Dr.s and security behind me. I called the best son, that is my son, and he came and saved me. I understand the comparison, and am fine with it. SO THEREFORE THIS PART OF THE CONVERSATION IS OVER, UNLESS SOMEONE HAS MORE KNOWLEDGE OR RIGHT TO SPEAK ABOUT IT. I have lost 4 childhood who became adult friends to Cocaine. I am talking about seeing them everyweek for 54 years. Now I will not disrespect them with your B/S here comparing the 2 causes of death. They all tried rehab, they all were weathy and had the money to stop, they could not. I held my college room mates hand, the 3rd in above list, as he snorted the deepest yellow rock ever made, and passed away. I broke the chain off the first one above, where he had "chained' himself like an animal to a tree, and pulled the trigger on a glock 10mm. Non of them are here now, as I Piss and Shit in bags, they don't run metal spoons in my ass to pull out the shit and dried and wet blood clots, they don't help me push my bowels back into my body from anal prolaspe. And I fuckin hate them for dying before me, because I loved them all. I will not reply to this post. Because facts don't need reply. I will say hopefully this does not have to happen for everyone to embrace, whatever or however they love. yes spelling and grammer is bad. all I can do to type..
 
The cult of celebrity in our society, especially after a seemingly senseless untimely death, creates a twisted not-so-funhouse-mirror reflection of our image branding in terms of "success", although the "tortured artist" event seems to always be a piece of our collective. Nobody can truly know anyone else's life, their thoughts, triumphs, failures, joy, fear, love, or pain. It seems to be in our nature to react to the deaths of others in defensive, cautionary and judgemental ways, as it reminds us of our own individual and collective weaknesses and mortality. Our grief is different than the loss of a close friend or loved one. We search for answers through science and spirituality, but meaningfullness seems purely subjective, or at best a collective illusion. Hopefully the collective illusion can be used to create actions beneficial to individuals or to us all, but it seems more often it just fragments into exploitation, or evaporates like the fog of a dream.
 
DB731 said:
So willpower alone can change brain chemistry to reduce or eliminate compulsive behavior?
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No! Willpower will not change brain chemistry. But it WILL change behavior. Thousands of people make the CHOICE to stay sober, every day. Addiction may very well be a disease that can not be cured. BUT, it can be beaten every day.
 
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