It knows no color, gender, age or influence. It doesn't care about your faith, your devotion to a religion, what you're wearing or what you eat. It doesn't discern talent from the lack of it. It doesn't care about fame and wealth and attention. IT wants the attention and it will go to any length to get it. It kills indiscriminately and with a vengeance. It kills directly or indirectly. It doesn't care. It just wants you dead.
Addiction is an epidemic. Much will be written of how sad it is. It is, of course, sad; but it is written into the addict's manifesto, they will die.
I'm sure all those who party-cipated with an addict before their death will feel badly. I'm sure there are family members who tried everything they knew to divert them from this inevitable path. I'm sure there are those who warned and scolded and begged and pleaded. I am sure there are those who washed their hands of the addict. I am sure there are those who prayed for their salvation.
There are those who find that salvation in the myriad recovery rooms and programs. It is possible and there are many who do recover. There are those too, like myself, who wanted and recognized that without a drastic change, they too would die. There are millions of people in the world addicted to something. Food, shopping, porn, alcohol, prescription drugs and illegal drugs and there are as many forms of treatment, an industry out there to help you. Betty Ford, the former First Lady of this great country faced her's in the public eye and created real and substantive change with the center named in her honor.
Peel back a single layer of the self defense that we all walk in and you will find a common link to either an addict and their path or someone in a relationship with an addict.
Don't let another famous person die, participate in the media spectacle, the tearful, heartfelt farewells and the blame it on the fame game and not take it into your home and circle of life that surrounds you in your own life. It is not fame's fault. It is no one's fault. Do you blame cancer on fame? Do you blame diabetes on fame? It is a disease and like cancer, diabetes and depression, it is everywhere. Alcoholism and addiction is ever present and it wants you dead.
My brother was 21.
My friends' son was 20.
A singer was 48.
And the beat goes on and on and on.
I hope to hear the drumbeat get louder and louder, a call to arms to face addiction and alcoholism head on, to make the administration take on this epidemic and to utilize the media spotlight on this one addict's death to create real change.