Overdose and Heath Ledger, Part III: Shame About Addiction Should Not Obscure Truth About How Drugs Kill
Before I provide information on what precisely to do should someone you love overdose, I want to address a few things I've been reading in comments about Heath Ledger's death, from fans and loved ones.
Addiction is a great source of shame to many people-- we don't like it when people we like turn out to be addicts because we associate addicts with bad, scummy, evil, lying manipulators who are "not like us" and who "deserve what they get." But the truth is, many wonderful, talented, humane, kind, sensitive and caring people are also addicts.
While addiction is not "an equal opportunity disease"-- like most health problems, it hits the poor hardest -- admitting that a friend or loved one is an addict does not mean admitting he's a bad person.
Of course, some addicts do bad things-- but they are individuals just like everyone else and need to be judged on the actions they personally take, not by some stereotyped view of "addicts."
The reason I want to stress this is that I have seen many comments and articles-- one in the Wall Street Journal, of all places-- suggesting that Ledger's death could have been due to medical error by a doctor, not his own misuse of drugs.
His family's statement stressed that the drugs he took were "doctor-prescribed" -- and that "Heath's accidental death serves as a caution to the hidden dangers of combining prescription medication, even at low dosage."
However, the medical examiner said the death was due to drug abuse.
The fact is, the vast majority of people who die from combinations of opioids and benzodiazepines -- especially with several drugs from the same medical class in their bodies, especially if opioid painkillers are involved -- are not taking their drugs as prescribed. They are addicts or, at least, drug misusers.
It's conceivable that Ledger had a corrupt or profoundly incompetent doctor, but the more parsimonious explanation, given his history of recreational drug use, is that he was not following doctor's orders at all.
This is important because blaming doctors for these deaths hurts pain patients and people with anxiety disorders who legitimately need these medications. Every time people avoid the hard truth about particular overdoses, legitimate patients get punished by restricted access to necessary medications and even denial of medication for excruciating pain or anxiety.
The vast majority of deaths linked to these drugs do not occur in patients taking their medications as prescribed -- you are more likely to die from taking aspirin or advil as prescribed [full text requires subscription: study shows 16,550 deaths a year related to complications of normal use] than from taking opioids correctly [PDF: 5528 opioid deaths, virtually all from taking incorrectly].
Since this has gotten seriously long, I will post the overdose information separately tomorrow.
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Thank you so much for writing the truth about drugs and addiction. Due to shame, people make up all kinds of excuses that they then come to believe, blames someone else and absolves them from the responsibility to deal with their addiction. It is tragic and painful to have a friend or relative die from an overdose but, had we all been more open and realistic about what addiction is really about, it might not have saved a person's life but it might make it easier for us and addicts to get help.
Drug addiction is the one of those conditions that people go out of their way to remain ignorant about. The addicts I know are the most naive when it comes to the truth about the drugs they are using and what it is doing to them.
You might want to mention the fact that he was sick. He had pneumonia. Anna Nicole Smith was sick too, she had an infection and resulting high fever. When you try and take your normal dose of getting high meds and you are sick, your body can't always handle it as well. You might want to tell addicts who are sick that they need to cut down until they are well again.
You know why addiction is harder on the poor? Try getting into treatment when you have no money.
Rich person=accidental overdose
Poor person=suicide
It's all about the $
Drugs kill for a variety of reasons but the most tragic is the case where someone has found themselves handling their recreational drug use poorly (note: most people handle them well, just as with alcohol or jogging) but when they make an all too human mistake, they find that the repurcussions are stigma and prison, both of which we avoid to the point of death...it
In a sane society where recreational drug use is an option for personal discretion and not a "pathway to demonic possession" as our oh-so moral (and intellectually retarded) leadership will tell you so you'll vote for them, in a saner society, problems like this will be signs that the victim needs help, not prison, and we'll find the terrible stigma sublimate and the fear and hatred dissipate. Perhaps it will never be perfect but eliminating the barbaric penal code's impact on our neighbors will help a lot.
Because the 12 Step program is anonymous, recovering addicts and alcoholics are largely unnoticed. Yet there are millions of us, who have recognized that we have a limit, a limit we cannot manage on our own.
All we know is that we cannot do something; we cannot imbibe whatever it is that is our poison without losing control.
There are as many dynamics for addiction as there are addicts. But we find that by associating with others who have made or are trying to make that discovery about themselves helps.
It took me 10 years before I learned how to work the 12 Steps so that they worked for me. But I'm a subborn fool. Many others come to terms a lot faster. Of course, some never do. Now I have 6+ years of sobriety.
Being out of control seems attractive and daring, but it is simply self=destructive. There is a better way.
The 12 step program is successful because it forces"addicts" to accept as fact that they have the freedom to say "no" to drugs.When the emphsis is on the "addicts" need to focus on his freedom to decide recovery begins.Sto
Listen, Im a liberal and I agree with you completely bibbo.
I stated the same thing last week and was met with a threats,attacks, demonizing my character ... it seems everyone BUT Heath is being held responsible.
I find it nauseating that his parents keep emphasizing that drugs were 'doctor prescribed', did doctor tell their addicted son to take dozens in combination with other drugs after a night of boozing and weeks of fatigue?
Families tend to stay in denial longer than the addicts.
Although, I agree addicts are just people they're moral centre is the first 'victim' of their addictions. They become theives,liars, manipulators, murderers, rapists, prostitutes == there is no low they wont stoop to.
The most devestating part of addiction is it devours the original personality and character of the loved one.
Can you remind me of our knowledge of Heath's "history of recreational drug use"...a history that would suggest he was capable of shoppong for doctors? From what I understand, all we have is an offhand bravado comment from Heath in a video recorded two years ago and all he said was that he "used to smoke pot for 20 years" when he was 26. Do you really believe he started smoking pot at 6? 6!!!?? (Mind you that clip was edited to omit the end of that sentence where he goes on to say that he got a tattoo for Matilda on his chest that he looks at whenever he needs to be reminded of why he quit smoking pot. ) Sounds like a guy trying to make excuses for why he can't do drugs to a roomful of people doing drugs.
I am really sick and tired of people making accusations or assumptions about Heath's drug use. He's not here to confirm or deny it. It's not right to charge a person with something when he can't defend himself. Most of what is being used as a basis of fact are "unnamed" sources from TABLOID and GOSSIP magazines that are unreliable and sensationalistic. When did these tabloids become trustworthy sources of information? What has become of journalistic integrity?
I think that if you're basing your analysis of THIS tragedy on your knowledge of his "history of drug use" then you are basing it on unconfirmed and unsubstantiated information, thereby nullifying your conclusions.
It is an undisputable fact that many people self medicate (use illicit drugs or alcohol) when they are dealing with mental health issues. However, our society is so focused on punishment; it seldom considers mental health promotion.
I think one way to defeat drug use is the promotion of mental health and improving funding to mental health services and resources. As a mental health professional, I encounter many people with dual diagnoses or as we say in Canada, concurrent disorders and I know even in our sector, this area is marginalized.
The solution to the addiction problem is public education. This will help us eradicate the stigma of mental health and addiction that criminalizes the illness instead of treating it; only then will we be able to deal with the epidemic of addiction and mental illness appropriately.
It would also help if we recognized that the drugs that killed Mr. Ledger are the VERY SAME DRUGS THAT HAVE BEEN PUSHED AS THE PRIMARY TREATMENT FOR EMOTIONAL/MENTAL DISORDERS.
Anna Nicole Smith also died from these drugs.
Same for her son.
Britney has been racing along on the edge of death while filled with these pills.
These drugs started as a benevolent idea, until the drug companies found out how profitable they were and decided to sell them in enormous volume. Billions were spent on advertising. Pop a pill and you too will be able to fall in love and ride a white horse bareback along the beach.
Everyone is for mental health. The trouble is that the mental health industry itself relies almost solely on MORE drugs, not less. The true danger of these drugs was deliberately hidden by the drug companies when they suppressed over 90% of the trials that showed these things were ineffective or downright dangerous.
I have no better idea than the Psychiatrist has about how to solve mental health, but the first step is that we have to admit that lacing people's brains with chemicals is not a universal answer, and may be effective in only a small number of cases.
Hundreds of millions of these pills are consumed every year. Let's address THAT insanity.
For a collection of articles by Maia Szalavitz, see her listing on AddictionInfo:
http://www
My grandma was extremely down on drug users and it's not clear if she was able to kick her valium habit before she passed or if it all happened at the same time. Caffeine is a drug and how many people are addicted to it? Alcohol is a drug and how many people are addicted to it? Nicotine is a drug and how many people are addicted to it?
What we really ought to strive for, it seems to me, is to create the understanding that people who never get high on anything are the rare exception and that Homo sapiens is an animal that actively pursues an altered state of consciousness. We are drug users. We are all drug users. Trying to make that not happen is an impossibility that we really need to put a halt to so that we can get on with looking at real problems.
Most folks are able to keep some sort of a balance in their times of being high and not. And more are able to when their drug of choice actually happens to be legal, cheap, and easy to get. Some run into a problem and offering help is certainly not an insurmountable challenge. What makes this approach impossible, though, is the kind of moralizing that makes us vilify the other guy while looking for some water to wash down another "mother's little helper".
Who knows, if we start acting sane about this subject we might actually start to be a little saner.
You mention that 'It (Addiction) hits the poor hardest'
Now why is that?
If you are poor you are more likely to live in a crap house, eat crap food, have a crap education, a crap job, and little money. If you are caught taking drugs, well as far as the Justice system is concerned 'you're just a piece of crap' and should be treated as such.
However if you are rich or famous you will live in a nice house, eat nice food, have a good education, good income, and so you are a nice person.
The Justice system will then bend over backwards to be sympathetic to your case, if you show a minor indiscretion by getting caught taking drugs.
You will have the option of rehab, or counselling.
The system will do its best to assist you, because you can pay.
Is it any surprise that the poor are hit hardest?
....lets not delude ourselves over the fact that Big Pharma is pushing powerful psychoaticve meds with impugnity these days...the
I haven't heard folks talk about the difficulty of stardom & how it effected Heath.I too got in the biz at 3 radio) age 4(TV)on to Broadway, films Video's etc.I got so scared & filled w/fear from life/biz getting so big, so fast I began having panic attacks. I was given 6 or 7 different meds, i also began to drink in hopes to avoid freaking out or whatever,I couldn't handle the pressure, I saw that in Heath a few times. I ended up attampting to take my life with pills afgter flying from NYC-LA & driving to SF for help, when it got to bad.I was in a coma for sometime & ended up loosing everything due to paralysis/brain damage. my heart & love goes to the Ledgers, as it killed the love of my 7 siblings & parents,I survived suicide but lost my life!look past the half smiles,we can see the signs if we look! Bugs Love to Heath
How tragic. Drug addiction is a real illness that strikes across demographics. It does not care if you are rich and famous, or homeless under a bridge - addiction is indiscriminate - like heart disease or diabetes or other chronic illnesses.
Ohg
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A couple of other things. You are concerned that people needing these medications won't have access to them if any type of restrictions are put on prescribing them. It seems fairly obvious to me that the opposite is happening. People who don't need them are too easily gaining access to them. As a side note, if you are going to have 4 parts to this, maybe you wanna change the title. It strikes me as a tad insensitive.
Did you see the article in Salon regarding returning vets overdosing from medications similar to those used by Ledger? I agree with you that he was probably misusing them, and that there is a need for these opioid medications by chronic pain patients or cancer patients. However the vast majority of antianxiety medications are prescribed without the supervision of a therapist and often by a PCP. What HL was doing was probably abuse, but it's so easy to do, that's the problem.
As long as insurance companies and doctors collude to disqualify patients suffering from addiction to drugs prescribed for them by that doctor, thousands will die and even more will suffer. Ah, well, at least they make a profit.
FYI - the vast majority (somewhere around 97%) of people who are prescribed opioids and other narcartics never abuse these drugs and certainly don't develop addictions.
Addiction is a genetic disease. If you don't have the genes, you probably won't get it.
This is a pretty serious topic, and I just want to point out that there has never been an addiction gene. Genetisists and addiction specialists have been looking for an addiction gene for decades. No one has found any. Drug addiction is a psychological obsession. Nobody knows for sure why some people become addicts and some don't. There is plenty of statistical evidence to support the theory that addiction runs in families. But no gene responsible for addiction has ever been found.
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