Yesterday was Philip Seymour Hoffman's funeral which triggered a few things in my mind.
Firstly, the media's reporting of the funeral. Most reports listed the famous Hollywood stars in attendance. His ex partner and children were shunted down to fourth paragraph of importance. His parents, family and other friends weren't even mentioned. This kind of reporting frustrates me. I know it is the norm but the 'celebrity' obsession culture borders on the obscene sometimes.
It has sparked a number of interesting pieces though. No more so than Russell Brand's in Friday's Guardian. Essentially blaming the archaic drug laws for the death.....I suggest you take a read. He makes some valid points.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/06/russell-brand-philip-seymour-hoffman-drug-laws
Secondly, and on a similar topic I notice that 4 people have been arrested for supplying the actor with the drugs that he OD'd on. Do we really think that's solving the problem? Arresting people who are addicts themselves for supplying another addict. It's Crazy. Not exactly addressing the heart of the problem is it?
Heroin is a drug just like alcohol. Except Alcohol is a socially and morally acceptable legal drug. But arresting Heroin dealers is no different to arresting a landlord for supplying alcohol. It's insane. Why criminalise one drug and not another? If it was criminalised then the quality would be regulated, proper treatment programmes could be installed and it would save authorities around £500 billion a year on prisons, hospitals, courts.
I won't go on as The Brand covered most of it in his article but surely we have to shift our mind set on this. Why is it considered morally wrong to supply Heroin and not alcohol? Why legalise one drug and not another? Why demonise drugs as wrong and 'we must save our kids from them', whilst taking more anti-depressants, pain killers, prescribed medication and drinking more than ever before. That's insanity and hypocrisy on a global level.
If we really want to be open and true about it. How many drugs will you be using today? Painkiller because you're hungover? Smoking some cigarettes? Going out for lunch or dinner with a nice bottle of wine? A few beers tonight. A couple of cheeky lines at a party? Is there any real difference other than what society terms to be legal and non legal. Think about it. We are on dangerously thin moral ground when we trade one drug off against another because the system tells us too.
Thirdly it has made the concept of relapse buzz around my head. According to reports Hoffman was 23 years sober and clean from drugs and alcohol before suffering a 'relapse' last May. To most people who do not suffer with alcohol/drug problems or know little (or want to know little) about the 'disease'. The concept of drinking or using drugs being termed a relapse must be peculiar.
Lets take a look at what it means;
A relapse or recidivism is a recurrence of a past (typically medical) condition. Relapse, in relation to drug misuse, is resuming the use of a drug or a chemical substance after one or more periods of abstinence.
Essentially, old timers prefer the normal human language of 'started drinking or taking drugs again. Some prefer to call it 'using'. Others 'relapse'. Whatever floats your boat I guess. But in simple terms if you believe in the concept of drink or drug addiction as a disease and not a choice, then relapse can happen at any time.
I suppose most people will ask why? Why when someone has it so good would they go back to the very thing that caused them to want to stop in the first place. It makes no sense right?
I have been sober for 12 years and still require daily help to not go back to drink or drugs because I have a disease within me that means my brain functions in different ways to most 'normal' people. I am wired up differently. Not in a better or superior or inferior way. Just different. I don't have an 'stop' button when I ingest things I like.
Most recreational drinkers or drug takers do it because it's fun. We like the feeling right? Well what happens when you like the feeling so much. You want more and more and more? That's addiction right there. There is no control over taking it. That's the physical side of it. The phenomenon of craving. You must have that drink, or drug, or food, or sex, or woman or coat. And the brain will not rest until you have sated the craving. For 5 or 110 or 1000 minutes until it comes back again and again. That is the cycle of addiction.
Then you add the mental side. Your brain, personality, thoughts are wired up to max out on self pity, grandiosity, fear, worry, anger, self obsession. All normal human traits but addicts have them in bundles which makes living life, 'with your head' difficult. Hence using drink or drugs or whatever as a means of controlling them. A vicious circle because all it does it make it worse.
That is why abstinence and serious work on ourselves is required. On a daily basis. It never goes. You cant stop for 6 weeks do some work and then stay sober and happy forever. The wiring in the head remains you just have to manage it on a daily basis and learn to do things differently and accept it is there. A spiritual shift that must be nurtured regularly.
If not then you can go back to old ways very quickly. The old thinking can return. The head can take over and suddenly you find yourself craving drink and drugs again. If this continues for a while without any help or assistance. Then it's a matter of time for relapse to happen. Make sense to you?
I admit at certain points in my sobriety, when things have been going well and haven't ever thought alcohol would ever pass my lips again. I have watched serial relapsers or people who cannot stay sober with an inverted bewilderment. A detached air of superiority.
Thoughts like 'That's because they are not working a programme, they don't want it, they are in their disease', passed my mind. I realise that's not right. It's separating me from them and makes me no different to all the other morally superior creatures. It's not right and recently I have really pulled myself up about it.
Why? Because it could happen to me. Just because I have 12 years it doesn't make me immune to all the thoughts and behaviours of the mental disease. I just haven't actually used a substance or alcohol to act out. I could go back to drinking at any stage. Thoughts of taking drugs have entered my head many times over the past few weeks/years.
'I'm thinner now. I look different. It would be much more fun now. I missed out", all these thongs go through my mind. Even though I am armed with the facts I am a total addict in most things. That I cannot stop at one of anything. Even though I witness the destruction of the disease every day. Even though I know it's a killer and destroys people, I still toy with the idea. Insanity.
That's the subtlety and power of this disease. It will tap away at you telling you, you haven't got it, that you could 'have a couple', that it would be 'different this time' and most harmfully of all, 'your not as bad as them'. Thinking the dead ones had it worse than you.
How insane is that? You don't just go straight into death. It takes time.
For instance Hoffman relapsed on prescription pain killers. Then weed, then cocaine, then heroin and then bang he's dead. The process took a year. When the disease accelerates the individual has no chance. You literally cannot get the stuff quickly enough into your body. More and more and more until you are lost in the disease. That is the true nature of the disease. It has won then.
So how insane is it that my head still considers it, that my head still craves it, that my mind wanders towards it sometimes. We are never cured if it, we simply have a daily reprieve. That's why all those clever old timer bastards kept telling me, 'it's just for today Nick. Keep it simple. One day at a time'. They knew the score alright, that's why they kept telling me, 'stay out of your head, it's a bad neigbourhood'. Or my personal favourite 'don't go in there without an adult because a lunatic lives in there'. How right they were.
RIP PSH. Your death will not be in vain.
Together We Are Stronger
Nicholas Edward Evans
good work
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