RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman

Being addicted is not selfish. Starting in the first place is incredibly selfish.

 

2006 Best Actor category:

* Philip Seymour Hoffman -- Capote
* Terence Howard -- Hustle and Flow
* Heath Ledger -- Brokeback Mountain
* Joaquin Phoenix -- Walk the Line
* David Straithairn -- Good Night and Good Luck

2 are dead, as is the brother of a third.

Here's PSH's acceptance speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VcWRJHBUDM#t=44

 

Isn't addiction both a disease and a moral failing?

(Or, if you're like me and morality isn't your thing, a problem of self-discipline?)

 

There should be a 30-for-30 on the Class of 2006, like the NBA '86 draft.

 

Four arrests at NYC apartment in relation to PSH's death. 350 bags.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/police-hoffmans-heroin-didnt-additive-death-investigation-continues/story?id=22370240

Preliminary tests show no fentanyl.

 

Really? If the very first time you try your poison begins rewiring your brain? What if your addiction is Doritos, instead of heroin? Or exercise? Or cutting? Or nicotine?

Is the trying of it in the first place a failing? Maybe. Maybe not. But if you are addicted, I think the point being made so poignantly all over the internet is that your brain rewires to want the drug no matter what. That's neither morality or self-discipline.

 

Yes, in most cases.

And addiction is probably a failing for those who refuse to even try to quit. My dad smoked. He didn't try to quit. He died. At least in large part, I blame him.

 

People make choices.
not always the right ones but they are theirs to make.

 

Now, I think that once addiction sets in, people tsk-tsk about it because it's pleasure-seeking, and in puritanical America, pleasures of the flesh are to be tsk-tsked. Guys I've talked to who have done heroin said they keep doing it because it's the only way they can function without being miserably sick. So they aren't pleasure-seeking at all.

 

Classifying any addiction issue as a "failure" does nothing productive, except maybe allow observers to rationalize it.

 

Yes, it does. It indicates to people who haven't started yet that it is within their control not to start.

 

Who doesn't know that? Are you saying the reason addicts become so is because they don't know the risks involved?