It’s a bit odd considering what a star he turned out to be, but my first time seeing Philip Seymour Hoffman was in this documentary mini-series about the American Revolution. He was a soldier in the Continental Army whose lines consisted of what I guess were diary excerpts from the time. Every time I’ve seen him since, I’ve first associated him as “that guy who played Joseph Plumb Martin on PBS.”
And yet, people do things that make it more likely they’ll develop cancer, like smoking, drinking, eating meat, becoming obese, or climbing into tanning beds. People diagnosed with Type II diabetes are often judged for their own personal failing regarding diet and exercise.
And yet, some populations are far more likely to develop addictions than others, just as Native Americans are more likely to suffer from alcoholism.
And yet, most diseases, especially those diseases which riddle our modern populations, aren’t caused by one person sneezing on another. You don’t catch heart disease that way. Or Alzheimer’s.
And yet, there are inheritable traits which cause one person to be more susceptible to an addiction than another.
And yet, there are plenty of other diseases, like depression, OCD, and social phobia, whose primary treatment was once being told by others, “well, if you’d just choose to be happy/relaxed/not shy”.
And yet, people who commit suicide were once judged as cowards instead of understood as being in such a state of suffering, killing themselves was the better option.
And yet, there are physical changes in the brains of addicts which make it impossible to maintain emotional and physical homeostasis without either another fix or some heavy duty medical intervention.
The point here is that addiction is far more complicated than “well, if he’d just stood there and hadn’t injected smack in his veins, he wouldn’t be dead”, and that blaming and shaming addicts leads only to worse outcomes. The choice is not between “it’s his own damn fault” and “poor bastard, he had no control over his fate”. Successful treatment doesn’t start with “you asshole, stop doing H”.
Demonizing addicts only leads to more deaths. Please stop doing it.
I agree with this, and would add that for some people there is a generic predisposition to react to alcohol in a way that makes it easier for them to become physically addicted. Sort of like an allergy makes one person sensitive to pollen or cat dander, but not another person. If you have talked to alcoholics, read their stories, or (like I have) lived with one, their bodies “love” and crave alcohol in a way that’s different for people without this predisposition. These are the people who cannot EVER have just one drink. Not everyone with a “drinking problem” is like this.
Just like some people never become addicted to nicotine. They can smoke for a while and stop with no problem. I smoked for a year about 20 years ago, but never craved it.
The disease model of addiction is controversial, because it can be used to absolve the addict of responsibility. But that model is useful, too, particularly if you look at it as a physical predisposition that will nail the person if s/he slips up. I mean, if a person knows he’s allergic to peanuts, he’s not going to fool around with peanut butter just for kicks. If he knows that taking one drink will create a craving in his body that he will not be able to resist until he’s passed out on the front lawn in a pool of his own vomit, then he has to avoid that first drink just like the other guy has to avoid a Nutter Butter. But he has to acknowledge and admit that once he takes that first drink, his will power goes out the window.
From what I understand, however, heroin is a different ball game and has the potential to create a physical dependency quickly in just about anyone.
ETA. Previous poster covered some of this. Cross post.
Please take any further discussion of drugs, addiction, disease etc. here - thanks!:
Its amazing that in the US where they sentence dealers harshly to 20 or 30-year jailtime they *still *have so many drugs floating around:
You saw the previous post, right?
Here’s CNN.com on the actor’s final hours: http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/04/showbiz/philip-seymour-hoffman-final-hours/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
I love that documentary! Liberty! actually had quite a few well-known actors (well, nowadays) in it. Victor Garber, Jane Addams, Roger Rees and Campbell Scott were in it as well…
I first noticed him as the guy who starts catching on to how thing’s ain’t quite right in The Talented Mister Ripley: there’s the movie-star good looks of Oscar-caliber actors like Jude Law and Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett, and this dude with a nothing part confidences his way to being memorable.
Addiction is one thing. Binge drugging is another situation. But 70+ bags of smack, 20 used needles, cocaine, prescription pills … it sounds a lot like suicide by OD to me. Has no one else floated that theory?
The first Paul Thomas Anderson film we saw was an absolutely wonderful little gem entitled Hard Eight. It came out in 1996, the year before Boogie Nights. I knew Hoffman was an Anderson favorite, but I didn’t realize he was in Hard Eight. Listed as “Young Craps Player.” It’s been years since I watched it. We had a videotape of it, that’s how long it’s been. We’ll have to try to find the DVD.
I think I first noticed him in Twister, and then when I saw Boogie Nights I was thinking “Hey, that’s the guy from Twister.”
From the CNN timeline of the hours leading up to his death, this part is especially interesting:
This isn’t entirely accurate. Hoffman’s show was definitely a go and they were just waiting for his Hunger Games commitment to end to start filming the rest of the first season. There was no jerking around and Showtime just showed the pilot to critics, who loved it.
I also read yesterday that Showtime may show the pilot as a one-off because it was so well-received by critics.
GREAT movie! Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the “young craps player” who goads P. B. Hall into going for “Hard Eight!”
Good performances by Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson as well! (Wonder why Gwyneth didn’t use a middle name or initial? Everyone else did!)
Check it out!
RIP Philip!
I’d certainly like to see it. I admit I’d totally forgotten his roles in Boogie Nights and Twister; I first noticed and loved him as the obsequious, buttoned-down Brandt in The Big Lebowski.
I always found movies he was in hard to watch because he gave off a bit of a creepy vibe.
Still sucks that he died. I don’t really feel bad for him, he did it to himself, but for his family and especially his kids, I feel really bad. They don’t deserve to not have a dad.
Maybe Hollywood needs to start drug testing.
Source: 4 arrested in Hoffman drug probe.
Also from that article:
Coverage of his funeral: http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/07/showbiz/philip-seymour-hoffman-funeral/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
There’s a lot of people who’ve had to struggle through life that would appreciate having a career and money and people saying how great their work is. He couldn’t hire a babysitter to be his mentor? The more I think about it the madder I get.
Yeah! How dare those heroin addicts use poor judgement!