Topic: celebrity

As control erodes, the drinker redoubles efforts to regain it. Some resort to “white-knuckle” abstinence, giving up alcohol for a while, just to prove to themselves or someone else that they can.

The real solution would have been for Prince to have received treatment for his drug problem, which by this time was a far bigger issue than his somatic pain.

It’s the result of a problem in medicine that’s been going on since before I ever started working in the field. The drugs have changed, but the results haven’t.

Shame always plays a role. Not just the shame of discovery, but the shame of having a problem in the first place.

As tired or sleep-deprived or in pain as he might have been that night, if he hadn’t taken the drugs, would he still be alive?

Nobody should have known about this in the first place. Somebody broke Josh’s confidentiality, and sources within the team are a prime suspect.

To a seasoned counselor, there’s another way to view it. For one thing, these aren’t isolated incidents.

Look what’s happened to the public image of rehab as a result of those awful high-profile celeb incidents.

What does a place like that have in common with a big-city program filled with homeless addicts who have multiple social problems and co-occurring disorders and perhaps haven’t held a job in decades?

Doesn’t seem to matter much whether fame is rooted in music, film, TV, sports, politics — there’s this sense of unreality to all of it.