A column I wrote for this week's paper.
In case you somehow haven’t heard, Academy Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died earlier this week of an apparent drug overdose. As the hours ticked by in this 24-hour news world that we live in, more and more details were revealed: there was a needle in his arm when he was found, close to 50 envelopes of “suspected heroin” in his apartment.
He was just 46, the father of three young children.
Some people, when news like this breaks, feel the need to point out that people die every day, people far more heroic, and that some actor you’ve never met, who was probably living a life of debauchery anyway, is hardly deserving of pity or condolences. Some, wrapped in the comforting protection of an anonymous online username or even just good, old-fashioned, in-person ignorance, might say things along the lines of “He got what was coming.” After all, what do you expect from an addict?
To people with opinions like that, I share something a former professor found in the comment section of an article about Hoffman. I’m not one who often throws around Bible verses, but this sums up a lot of my own feelings about the subject. Ecclesiastes 9:12: "Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them."
Any death is sad, whether it’s someone you love slowly wasting away from a cancer or a disease, a community member ripped away unexpectedly from a car crash or other accident or even, yes, a famous person overdosing on drugs. It’s a loss of life, a loss of potential. The fact that it was due to drugs doesn’t make it any less tragic, and it doesn’t mean a person was any weaker than you or me. I don’t think anyone can judge how unrelentingly strong a drug addiction, or an addiction of any kind, can be unless you’ve gone through one yourself. Hoffman had been sober for more than two decades until last year, when he checked himself into rehab. The hooks such things sink in you don’t just vanish.
Some tributes and obituaries are calling Hoffman one of the greatest actors of his generation. I am no aficionado, but I do know he was an actor you noticed, no matter how minor or inconsequential the part. Whether in an understated, brilliant performance like “Capote” or in one as quirky and random as Brandt in “The Big Lebowski,” Hoffman always made an impression.
I think of him, and of Heath Ledger, John Belushi, Chris Farley and all the other talented people who have died from similar overdoses. I think of the recent reports of local people who have messed with heroin and lost, including a gentleman from this very village. I think of all the teenagers I know, of all the powders and pills available at every party.
None of us are “above” addiction. It could affect your kids, your best friend, your husband or wife. It could affect you or me. We are all just one bad decision away from evil times.