Pubdate: Sat, 08 Feb 2014
Source: Savannah Morning News (GA)
Copyright: 2014 Savannah Morning News
Contact:  http://www.savannahnow.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/401
Author: Christine M. Flowers

PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN'S SELFISH ACT

I remember watching a made-for-television movie in 1973 that changed my life.

Not that I had much of it to change at the age of 11. Still, it 
grabbed me by the throat in the way that only a poorly filmed, 
terminally earnest public-service announcement ever could.

"Go Ask Alice" was based on the book that every parent wanted every 
adolescent to read, and is still a necessary part of growing up. Some 
people think it's too simplistic, something along the lines of a 
Nancy Reagan "just say no to the bad drugs" riff.

But the book scared me enough to keep me from trying drugs. Heck, 
I've never even smoked a cigarette and refuse to take the suggested 
two Tylenol PM when one is enough. The movie, though, sealed the deal.

Watching the early '70s version of a downward spiral looks almost 
quaint in retrospect. It's still out there on YouTube, and it amazes 
me how beautiful "Alice" looks when she's picking through the trash 
looking for something to eat after a heroin binge.

And yet, the 11-year-old inside of me, still quite close to the 
surface, pulled up that film this week in the wake of Philip Seymour 
Hoffman's death, just to see if it had the same effect 40 years on.

Not quite, but almost.

No matter how pedestrian the technical value, and no matter how 
ridiculous William Shatner's sideburns and polyester pants, that 
movie still resonates. It marked me at a time when it was important 
to be marked.

So to this day, I rarely drink more than a glass of wine a week, and 
only then with a plate of macaroni before me. I refuse to yield to 
the suddenly hip zeitgeist of legalizing pot.

Then again, this isn't about pot. This is about one aspect of the 
whole addiction narrative that people are usually afraid to touch 
with a 10-foot syringe, because it invites comments like the one that 
I got when I called Philip Seymour Hoffman selfish.

I am going to say here what I said to someone on Facebook, who then 
called me an unfeeling b: Drug addicts may be diseased, but they are 
also selfish as hell.

People who have diseases usually do everything in their power to find 
a cure. My own father, who died a debilitating death from lung 
cancer, traveled thousands of miles in search of hope. Disease came 
to him and he fought it mercilessly.

And to be candid, this is personal. People close to me have died the 
way Hoffman did and left behind children who have only shadowy 
memories of them. It is a ferocious loss for survivors.

Addiction specialists will tell you that addicts are trapped by 
biology and psychology, and many times they are too weak to fight. I 
don't believe that.

The human spirit is strong, not neutered, and we have within us the 
ability to stare mortality and destiny down, especially when there is 
a purpose greater than the artificial high.

Hoffman had kicked an addiction two decades before. He'd made three 
wonderful children with his partner. He might have had a disease, but 
he also had an obligation to those children. Two decades should be 
enough to immunize you against turning back to drugs, especially when 
three dependent, loving lives were created in the interim.

At the end of "Go Ask Alice," the addict dies. That was supposed to 
shock us into understanding, help us reject drugs and think twice 
before even dipping in. Crude as it was, the message was potent.

Hoffman ignored it, because he had a disease. And because he was selfish.

Christine M. Flowers writes for the Philadelphia Daily News.
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