Addiction and Rehabilitation
Six Celebrities That Tragically Overdosed. Substance addiction that leads to overdose leaves more than death in its wake. For the lives of loved ones of a person who has passed as a result of an overdose are changed in many emotional and physical ways. Many survivors suffer through the trauma of not only losing a loved one but also what is commonly known as survivors’ guilt, among other issues.
To save their loved ones’ lives, many people stage interventions and either outright force the addicted person into rehab or convince them to voluntarily enter one of the 15,000 or more rehabilitation centers found across the US. For a small percentage of addicts, this may prove to be a successful venture. However, in truth, most treatment centers have poor results. Following is a discussion of celebrities who went to rehab and one who was known to be an addict yet still given massive amounts of drugs by his doctor.
Tragic Overdoses
Elvis did not go through rehab, partially as it was not a common institution in the 1970s and partly because his personal physician felt that being seen as an addict would destroy the Pop King’s career. Elvis was prescribed so many drugs over the years that he literally had to take medications to sleep and more medications to wake up. His physician, Doctor “Nick,” is on record having stated that he wrote Elvis prescriptions so that he at least knew where the drugs were coming from. Whether it was a misguided attempt to protect the legendary singer or a giant case of enabling is unknown.
Elvis passed away at home on August 16, 1977, from what at first was believed to be heart trouble and was later discovered to be a mixture of drugs in his system. According to the official toxicology report those drugs included codeine, Quaaludes, Percodan, Demerol, and Dilaudid. Doctor Nick lost his license a few years afterward but was never held accountable for the star’s death.
Other stars, including Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Chris Farley, Prince and John Belushi, all had their own private and public stints in and out of rehab. Belushi found himself in the same predicament as Elvis, and his doctors would warn him about the dangers of cocaine while handing out prescriptions for tranquilizers.
Both Prince and Michael Jackson died untimely deaths due to addictions to prescription painkillers. Sadly, both Whitney Houston and Chris Farley had each been in out of rehab centers many times, with Farley having been in at least seventeen times. According to Rehab Addiction Institute, treating addiction properly is absolutely crucial, but far too many rehabilitation centers completely ignore the human element, and that thus leads to tragic passing of beloved celebrities. There have been countless others, but these are Six Celebrities That Tragically Overdosed.
If you were a big Elvis fan or any other of these celebrities, be sure to see if we have some cool memorabilia for you to remember what great things they accomplished before their tragic passing. Six Celebrities That Tragically Overdosed.