January 4, 2014
I had just entered the subway and was on the platform, walking past the newsdealers as the train came in, when I caught the headline: Philip Seymour Hoffman OD. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" was my first response. Impelled to know more, I caught snatches of news as I travelled: that he had been found dead in his Bethune Street apartment, a needle still stuck in his arm, that he left behind three children, a boy ten years old and two younger sisters, that he had separated from their mother, a costume designer, three months ago.
As the day progressed, the picture filled itself in: he had been a heavy drug and alcohol user in his youth, but had stayed away from drugs for twenty years, then returned to them --with a vengeance: in his apartment there were seventy packages of Ace of Spades and Ace of Hearts brands of heroin, which may or may not be laced with Fentanyl, a man-made opiate many times stronger than that from Afghani poppies. There was also a large quantity of the painkiller Oxycontin.
The police are making inquiries as to who might have sold Hoffmann the drugs that led to his death. The inquiries ride the back of press attention, which will be persistent until the Medical Examiner's report is released, probably two to three months from now. A great talent wasted, three children fatherless, a grieving widow --in fact, if not in law-- are Hoffman's immediate legacy.
In a 2008 interview with Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air he spoke of what it was like to be around alcohol after rehab, in an eerily predictive way:
People who don't have a problem with alcohol don't have a problem with alcohol. You know, they have their couple of glasses of wine and they go on their way. You know what I mean? And that's just the way it is. I am just not one of those people. So, it's-- you know, a couple of glasses of wine is not interesting to me at all. You know what I mean?…It's not a great pleasure for me to have a couple of glasses of wine. That just --that's kind of annoying…Do you know what I mean? LIke, why aren't you having the whole bottle?…That's much more pleasurable. So, to somebody who doesn't understand that, they just don't understand it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman's candid and articulate summation of what it is to be an addict applied, in his case, to any mind-altering drug he could come by, alcohol, pain-killers, heroin among them. In his Bethune Street neighborhood, it was well-known that in his last months he was an addict in the throes of his addiction. The intensity of it is what shocks: by the time he installed himself in the apartment --which was not far from the apartment he and his partner bought for themselves and their children-- he was a redliner, both snorting and injecting heroin. He was found in his underwear in his bathroom, a lonely man who had lost control of himself and left his family behind to "chase the dragon".
Because he was a notable, the police will, perhaps find the dealer who sold him the "bricks" of heroin. "Bricks" are a package of ten glassine envelopes --users tend to buy them individually, as money is, for them, usually a problem. In Hoffman's case, that was no bar to his enjoyment of his drugs of choice.
Which makes me wonder whether what his death may best stand for is the wisdom of not legalizing the use of more drugs. "Take the profit out of it and the cartels will be bankrupt", goes one argument. "Manage addicts' habits without forcing them to resort to crime to support it." If there's one lesson to be learned from Hoffmann's death spiral, it's that most addicts are like Hoffmann: there's no pleasure in moderation. Opportunities to consume to excess are prized: considerations of family, friends, talent, financial and personal ruin do not countervail the desire to indulge.
You might think me harsh, but I am not unfamiliar with the desire to overindulge --in alcohol, at least. I'm just fortunate enough to have a metabolism that is almost allergic to it, so overindulgence comes at a high price the next day. However, I cannot say that the Dionysian pleasures --alcohol, drugs, food-- have no attraction for me. We all want to forget ourselves from time to time, or to experience euphoria, to be transported to a place where our mind leaves us alone --at least for a while.
The trajectory of the second half of Hoffman's career will never be known to us, thanks to his unstoppable addiction and the person who enabled it. He was one of the greatest and most prolific actors of his generation, which sets him apart from the common run of man. However, a certain number of those "common men" will share with Hoffmann the same intractable attraction to illegal drugs. Before we think about legalizing more drugs, we might consider whether in doing so we are not enabling a new class of users who would not have indulged freely but for the new availability.
May he rest in peace.
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