# Philip Seymour Hoffman



## AC986 (Feb 2, 2014)

What shame. A really terrific actor and will be greatly missed.


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## RasmusFors (Feb 2, 2014)

That sucks! He was actually one of my favourite actors, he really elevated all the movies that he was in. RIP


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## choc0thrax (Feb 2, 2014)

It's weird to see updates about casting for his latest film basically back to back with the news of his death. He was really great...


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## Simon Ravn (Feb 2, 2014)

Sad - he was a great and fun actor to watch.


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## wst3 (Feb 2, 2014)

very sad!


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 2, 2014)

Genuinely shocking - 46. He was an outstanding actor.


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## mark812 (Feb 2, 2014)

Very sad, such a great actor. F$%king drugs...


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## mverta (Feb 2, 2014)

Very talented. Does a great Heath Ledger impression.


_Mike


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## TheUnfinished (Feb 2, 2014)

Ah christ. A truly terrific performer, endlessly watchable. A huge loss to the acting world.


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## woodsdenis (Feb 2, 2014)

Tragic, dead at 46, apparently an overdose.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 2, 2014)

Very sad. Excellent actor. He was amazing in The Master, among others.

It's hard to believe he was only 46 - he looked like he had a lot more mileage on him...which he obviously did.


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## artsoundz (Feb 2, 2014)

mverta @ Sun Feb 02 said:


> Very talented. Does a great Heath Ledger impression.
> 
> 
> _Mike



What a tiny thing to say. Something one might hear from a child.


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## Lex (Feb 2, 2014)

Such a shame...I love his work.

alex


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## RiffWraith (Feb 2, 2014)

Big shame. Liked him a lot in MI-III.


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## NYC Composer (Feb 3, 2014)

artsoundz @ Mon Feb 03 said:


> mverta @ Sun Feb 02 said:
> 
> 
> > Very talented. Does a great Heath Ledger impression.
> ...



Made me so glad I checked this thread. Serious cranio-rectal extraction required.
His three young kids would probably get a chuckle from it, though.

Hmm. Just a guess here-it's all about taking personal responsibility, eh? After all, nobody else shoved the needle into his arm...

Or maybe it was just a little bit of that famous irony....anyway.

Great actor. Loved him in everything i ever saw him in. Nice dude by all accounts. He's missed.


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## mverta (Feb 4, 2014)

NYC Composer @ Mon Feb 03 said:


> Made me so glad I checked this thread. Serious cranio-rectal extraction required.
> His three young kids would probably get a chuckle from it, though.



They're probably too preoccupied thinking about what a selfish fuckhole they had for a father to have time to check the Off-Topic thread on Vi-Control; don't worry. I've made a note to tell my son that if I ever end up dead in the bathroom in my underpants with a needle in my arm, he's better off without me. But, you know, we all parent in our own way.

Anyway, loved everything he did. Especially Boogie Nights. "Fuckin' _idiot_, fuckin' _idiot_, fuckin' _idiot_..."


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## NYC Composer (Feb 4, 2014)

mverta @ Tue Feb 04 said:


> NYC Composer @ Mon Feb 03 said:
> 
> 
> > Made me so glad I checked this thread. Serious cranio-rectal extraction required.
> ...



Yep, number 2-Taking Personal Responsibility. A tough world takes a tough guy.
No room for imperfect or troubled or weak in MikeWorld. Those who fall on the field of battle had it coming.


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## Christof (Feb 4, 2014)

Mike, I remember your comments on Paul Walkers death, so this one here doesn't surprise me too much.
To me it seems quite irreverent.
We are no robots in a perfect world, we are weak in an imperfect world.Some are more, some less.


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## pkm (Feb 4, 2014)

Addiction is a terribly difficult and devastating disease. Such a sad story.


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## fiestared (Feb 4, 2014)

So Sad. We'll miss his great talent...


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## TheUnfinished (Feb 4, 2014)

It would be lovely if there were no mental problems in the world, Mike, but sadly that's not the case. You can't just "buck your ideas up" or "pull your finger out" if you are struggling with the likes of depression and addiction, it doesn't work like that.

And, yes, it's possible to love people near you fiercely and still feel like killing yourself.


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## KingIdiot (Feb 4, 2014)

the guy was clean for 23 years. Got prescribed pain meds, and fell into an old pattern. These things get away from people quicker than they can make the right choice sometimes.

I'm truly amazed at many in the anti drug culture's reaction to this. Especially by those that have never dealt with addiction on their own, and/or only peripherally, never even trying the drugs and not understanding what they can do to the brain on a personal level. Or equally troubling; trying them and expecting each individual to react the same as hey have. Add to it how it affects those with other mental issues and how the cascade of effects and counter effects transform action and reaction in terms of choices. Even more amazing is the idea that people can appreciate art and individualism in creation of it,, in praising who he was, but can't empathize in that the differences in how we live, even in making mistakes, as if it's nothing less than being someone to be condescended upon.

add to it misinterpretations or misjudgements by those even in the medical field (like prescribing opiate based pain meds to an ex heroin addict), and you end up with a very blurred world and understanding by everyone that probably requires a bit more compassion and patience from every one of us.

but why would we ever want that in a selfish world, where people take drugs to escape sometimes? /s

I've seen lives destroyed by drugs. Enhanced by them. Lived through the process via exploration, and death affecting both in negative and positive ways...

I played as the only never used a hard drug member of a Hardcore punk rock band full of NA members and ex smack addicts, produced by Henry Rollins (who's got his own history). I've seen fans pull their lives together, and others destroy them all over again. I've seen members pass from completely unrelated circumstances, and the effects of their loss of support destroy or empower others.

but that I'm seeing more ugliness in the anti drug backlash recently in celebrity deaths involving them, saddens me. As if all life's accomplishments are simply washed away from something that is much more powerful than they understand, and easy to misjudge. How mistakes are made when the lowest places are reached, when judgement is tried and sometimes failed. As if we were all supposed to be robots and some code failed making them defective outright.

fuck drugs. fuck our brains. fuck modern medicine for not helping us find a better way to help us all with pain... but mostly, fuck merciless ignorance.


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## AC986 (Feb 4, 2014)

All drugs should be legal. 

Wanna know what the worst drug in the world is? Ask any medical man, any surgeon. No it's not heroine. Guess again. No, it's not nicotine; even though nicotine pound for pound is way way stronger than heroine. Stuff the same amount of nicotine intraveneously into yourself as you might heroine and you would dead quicker than if you stepped out on the surface of the sun.

No, without any shadow of a doubt the worst drug in the world is alcohol. How many fuckin' _idiots _on this thread drink alcohol? Most of us; all of us.

It just takes a lot longer and a lot more money to kill you than heroine. Check the numbers. Don't take my word for it. How many alcohol related deaths per annum against heroine. And! the trouble with alcohol is particularly problematical _when_ it doesn't kill you.

Chemical dependency is a terrible thing and should at least be made easier for any unfortunate recipients by legalising all of it. That kind of dependency is an illness, just like any other mental illness and I for one feel fortunate that I have foregone that particular gene. It's just the luck of the draw and I would not look down my nose at any poor bastard out there that has that addictive gene.

Philip Seymour Hoffman. Fuckin' marvellous actor. Irreplaceable!


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 4, 2014)

Mike, I assume you're like me: it's a simple and obvious decision not to do dangerous drugs, drink too much, smoke, gamble...whatever.

But obviously it's not that way for a lot of people. I've heard 15% have "addictive personalities," but I don't know for sure (and it's on a spectrum).

Why do I have a bunch of open wine bottles in my kitchen that I drank one glass from and never finished? (Because I don't admit that we're not going to use them for cooking and should throw them away.  ) But people with alcohol problems have a very hard time doing that - they want to drink them.

I promise I don't possess extraordinary willpower. It's just an accident of birth that I can take or leave the wine. Not so for addicts.

That's why drug addiction is called a disease. Yes it's also a choice at some level, but it's more than that.


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## woodsdenis (Feb 4, 2014)

The problem with these types of conversations and threads is that people who don't suffer from addiction have no comprehension or idea what they are talking about.

Call it a disease or a syndrome or whatever, it is not as straight forward as willpower. 
It kills people every day sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly and it has no preference to class, religion, social status, gender, wealth or lack of it.

I certainly dont find it something to make fun of, to those who do, if it ever presents itself to you or someone you care about, don't joke about it.


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## mverta (Feb 4, 2014)

NYC Composer @ Tue Feb 04 said:


> Yep, number 2-Taking Personal Responsibility. A tough world takes a tough guy.
> No room for imperfect or troubled or weak in MikeWorld. Those who fall on the field of battle had it coming.




Well, certainly, I'm a Darwinist; I'm with nature - and nature doesn't give a fuck if you're the slow gazelle. It wasn't empathy and compassion that pulled us up out of the primordial soup, and it wasn't empathy and compassion that had your ancestors braining rival cave dwellers so you could one day type things on your computer. 

But it's nice to have a little heart now and again, no? Still, as a father, I feel that the bar for responsible parenting should be slightly higher than throwing your children's lives into a woodchipper over a recreational drug. If you can't stay clean for your own offspring - whose beautiful innocence and prosperity is not only your charge but life's greatest source of inspiration and salvation if you're paying attention - then I'd say you probably weren't cut out for the whole life thing, and nature ain't gonna miss ya. 

I didn't know Phillip Seymour Hoffman. My first thought about his death was, "Damn... that sucks," because it meant he would no longer be around to provide me with entertainment, which seems to me to be a very self-absorbed position, but then again, I didn't know him; my life isn't affected by his lack of it. And in my reaction, at least there I'm in the same boat as 99.9% of the rest of the world, which is the same percentage of people who don't realize how equally selfish their "theater of compassion" rhetoric is, because they also didn't know him. Your reaction was likely far more spiritually elevated and conscientious. Forgive us our trespasses; we don't know any better. 

I can't say I care about his kids, either, because I can't prove it. I could _say_ I do - like a lot of people do - but anybody can say flowery things. What am I _doing_ about it? Am I driving cross-country to help the family in their time of need? Am I offering consoling phone calls or support? Of course not, I don't even know these people; all that would be weird and impossible. And it's not like I've been on the floor of my therapist's office trying to deal with it; I haven't called in sick to work. So since I haven't a single, meaningful action with which to make the case that I care about any of them, I think perhaps it's best to STFU and save the faux compassion for greeting cards. But I am a creative, and absent any actual, personal consequence from any of this, my creative brain fired off a dark little zinger and posted it for the world; putting things out there is what I do. And those who say if you have nothing nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all, probably weren't in a concentration camp.

Karma is about balance. For 13 years I've been a volunteer Domestic Abuse counselor - that's my social give-back; it's deeds, it's actions, it's doing something. My empathy muscle can deadlift a car. But beyond that, I'm only one man, without care enough for an entire world of strangers. I leave that to Jesus and Santa Claus. I use what I have left for my family, my friends, my art, and most of all for my son, who can sleep well at night knowing it'd take a lot more than a drug for his Dad to sacrifice his welfare. I'd give my life for him; I certainly wouldn't throw it away and force him to deal with it. People who hurt children are below my compassion threshold. You apparently feel differently.

_Mike


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## TheUnfinished (Feb 4, 2014)

Actually, evolution's about adaptation, not the whole 'survival of the fittest' misnomer. Compassion and empathy are actually well suited to the successfully evolving species, because they are about making sure the most survive, not just the individual (that ISN'T what evolution is about).

As someone who has suffered mild depression and has had friends and family who have suffered from it terriblly, I'm sorry but, you just haven't got a clue what you're talking about with all this "I wouldn't do it" stuff. Depression and addiction mean you don't think normally, for no reason whatsoever you can feel like the world is tearing itself apart around you, that the weight of life is unbearable. 

It IS incredibly difficult to understand if you haven't experienced it, either yourself or in others, but it's not impossible... if you try.


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## AC986 (Feb 4, 2014)

I'm not completely sure I understand a word you are talking about.

However, flip it around for a second. Parents have absolutely no control over children with the addictive gene. It makes not one iota of difference whether or not they come from a dysfunctional background or one of complete stability. If they grow up with that gene in them, you won't be able to stop anything. I do not speak from personal experience I hasten to add. 
Parental logic and anything that's gone before is washed out of the window under those circumstances.

It doesn't have to be heroine or cocaine. It could be anything. Gambling, fast cars, anything.


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## woodsdenis (Feb 4, 2014)

TheUnfinished @ Tue Feb 04 said:


> Depression and addiction mean you don't think normally, for no reason whatsoever you can feel like the world is tearing itself apart around you, that the weight of life is unbearable.
> .



Precisely, which is why people who claim "I would never to that to my family/wife/son/daughter" really have no clue. TBH I can understand that, why would they, but they should refrain in making value judgements on people who in the midst of this problem are clearly not thinking rationally.


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## Hannes_F (Feb 4, 2014)

mverta @ Tue Feb 04 said:


> It wasn't empathy and compassion that pulled us up out of the primordial soup



I differ here and wonder what else it should have been if not some form of fundamental consciousness. The statistical possibility for getting a self-reproducing molecule out of the primordial soup in a mechanistical way is about one incident or such molecule - but only if you add all atoms of the known universe to that soup and run the experiment for all the known age of the universe.

So from my point of view consciousness and therefore, if you want to name it like that, empathy and compassion are indespensable building blocks of everything.



> Karma is about balance.


Karma as a doctrine is utterly incomplete without compassion. If those both are not in balance then either the one will lead to making people dependent on the arbitrariness of external deities or the other will make them cold-hearted and merits-calculating.

In regards to addictions: Nature has endowed our animal part with certain strategies and mechanisms that originally should help but are not really suited any more to solve the problems of modern civilisation. These strategies are attack/agression, escape/fear and avoidance/depression. The mechanism connected to that is a chemical reward/punishment system that influences our consciousness and personality via our body. These heritages can go wild and are then really difficult to get tamed. Basically all human progress has to deal with this taming in the one or other form in order to make place for new and better suited strategies: communication, genuine understanding, cooperation. 

However until then most of us are more or less addicts, unfortunately. On top of it all: addicted to illusional views and not soberly seeing the world as it is.


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 4, 2014)

Good posts, Matt. I think Requiem For A Dream is required viewing really.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 4, 2014)

What if he'd died of an eating disorder? Just eat, you moron? Just say no?

I'm a Darwinist too, and I'm not offended by your quip. But I have a very hard time viewing this as a guy putting his own selfish desire to shoot heroin above his responsibility to his children. It's more complicated than that.


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## Consona (Feb 4, 2014)

mverta @ Tue Feb 04 said:


> Well, certainly, I'm a Darwinist; I'm with nature - and nature doesn't give a fuck if you're the slow gazelle. It wasn't empathy and compassion that pulled us up out of the primordial soup, and it wasn't empathy and compassion that had your ancestors braining rival cave dwellers so you could one day type things on your computer.


Poor darwinism is a victim of so many misconceptions. One of which is _darwinism implies social darwinism_. No, it doesn't.

_Fittest_ in the darwinian sense means "ability to get organism's genes into the next generation". Speaking about the strongest, fastest, most selfish, etc. is unappropriate reduction.

_Empathy_ and _compassion_ are very good practices to be able to get one genes into the next generation.

You should educate yourself about things you believe in. Also look at some neurology books about addiction. Addiction changes the very brain tissue of an addict, it can change ones personality quite deeply and nobody knows who's the lucky one with ability to recover/resist and who is not. It's rather complicated problem.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 4, 2014)

> darwinism implies social darwinism. No, it doesn't



Very good point.


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## Darthmorphling (Feb 4, 2014)

Nick Batzdorf @ Tue Feb 04 said:


> What if he'd died of an eating disorder? Just eat, you moron? Just say no?
> 
> I'm a Darwinist too, and I'm not offended by your quip. But I have a very hard time viewing this as a guy putting his own selfish desire to shoot heroin above his responsibility to his children. It's more complicated than that.



As a teacher I see first hand what this can do to a child. We have several students at my school who have drug addicts as parents. Just about all of the kids have behavioral problems as a result. Some still do well in school, but it depends on if the parents were high that morning.

I don't think he was doing this with the thought of what it would do to his kids, but to me that makes it selfish. When you have kids, your job is to provide for them and be there for them. I'm pretty sure his kids will be provided for, but they still do not have their dad.

As for the addiction gene it is very real, but you can still overcome it. I have lots of addicts in my family and I'm pretty sure I have the gene. I simply choose not to partake in things that will control me.


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## mverta (Feb 4, 2014)

You know how you get over being nervous about public speaking?

You start practicing public speaking. Start with 3 people, then try 10. Then 30, then 100...


Or, you can go to therapy. And you can spend 10 years talking about yourself week after week. And you learn that the reason you're scared to speak in public is because you come from a military family, so you didn't have a stable role-model for a father, so you turned to your uncle who ended up diddling you in the basement when you were 7, and that made you feel ashamed and guilty, so were awkward around other kids and got picked on, and so you turned to food to comfort which made you fat and gave you low self-esteem, so you couldn't date girls, and that gave you no confidence, which you compensate for by drinking, and on and on and on and on and on and on....

And at the end of all that? All that money, all that "compassion," all that time and self-absorption? Well, if you still want to get over your fear of public speaking, guess what you have to do? You start with 3 people, and then 10, and then...

There was no shortage of dysfunction in my family; tons of abuse. My Dad locked me in a mental institution for a month once just to fuck with me. I've been to jail 5 times. Sooner or later, of all the "compassionate" messages we get from therapists and disingenuous righteous blowhards, we rarely get told the truth, which is that you have God-like power over your every action and thought, should you choose to exercise it. Where there's a will, there's a way. That's a beautiful empowering truth, which is denied only by those who'd prefer attention and vicitimization to expending the effort to change. Because we don't have any real problems anymore, "I don't wanna eat," counts, I guess. Eat, moron. That's how you get over it. Start with a salad. Or, you know, go talk to a therapist for a billion years. Sooner or later, you're going to need to eat the damn salad. Fake it to make it. You might be surprised. Either way, this shit ain't that complicated. If you have a kid, don't do drugs. If your will is weak, take it to the gym. Stop talking, and do the right thing. Nobody said life was easy, the Lord hates a coward, and nature hates the weak.




_Mike


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## Daryl (Feb 4, 2014)

For some reason this thread has turned into talk about addiction, so I'd just like to add one thing about that. I have no idea whether or not it is a gene, or even if addiction is the same as compulsion, but I do know that virtually anyone who is top rate at anything is likely to have some sort of disorder in that region. Just thinking about myself, I doubt that a normal person could practise 8 hours a day, so I do understand compulsion to a tiny degree. The difference is that I can control mine and even use it, when I need to, so I do have a great deal of sympathy with someone who can't control their own addiction, because I do have a tiny inkling of how it feels.

D


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## AC986 (Feb 4, 2014)

Addiction is not just about boring old drugs. Drugs are so fucking passé.

Addiction is about a ton of complicated issues. We are told that PSH had problems with anxiety and blood pressure. Many things can effect the behaviour of anyone, but the addiction gene is separate to that imo. What addiction can really have a negative impact on, is the poor non addictive people in the near vicinity of the person with addiction problems. One of the worst addictions we certainly in this country is gambling which causes phenomenal amounts of pain for people.

Control Daryl is the crux of the debate. 50 odd bags of heroine would indicate out of control. If you have permanent control over anything, then addiction doesn't come into it.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 4, 2014)

Mike, this shit really am that complicated.

I'm sure lots of people told Karen Carpenter just to eat, and I'm sure PSH knew that injecting heroin is a pretty poor idea.

People need to be told just to eat AND they need help. Sometimes neither works.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 4, 2014)

Just don't do it?

"Opioid drugs aren’t only killing celebrities— poisoning deaths, most of which are due to drugs, have actually overtaken car accidents as the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S., responsible for nearly 40,000 fatalities annually."

http://healthland.time.com/2014/02/03/p ... z2sNCGWzzO


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## chimuelo (Feb 4, 2014)

I will just prefer to thank him for years of great entertainment from his various roles, never tying him a role character.

And I have had many freinds in the entertainment world who I thought I knew, but obviousoly didn't as more than a few died from drugs, AIDS even random gunshots in the Hood while purchasing something on the wrong corner.

So yes the world sucks, I know this, and many here do as well, so tuck away the bad crap after acknowleding it exists on all classes of people, and remember the more cherishable moments.


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## reddognoyz (Feb 4, 2014)

He went to my Gym, played a lot of basket ball, his kids took bball lessons there too. He was quiet, kept to him self. Totally get the power of addiction, but you have a higher responsibility with kids than w/o imho. He had three.


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## dpasdernick (Feb 4, 2014)

Sad to hear about Philip Seymour Hoffman. Amazing actor.

I for one have never done drugs. Never tried to even smoke pot and have only been tipsy on champagne twice on my life. Lucky? Strong? Nerd? Don't know. As Steven Tyler once said "no one's life ever got better because they started doing heroin"

However, I am addicted to sample libraries and while it may not kill me it's certainly giving my bank account a heart attack... 

RIP Mr Hoffman. you will be missed...


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## NYC Composer (Feb 4, 2014)

It's interesting and sad to read about the genesis of anger caused by abuse, however, I don't think I'm stupid enough to say to a deeply angry person- "just stop being angry, duh!" because I think the chances of that being efficacious are approximately zip.


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## PMortise (Feb 4, 2014)

I have a feeling that _everyone_ is addicted to _something_. For some it's just more visible than others.

R.I.P. Philip. You wuz' a _baaaaad_ man.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 4, 2014)

I don't think so, PMortise. Addiction is different from habit.

But to be honest I do see truth in Mike's and others' point about responsibility to your children.


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## NYC Composer (Feb 4, 2014)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Feb 05 said:


> I don't think so, PMortise. Addiction is different from habit.
> 
> But to be honest I do see truth in Mike's and others' point about responsibility to your children.



He was in rehab twice. He had FIFTY bags of dope strewn around his apt. Do you think he was having FUN??

Of all the....god.

1. So you got cancer- did you smoke? no? Well, you probably did something to bring it on. Get rid of it-will it away. You have three kids, for god's sake. Use the power of your mind and overcome it!

2. You were in a skiing accident and died- what a moron. Why were you fckin skiing with three kids??

3. You slept around and got AIDS. You exercised too strenuously and had a heart attack. 
You drove your fancy car around L.A. too fast and got into an auto accident. You rode your bike on a crowded street and swerved to avoid someone, went ten feet in the air, landed on your noggin. What's WRONG with you?? Where's your sense of personal responsibility? 

I've been married for 30 years. I raised a kid who's now 23. I lost a parent at 11. I know about personal responsibility and loss and pain. I've had experience with addiction and lost multiple friends. Telling addicts to "just stop" is the most boneheaded thing I've heard this week. It's a fckin disease. Deal with it. Some addicts do- some don't/won't/can't. Are there choices? Yes. Is everyone able to deal with the results of their choices and rise above? Apparently not. Is there personal responsibility- sure-but that's just not the whole story, never was, and fck me, but I'll err on the side of compassion, ball-less liberal dweeb that I am.

I'm happy to still to be here, almost 60, and I recognize and am grateful for the prime reason- I was lucky enough to be loved and valued as a child, and most of the people I know who struggle mentally were not. 

As to the scornful outlook on therapy, well- as a personal matter, I'd rather have hot nails in my eye than therapy, but different people have different needs, and I know some seriously suicidal people who I deeply believe would not be here without it. Some have managed to have reasonably happy productive lives with that sort of help, so I'm not so quick to throw blanket generalizations over what OTHER folks do to live better lives.


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## artsoundz (Feb 5, 2014)

mverta @ Tue Feb 04 said:


> . If your will is weak, take it to the gym. Stop talking, and do the right thing. Nobody said life was easy, the Lord hates a coward, and nature hates the weak.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Wow. How very Christian of you.....in a 12th century kind of way. 

I find your avatar and your comments a complete disconnect and frustratingly ignorant and as offensive as any form of bigotry I'm aware of. Hidden in this garbage are some very telling hints. I'd love to hear your dad's version of events w/ regard to your month long stay in a mental institution. As there is a patternof arrogance and a disturbing, irresponsible lack of compassion in many of your posts.....

I suspect the old man was on to something. 

Seriously. Your internal dialogue is probably more clever to you than most critically thinking, self aware people in 2014.


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 5, 2014)

If this thread would like some new ethical debates, read this:

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/02/04/t ... -challenge

Hoffman had one week's filming left on the next two Hunger Games movie, so the report says, with one major emotional scene (unspecified, and if it isn't too trivial a concern, no spoilers on the thread please).



> THR quotes an unaffiliated special effects supervisor who says that the technology exists to digitally recreate Hoffman’s likeness as needed. He continued, “I won't say you could generate a Philip Seymour Hoffman with all the acting ability, but you could certainly replicate him for a shot or two.



Given the circumstances, I personally have no problem with them manipulating existing footage to fix a few problems, but of course they have not a hope with a "major emotional scene". Having been through something not totally dissimilar myself, it presents one of the hardest writing challenges there is.


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## Consona (Feb 5, 2014)

@ mverta: 

Why do you have so much anger in your posts?

Why do you think your interpretation of your personal experience has general near-metaphysical validity?

At least those are impressions I got from your posts.


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## TheUnfinished (Feb 5, 2014)

NYC Composer @ Wed Feb 05 said:


> He was in rehab twice. He had FIFTY bags of dope strewn around his apt. Do you think he was having FUN??
> 
> Of all the....god.
> 
> ...


*applause*


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## Stephen Rees (Feb 5, 2014)

NYC Composer @ Wed Feb 05 said:


> Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Feb 05 said:
> 
> 
> > I don't think so, PMortise. Addiction is different from habit.
> ...



Larry, I really hope to meet you one day and buy you a beer. You are a good guy.

*more applause*


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Feb 5, 2014)

*96 pairs of hands clapping in the most famous opera hall in the world, 8 mic positions*

He was amazing, I can't begin to realize how much I will miss him in the movies. Seemed like a good guy too, down to earth.


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## Darthmorphling (Feb 5, 2014)

I agree with everyone here in that compassion is a good thing. I genuienly feel bad about what happened. He was a terrific actor who has entertained me with his movies. I feel worse for his kids though.

Maybe Mike's tone could have been different. I disagree with his view that therapy does not work. I have seen it work wonders for members of my family. He is right though that whatever issues you are having, ultimately need to be changed by you. Sometimes it takes an impartial outsider to help you see that though.

I was shocked, and saddened when Kurt Cobain took his own life. I know that he suffered from terrible stomach conditions, and heroin seemed to be the only thing that helped. However, he took his own life while his daughter was very young. Selfish.

A close friend of my wife has dealt with the heroin issue. Her ex husband is a junkie and would always fall off the wagon. Before they split up, he took their infant daughter with him and disappeared for the weekend. This was his usual routine, but it was the first time he took one of his kids. The cops couldn't do anything as he was a legal guardian at the time. Was he a selfish ass? I dare anyone to say otherwise.

When you have a student come up to you and tell you their mother takes them to her boyfriend's house so she can smoke meth with him, you develop a different set of views about parental responsibility. It doesn't help when CPS determines that as long as it's not happening in the child's home its not an issue.

All of these assume you have kids
Lung cancer + Not smoking = nothing you can do
driving fast + diyng = you were being an idiot
skiing + dying = it is relatively safe but has some risks think about it first
bungie jumping + death = See skiing
russian roulette + death = odds are in your favor, but still stupid to play
heart condition + ignoring your doctor's advice = selfish


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## AC986 (Feb 5, 2014)

Darthmorphling @ Wed Feb 05 said:


> russian roulette + death = odds are in your favor, but still stupid to play



:lol: :lol: 

Just had to single that one out from the pack.


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## NYC Composer (Feb 5, 2014)

Darthmorphling @ Wed Feb 05 said:


> I agree with everyone here in that compassion is a good thing. I genuienly feel bad about what happened. He was a terrific actor who has entertained me with his movies. I feel worse for his kids though.
> 
> Maybe Mike's tone could have been different. I disagree with his view that therapy does not work. I have seen it work wonders for members of my family. He is right though that whatever issues you are having, ultimately need to be changed by you. Sometimes it takes an impartial outsider to help you see that though.
> 
> ...



I don't think your anecdotal data is the rule. There's no question that bad parenting is rampant, still, how do you square the fact that by all accounts, he was a concerned, involved and doting parent (his kids went to the closest school to my son's elementary school, and he was apparently well known there) and an acknowledged addict who tried multiple times to deal with his addiction with his eventual death from drugs? Do you honestly think he only took drugs for kicks? 50 little baggies?

You're an educator. You know addiction is widely acknowledged as a disease. You may not know that heroin has the second highest recidivism rate, after cigarette smoking. It causes new receptors to form in the brain. There's a growing heroin problem in this country that is starting to look troubling. I thought we were done with this in the 89's when crack took over. It's an oldie but goodie.

My point about the various things that can kill you was this- if you must place blame for a parent dying, there are myriad things you could assign it to, and sure, some of them may be personal choices that went bad, i.e. extreme exercise or fooling with drugs. In every case i stated, some people blame the person rather than the disease or the sport or tbe randomness. People are so delighted to judge. I agreed there is a personal choice factor, but in addiction and death, it is more likely the disease killed, much like cancer. Real rehab=chemotherapy.

I think rather than judge the individual in this sad and tragic event, we should hope that it helps responsible parents everywhere look more closely at their life choices- and then we should simply mourn the loss of PSH. This Dickensian "are there no workhouses?" stuff just depresses me, and now I'm done.


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## Dave Connor (Feb 5, 2014)

I can't judge Mr. Hoffman because I haven't walked in his shoes. That said, once the body is _physically_ addicted to a drug, the game has changed and issues of self control and responsibility are trumped by an overpowering force. I suppose you can criticize the person for the decisions they made while they were in control but once they lose control you have a very different situation. A medical situation which requires professional expertise and help. People have their demons and sometimes come out on the losing end. 

The fact that he did stay sober for so long and was one of the best in his field on the planet is the story of an exceptional person not a pathetic loser.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 5, 2014)

> It's a fckin disease



Larry, read any of my previous posts in this thread. I'm with you 100%.

All I said is that there's *some truth* in what Mike and others are saying.

So don't use ME of all people as the "of all the...god" foil!


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## reddognoyz (Feb 5, 2014)

RE: Heroin

once the needle goes in, it never comes out. You can overcome your addiction and not take heroin, but the urge will always be there. I feel sorry for addicts... 

I quit smoking 30 years ago, I had pneumonia bad and it was the good outcome of a bad situation..... but I still like cigarettes, and have slipped a couple of times. Not recently and the urge has receded, but it's still there...


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## woodsdenis (Feb 5, 2014)

NYC Composer @ Wed Feb 05 said:


> Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Feb 05 said:
> 
> 
> > I don't think so, PMortise. Addiction is different from habit.
> ...



Well said


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## PMortise (Feb 5, 2014)

Nick Batzdorf @ Tue Feb 04 said:


> I don't think so, PMortise. Addiction is different from habit.
> 
> But to be honest I do see truth in Mike's and others' point about responsibility to your children.


I wasn't thinking habit, but what I should have said was "could be addicted" instead of "is addicted".

Habit is from practice. Some force of will has to be put into that, even if it isn't _your_ will. Addiction is from compulsion - substance as well as behavioral. And while I'm no expert on addiction, I've personally seen those blended as well, i.e addiction from habit.

One of my older sisters was a budding teen track & field star in the early 70's living as clean as can be. She went to a house party where someone slips her a "mickey" and she has a SERIOUS reaction to it. Someone from the hospital sized her up as a "typical" minority from Bed-Stuy and (under threat of having her arrested) coerced my mother to enter her into a methadone program which sent her on the path to addiction which not only ended her career, but eventually took her life.

Another example is from people who was staying at a homeless shelter that I worked at in the early 90's in NYC where if you were part of a certain program in which the city gave the shelter more money per filled bed then there was practically no chance of you ever losing your bed in the shelter. In order to be in that program you had to be registered as a "patient". For that, all one has to do is claim some mental or emotional disability and go through a sham of a screening. After that they were assigned a bed in a nicer part of the shelter - provided they take their daily meds. I personally saw people's lives and mental state disappear in that system. For those "patients", it was their will that started that ball rolling because they believed that was the easiest (or only) way to get off those cold and dangerous streets. For my sister, it was my mom's will to keep her daughter out of an unjust penal system.

My dad smoked from the time he was a teen until the doctor told him in his 50's "You have advanced emphysema and probably XXXX left to live." With that he quit cold turkey and lived 8 more years than the doctors predicted.

None of it's apples-to-apple of course, but that's why my gut feeling, uneducated theory, etc, is that with all things being equal, everyone has dopamine stored away with the potential for the right trigger to release that big rush. And with the right trigger and circumstances anyone _could_ slip into addiction. But since that's also a moving target (depending on whatever biological, psychological, or external factors are contributing to the current situation), that addictive level can change.

Who knows what PSH was going through? Most people on the outside only see THAT - the outside. Talented. Rich. Famous. I can only assume that he loved his kids as much as anyone else loves theirs, and in his mind he was doing what he thought he needed to do to cope with his situation. But on the other hand, I think Mike's and others' point about responsibility to your children really does add fuel to the discussion because generally speaking, that responsibility _should_ seem enough to balance the circumstances away from that kind of behavior. I KNOW I would drink more if there were no kids in the house. At the very least I would own a motorcycle!


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 5, 2014)

It is well said, but I resent being the foil for it, damn it! I agree with Larry.



> I feel sorry for addicts...
> 
> [cut]
> 
> I quit smoking 30 years ago, I had pneumonia bad and it was the good outcome of a bad situation..... but I still like cigarettes, and have slipped a couple of times. Not recently and the urge has receded, but it's still there...



So do I (feel sorry for them). And for perspective, I quit smoking over 36 years ago after smoking quite heavily as a teenager. In all that time I never had a single urge to smoke, not once, in fact I find it repulsive when anyone is near me with a cigarette.

And that's the difference between addiction and not. I only quit once, and I had zero withdrawal symptoms.

I can no more take credit for that than for my height.


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## Jaap (Feb 5, 2014)

First of all a great loss. He was an actor I really enjoyed seeing and you really believed him, no matter what role he played.

On the discussion of addiction and taking responsibilities. My early life has been a living hell, I still suffer complex PTSD up till today. From the outside I looked for a long time the most normal guy in the world. I finished conservatory, got a master on the university as well. Landed some nice jobs, had a steady income and decent house.
I could hide my problems for a long time. People didn't know I had sleeping disorders, that I suffered dissociations as soon as I got outside since the world was too scary.
I have been an alcohol and cocaine addict and I managed to stop that in my early 20's. However, other addictions took it over (study, work, excessive sport etc, heck I could even get addicted to folding napkins if it eases my pain and flashbacks).

I am 13 years clean now and when my fiance died last year in our house fire, the first thing I craved for was cocaine. I resisted it, but the urge was still there. The brain is addicted and will stay addicted. You can be clean as long as you can, but still if there is a little twist, something fucked up in your brain is happening and all the hard work you did to stay clean is almost instantly made impossible.

I took my own responsibilties in live by deciding I could not be a good father. Not that I am not a nice person, but because my past is too heavy and my current state is in my opinion not good enough to raise a child, eventhough it was a wish me and my fiance had for a long time. However this does not mean that everyone with a similar background should do the same. Quite the contrary. Important is that people think about their responsibilities and try to take them, in whatever way.

In the end it doesn't matter if you help yourself by going to a shrink, or going the other way like Mike. The important thing is that you know yourself and what risks you can form when you commit yourself to another person or decide to raise a child.

The world is extremely grey, but we like to judge in black and white. We form our opinions on people like PSH, but also here on this topic against Mike Verta.
It is a shame that we do that since we cannot ever see the world through the other ones eyes, nor expect him or her to live up to our own expectations in what we think is common sence and socially accepted behaviour.
I have seen people in my therapy group who where like me heavily abused, who are still drug addict, but are the greatest parents you can imagine, just because they know how they are and how to deal with themselves.
Of course then are gazillion other examples who are the opposite, but we should never judge on the outside or even based on statement based via conversations on an internet forum.


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## AC986 (Feb 5, 2014)

I'm 6' 2'' and 1/2 and the half inch is very important to me. Once I lose that 1/2 inch I know I'm in trouble. I could easily take to drugs at that point.

Sometimes, with the best will in the world, I think most Americans are fucking mad. That's not to say I would like to be without them, because I wouldn't. But you have some very strange ideas about life compared to the English.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 5, 2014)

Bad news, Adrian. I'm English.


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## givemenoughrope (Feb 5, 2014)

PSH was a giant at 46. Huge loss to film. The fact that he went from pain killers to heroin hits home for me personally as well. 

mverta, the bitterness and short-sightedness in your posts do not surprise. I was thinking about taking your JW course but unfortunately it's off my list now. But what do you care…karma, or something...


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## AC986 (Feb 6, 2014)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Feb 05 said:


> Bad news, Adrian. I'm English.



Well........obviously.


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