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Memorial to what?
Whenever a prominent figure with a history of substance abuse dies prematurely, the networks, cable news, and other media think it is helpful to turn to recovery figures to explain what went wrong with the deceased. But what went wrong was, if not traditional substance abuse care itself, at least something that was not successfully addressed by this care. Whitney Houston in particular had been through any number of treatment programs and claimed emergences into recovery—all of which seemingly failed her. Turning to typical recovery "experts" (read 12-step advocates and adherents) is like asking a witch doctor who has danced around someone who died of cancer what went wrong. "I didn't dance long enough" (or let out enough blood, or pray hard enough).
Whitney is an example of the effects of stardom. No she's not. How many people in the entertainment industry die at her age? Is the prevalence of deadly substance abuse really significantly greater for people in this group than it is for people in the general population? It might instead be significantly less (as it may be for sports figures when compared with people their age from comparable social backgrounds who do not become professional athletes). A parallel misconception is that Whitney needed to retreat from the spotlight if she expected to survive. Was Michael Jackson, for instance, better off when he was in a steep professional decline? Are Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and George Clooney going to die any time soon? Houston was not very visible in recent years—she had largely retreated from performing. This wasn't a good thing for her. Not facing the demands of work and fans is certainly no guarantee of recovery—indeed, participating in work and community are keynotes of recovery as it has recently been redefined by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA).
Houston died due to illicit drug use. We still need to learn from what Houston died. The initial suspicion was that her death was directly due to illicit substance use. But think of how often this expectation has been proved wrong recently. No drugs were found in Amy Winehouse's system—as many originally expected—but rather excessive amounts of alcohol. Heath Ledger's body was overloaded with prescribed pharmaceuticals. The same was apparently true for Anna Nicole Smith and her son. Rumors have likewise quickly surfaced that Houston died as a result of misuse of prescribed medications. While in some sense it doesn't matter from what kind of substances Houston died, it does put a different cast on matters when the cause of death is traced to substances that are prescribed by physicians, rather than procured on the street. At a minimum, this suggests that deadly drug use isn't reduced by policies like interdiction of illicit drug supplies or the arrest of street drug sellers.
Americans can never come to grips with the nature of drug use, addiction, and "overdose" deaths—we are merely likely to find confirmation of our misconceptions about these things and, thus, to repeat them endlessly.
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* Follow-up reports indicate that, in her last days, Houston was publicly intoxicated (including getting drunk with her teen-age daughter), violent, disheveled, unable to make appointments, et al. I always wonder about the people -- friends -- who laud a star on her death, but were nowhere around or aware as she descended into hell.
