The Peaches Problem: Can’t We Stop Judging?
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The Peaches Problem: Can’t We Stop Judging?

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peaches Geldof deathReading the news reports of Peaches Geldof’s death these past few days has left me feeling somewhat disheartened and just a tad hopeless. Peaches, the daughter of Bob Geldof—who pioneered the mammoth charity fundraiser Live Aid—was found dead in her home in the UK earlier this week. The results of the post-mortem carried out yesterday were inconclusive and the results of a toxicology report are awaited.

Young Tragedy

The untimely death of a young, vibrant person is always shocking. At just 25, most of us are only beginning to get a foothold on our lives but Peaches leaves behind two young sons and her musician husband Tom Cohen, the former lead singer of the London based punk band S.C.U.M.

Peaches’ life was marred by loss and tragedy. Her own drug issues and earlier wild child lifestyle are well documented: her mother Paula Yates died of a heroin overdose in 2000 when Peaches was just 11 years old. After splitting with Peaches’ father, Yates dated INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence. They had a daughter together, Tiger Lilly. Hutchence himself died in 1997; the coroner’s report stated the cause of death was suicide. That’s a whole lot of loss and tragedy for one family to endure.

Still Misunderstanding Addicts

And while there has been a huge outpouring of sadness at the loss of yet another young life, what strikes me the most are the comments on some of the articles I read about the tragedy. My disheartenment and hopelessness comes from the fact that no matter how hard some of us try to spread awareness about the fact that addiction is a disease, there are still quite a number of people who view addicts as immoral, unfeeling and not worthy of compassion or sympathy—even in the most tragic of circumstances. The comment that really made me feel ill was from a woman who said the death was sad but if it was from drug addiction, she had no sympathy. And this type of comment was echoed again and again. These sort of uneducated and close-minded feelings make me want to slap these idiotic, egotistical cretins. It appears that for these people, sympathy for tragic death is only reserved for those who die in an appropriate manner!

Alas, this kind of attitude is not just reserved for the rich and famous whose lives are open to judgmental criticism on a daily basis. Nope, indeed. I, an Irish single mother who is far from famous and even further from rich and who is a recovering addict/alcoholic, have experienced this Nazi type of thinking as well. Yes, I’ve been treated like a leper by people who will no longer associate with me since they found out I’m in recovery from addiction. Funny how that works. I was perfectly acceptable when I was sitting on a barstool drinking myself into oblivion but once I labeled myself an alkie and got some help, I became an embarrassment. The “I’m so much better than you” attitude towards people with the disease of addiction is engrained in a large part of society in most countries in the world. We are easy targets for ridicule and insult still. Even after all the years of research and debate as to whether addiction is a disease or not—which by the way, it officially is—we are still expected to endure this endless chastisement.

More Common than We Realize

I, for one, am sick of it. I’m tired of having to defend myself. There is no other disease in the world where you have to defend the fact that you have an incurable and possibly fatal illness, and addiction of any kind is not a choice. I also believe that there are very few inhabiting this planet that don’t depend on something to get through a day. Drug taking and alcohol drinking, as people who have bothered to educated themselves well know, is merely a symptom of a much deeper and complex disease of the mind and body. Addiction is not exclusive to chemicals. Indeed, my own disease has permeated into food (both to little of it and too much), shopping and sexual relationships, amongst other things. It’s hard to find a drug addict or alcoholic who doesn’t have further issues with other dependencies. We as human begins, living in this modern and increasingly stressful society, find that all too often, we seek our value by looking to something outside of ourselves. Perhaps we work ridiculous hours neglecting family and other responsibilities. Maybe our tendency to spend money is excessive and we would rather not look at those credit card bills that are chasing us. It’s possible we’re telling ourselves that this is the last extramarital affair we will have but can’t seem to stop when everything inside is telling us it is wrong and the consequences could be devastating. I’m sure if each and every one of us took an honest and thorough look at our lives and how we conduct ourselves, we would find a much less healthy inventory than we expected.

And just because these other obsessions are not chemicals that we swallow or shoot into our arms doesn’t mean that they don’t cause as much hurt and devastation as a chemically dependent person does. Of course they do. I’ve know many people who have had non-chemical addictions that were their ultimate downfall. It’s estimated that one in 13 people in this world have an addiction or dependency of some sort. That’s a hell of a lot of people and a hell of a lot of family members who are affected. This statistic makes it virtually impossible for any of us not to be touched by addiction in one way or another. Yet some still choose the high moral ground and refuse to acknowledge what’s right in front of them. Because of the shame and taboo that still surrounds having any sort of mental health problem or addiction—shame that’s fuelled by these vomit-inducing comments—people would rather suffer in silence or live in denial than come out and seek help for a disease that kills millions of people every year.

Regardless of the cause of this young woman’s death, the fact is that whether it be from a drugs overdose, suicide or natural causes, she was very sick and her death is a devastating tragedy. She deserves respect, as does every other person on this planet who is struggling with physical and mental health issues. And yes, that includes drug addicts and alcoholics.

Photo courtesy of LGEPR [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons (resized and cropped)

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About Author

Nicola O’Hanlon is part of the blogging community for the recovery website intherooms.com. You can see her blogs on iloverecovery.com. She was born and still lives in Wexford, Ireland.