I was watching Robin Williams clips today. I remember his death as being quite sad for myself and most people who heard about it. But it occurred to me that even though Williams had a well-known drug and alcohol problem off and on through out his life, he died of something unrelated and therefore his legacy is not tainted with that awful 'drug addict' stigma.

Prince on the other hand seems to have had a short term addiction that was a result of physical pain. He didn't really even get much of a chance to even fight his addiction before he was deceased. He had never in the past been a recreational user. And now he has a drug addict label.

Don't get me wrong, I feel sorry for anyone with an addiction. The Amy Winehouse documentary last year had me in tears. But as much pity as we have for people with addictions, most of us still feel a bit bitter about musicians so frequently giving into that temptation. We sympathize with their suffering but resent that they even took up drugs in the first place (like they hadn't themselves heard of the hundreds of musicians etc who died of drugs.)

With Prince, his situation is so specific and heartbreaking, it is a double whammy when I read internet comments just dismissing him as a junkie.

Williams was more of a junkie than Prince ever was. NOt that I am comparing the tragedies of their deaths, just the labeling.

[Edited 1/17/17 14:16pm]

I think his way is a pretty good one 2 deal with it

Oh, the press doesn't spin it that way. But read internet comments under yahoo news. "Junkie" pops up constantly.

jcurley said:

I don't think anybody thinks that way about Prince. It's been made so blatantly clear he wasn't a recreational user but a victim of over self medicating like Matthew Perry etc.

Post here http://prince.org/msg/7/436606