Honestly, I couldnt give 2 shits about how long he used painkillers. The simple fict is, Prince became addicted, he was very private, and it turned fatal.. It F'n sucks, its horrible, it is still a bit surreal and it likely could have been prevented.

DarkKnight1 said:

Honestly, I couldnt give 2 shits about how long he used painkillers. The simple fict is, Prince became addicted, he was very private, and it turned fatal.. It F'n sucks, its horrible, it is still a bit surreal and it likely could have been prevented.

Yeah, that too.

Jennifer is terrific, but she has been vilified for her opinion on Prince's drug use by many hardcore fans. She makes very good points. She has been there. She understands the process.

1Sasha said:

Jennifer is terrific, but she has been vilified for her opinion on Prince's drug use by many hardcore fans. She makes very good points. She has been there. She understands the process.

Regardless of her experience she is clutching at straws. She heard he had the same drug as her so she thinks his experience must've been the same & takes things she's read who knows where as hard fact in order to back up her argument.

The pinpoint pupils thing is stupid. So is the "What is the cultural prejudice that drives your unwillingness to think that your beloved artist could be a stone junkie?" The article seems to be about her and how she can somehow make her experience similar to P's so she can sell her book.

I looked at him in the 80s and thought most likely he is using drugs like most other band members. The interviewer thought P was clean because P and everyone around him kept emphasising it for so blasted long.

And as for the fentanyl patches - they are really not so dangerous (compared to oxy for example) unless you do things like cut them up and suck on them to take away a pain that she now manages through diet and exercise. That really is stupid - but everyone does stupid things so I am not judging her for that. There are a lot of things that are dangerous if you are careless about them (e.g. driving, a lot of sports etc). Most fentanyl users are in serious pain though and if used correctly the patches give a steady release of the drug without the ups and downs of pills. People that cut them up, suck on them or sell the things are probably jeopardising the access of people in pain to this medication as well as risking lives.

If P had Fentanyl on prescription then he certainly stepped up slowly from other drugs - but was that his source? If he obtained the Fentanyl from elsewhere then he is even more likely to OD if he wasn't used to it.

1Sasha said:

Jennifer is terrific, but she has been vilified for her opinion on Prince's drug use by many hardcore fans. She makes very good points. She has been there. She understands the process.

Her experience is valid. Her experience pasted on somebody she didn't know no matter who it was is ridiculous and more speculation laid on top of more speculation. Period. Her ability or terrific-ness doesn't enter into it.

morningsong said:

This same article again where somebody is trying to cut and paste their experience on somebody they didn't know and never had a real conversation with. Using a handful of photographs as some kind of circumstantial evidence that they are quite knowledgeable about another person's habits. Bullsh*t! Any fool can do that. Go to the picture thread and you'll see this man's history laid out before and you still won't know jack about him and his daily life.

You could have said 'projection issue' to save time.

laurarichardson said:

lwr001 said:

https://www.minnpost.com/mental-health-addiction/2016/06/jennifer-matesa-writer-addiction-prince-was-out-there-his-own [Edited 8/18/16 8:07am] Last week, when the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office released its official report, concluding that Prince had died of self-administered fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid painkiller, I recalled a conversation I’d had back in 2014 with Jennifer Matesa, blogger, recipient of a SAMHSA Voice Awards Fellowship, and author of “The Recovering Body: Physical and Spiritual Fitness for Living Clean and Sober.” In our earlier conversation, Matesa had described her own addiction to fentanyl, and the long and painful process she endured to get the drug out of her system. Then, I paid a visit to Guinevere Gets Sober, Matesa’s popular recovery blog, where I read her personal and compassionate post about Prince, and I knew we had to talk. I gave Matesa a call at her Pittsburgh home earlier this week, and we had a wide-ranging conversation about my favorite musician’s dangerous addiction, his untimely death and about what may have motivated him to use opiates in the first place. The interview has been edited and trimmed. MinnPost: What inspired you to write about Prince on your blog? Jennifer Matesa: As a creative person and a former addict, I have an affinity with Prince. Creative types tend to drive themselves past certain limits. Prince was a physically small man. He was smaller than I am. He spent the majority of his life jumping and dancing around on stage wearing high heels with a heavy guitar strapped on his chest. You can’t expect to do that for 30 years without damaging your body or injuring your psyche. When Prince died in April, at first some people said he was taking Percocet [acetaminophen and oxycodone]. But when I read that they had to give him a save shot when his plane made an emergency landing in Moline, I said, “There was no way he was just taking Percocet. ... He was probably taking a single-entity opioid, and it was probably pretty strong.” I know my drugs. MP: So you’re theorizing that Prince’s addiction started a long time before he died? JM: I’ve read that he was on strong opioids for 25 or 30 years. If that’s so, that means that he probably produced most of the body of his work while on opioids. There are files of photos of him where his pupils are pinned (abnormally constricted). I’ve looked it up online and this goes way, way back. Pinned pupils are the one sign of opioid abuse that a user can’t hide. Photos of Prince, even in low light, show that his pupils are pinned. MP: Clearly, I’m a deluded Minnesotan. I always thought that Prince was sober because he was famous for living such a clean lifestyle. I was sad for me to hear that he was addicted to opioids. Jennifer Matesa Jennifer Matesa JM: I think it is interesting that you say that. What is the cultural prejudice that drives your unwillingness to think that your beloved artist could be a stone junkie? I don’t use words like “junkie” lightly. I used to call myself a junkie. A person can be addicted and still be an artist. They can be addicted and still be an amazing person. MP: Are people ever prescribed fentanyl for hip pain? Could Prince have been getting the drug legally from his physician? JM: Where he got the drug doesn’t matter. The fact is that Prince’s tox screen at the end of his life said that he had fentanyl in his bloodstream. He overdosed on fentanyl. That’s it. I almost overdosed on fentanyl a few times. It [is scary]. MP: How did you end up taking fentanyl? JM: I didn’t start out with fentanyl. I have migraines and fibromyalgia. I started out with codeine during my pregnancy. Then, after I stopped breastfeeding, I switched to Vicodin [acetaminophen and hydrocodone]. When I went to a pain clinic in my hometown of Pittsburgh, I was given pure hydrocodone. Then I moved to OxyContin [oxycodone] and then eventually to fentanyl. By 2005, I was on straight fentanyl patches. I was also given fentanyl lollypops for free. They would give you coupons to take to the pharmacy. I became addicted through my prescribers. It was a particular moment in medical history when physicians were prescribing opioids for all kinds of conditions. MP: But fentanyl is so potent. I thought it was usually reserved for people who are actively dying. JM: That’s not always the case in the United States. Once, when I was traveling overseas, I ran out of fentanyl patches. I went to a pharmacist, who said, “We only give those to people with cancer.” But in this country we give powerful painkillers like that to a lot of people who do not have a fatal disease. Fentanyl is the most potent painkiller. You can’t start on it. It could kill you if you did. You’d have to be taking other opioids for a while first. It is pharmacologically different from other opioids. It is fat-soluble. That means it crosses the blood-brain barrier quickly. That’s part of the reason that fentanyl deaths are increasing in this country. They are not nearly at the level of other opioid-based drugs like heroin, but they are happening. The Federal Drug Abuse Warning Network says that it is very hard for EMS personnel to get to fentanyl victims quickly enough because the drug works so fast. MP: You just said you almost overdosed on fentanyl a few times. How did that happen? JM: I almost overdosed on fentanyl because I took too much. I didn’t go to a hospital. I was lucky I survived. I abused my drugs. I was prescribed adhesive patches that were intended to be placed directly on the skin. But I got to a point where I’d cut my patches into small pieces and stick them to the inside of my cheek so the fentanyl would enter my system faster. I’d do this when I had run out of the drug for a few days before I could fill a new prescription. I’d be in withdrawal, and I figured out that it was a faster way to get the drug into my system. When the drug entered my bloodstream that way, it would spike the levels in my blood. I clearly remember lying in bed at night and feeling that my breathing was slowing. I’d wonder to myself, “Is my body going to remember to breathe?” Sometimes I’d keep myself awake because I didn’t have a way to reverse the effects of the drug. MP: This sounds frightening. What did it feel like? JM: The feeling of respiratory depression is really scary. It is beyond your control. It is almost as if you are lying down and someone is stacking bricks on your chest. You can’t breathe. I am very fortunate that I didn’t die. If you write in your column that I told you I cut the patch into pieces, make sure to say it can kill you. It is lethal. MP: I know that this question may be going too far, but I’m still going to ask it: When you experienced that feeling of respiratory depression, were you ever at the point where you just thought, “Maybe I should surrender to this?” If you’d rather not answer, I’d respect that. JM: Actually, it’s a really great question, because so many people are overdosing these days and a lot of the discussion about addiction is being driven around whether people who fatally overdose actually do it on purpose. I personally think that a lot or even most of these overdoses are accidents. People don’t actually want to die. They either have taken heroin that is spiked with a drug that is stronger than they thought it was, or they take an opioid with alcohol or a benzodiazepine and that makes it fatal. Those few times when I experienced respiratory depression, I didn’t want to die. I had a young child and I wanted to stay alive for him. One of the reasons I got sober was because I wanted to be present for my son and for other loved ones in my life. Then, as I started to get better, I realized that I had things I wanted to do in life that might actually help other people and I needed to stay alive and sober in order to do that. MP: You still suffer from migraines and fibromyalgia. How do you do to treat your pain now? JM: I use exercise and meditation. I use appropriate diet. I use nonaddictive medication to get rid of the headaches. These are all things that I’ve written about in my book. What I’ve tried to do to treat my pain is to take better care of my body. I have to understand my limits. I cannot dig in the garden for eight hours. I have to pay attention to my pain and take care of it and not just numb it. MP: Do you think Prince was numbing his pain? JM: How do I know what Prince was really doing? There are ways in which creative people get afraid that the creativity will someday leave them. That’s what drives the anxiety and sometimes the use. I know it worked that way for me. MP: That sounds like a much bigger problem than straight-up addiction. JM: In this country you are not supposed to suffer emotional pain. That is not the American way. We are supposed to have these easygoing, carefree lives. But every life comes with unhappiness and struggle. The way we get through that is community. In the case of Prince, we’re talking about a person who had this really tough childhood, yet he had this extraordinary talent. Then he proves himself and then he becomes super-famous and wealthy. That is a recipe for isolation. What kind of community does a person have when he lives in a compound? What kind of web of love and trust and friendship does a person have when he is that famous and recognizable? In so many ways Prince was out there on his own. [Edited 8/18/16 8:07am] [Edited 8/18/16 8:10am]

/\ I am sorry she lost me as his pupils looked pinned. She could tell that from picture. If had been on these things for 30 he would have been dead as s doornail a long time ago,

Not true, many users have taken these substances for 30+ years and they're still here. It's not that unusual.

NouveauDance said:

Thread title delivered: It is worth reading, and it did bring up some good points. Thanks.

.

I thought the part about people not starting on fentanyl was interesting. And the person being interviewed never tried to second guess Prince's motives. The last paragraph was particularly poignant and something that has been touched on many times over the years by fans.

+1 it wasn't the pinned pupils that made me wonder, it was when he started wearing shades all the time. hiding what he was going thru and(now we know) a dependancy issue.

fortuneandserendipity said:

morningsong said:

This same article again where somebody is trying to cut and paste their experience on somebody they didn't know and never had a real conversation with. Using a handful of photographs as some kind of circumstantial evidence that they are quite knowledgeable about another person's habits. Bullsh*t! Any fool can do that. Go to the picture thread and you'll see this man's history laid out before and you still won't know jack about him and his daily life.

You could have said 'projection issue' to save time.

I might the next time, but I think this time I made my point which was the objective.

rogifan said:

I don't get the whole pupil thing. I've seen photos of Primce from say, 1999 where he had tiny pupils and some from 2014/15 where he didn't. It's not like other attributes where you could clearly see he looked much different in April 2016 than he did in January 2013. Based on other posts from the OP I get the feeling they believe P was a long time addict and posted this because it fits their agenda. [Edited 8/18/16 10:01am]

.

.

The problem with this is that no one can say for certain what kind of light the pictures were taken in. Without that inforamtion, it's hard to make a judgement on whether or not he had pinned pupils or just eyes reacting normally to the light they are exposed to at the moment.

.

That photo 3rd from the bottom is definitely 'older' Prince, and the light doesn't look too bright. His eyes look as normal as mine, and have to be really suffering before I agree to take an aspirin.

.

Bottom line, we don't know, that person being interviewed doesn't know, and none of us will ever know for sure.

Fentanyl is a ridiculously strong drug. It points to a picture of Prince long having used other drugs before he got to fentanyl. While it really bothers me to say that it seems far more likely the case, than him just stumbling upon fentanyl soon after starting other pain medications.

Also the silence from family, friends and former band members again points to something more sinister than just one or two time 'accidental overdose'.

wavesofbliss said:

All this proves is that pupils dilate in high light situations.

sunset3121 said:

lwr001 said:

You are correct , that caught my attention as well also , then looking at historical photos and makign the statement about the pupils being pinned and saying there was evidence from photos years ago of pinned pupils

And turning this into a photo thread, here is some historical evidence:

[Edited 8/18/16 11:42am]

fortuneandserendipity said:

morningsong said:

rogifan said:

fortuneandserendipity said:

Fentanyl is a ridiculously strong drug. It points to a picture of Prince long having used other drugs before he got to fentanyl. While it really bothers me to say that it seems far more likely the case, than him just stumbling upon fentanyl soon after starting other pain medications.

Also the silence from family, friends and former band members again points to something more sinister than just one or two time 'accidental overdose'.

Again this is all guessing. And I'm not sure what silence you're referring to. Sheila E. said she never even saw Prince take aspirin. Des Dickerson said the Prince he knew was not involved with drugs. Prince's lawyer and bodyguard said he was not abusing drugs. Of course the response usually is to discount what they said because either they worked with Prince a long time ago or weren't around him 24/7. One could also argue that if Prince had been using opioids for a long period of time there would have many more rumors about it (and the floodgates would have opened after his death).

Prince treated his body like a temple, that is a long known fact, he has helped others have a cleaner body, that is a fact, it takes incredible discipline to live and eat the way Prince did to remain as healthy as possible. We can either believe and trust the people that were around him every day and what we have come to know over the years about Prince through his many actions that back up his clean lifestyle, or, we can believe the narrative that has been shoved down our throats by the media. I for one feel every aspect of what we have been told has holes all over it, we all know what those holes are.

I will say again, Sheila E. mentioned he was always in pain, what she didn't mention was the severity of that pain, but in the same breath, she included herself in there as well, you get older, you perform a lot, you get pains here and there.

I will pose this question again, if Prince was taking pain medication all the time, or, abusing pain medication, how on earth would Sheila E. 'always' have seen him in pain'? If he was doped up all the time on pain meds, guess what, he would not be in pain, and Sheila would therefore have never seen him in pain.

[Edited 8/18/16 11:55am]

rogifan said:

fortuneandserendipity said:

Fentanyl is a ridiculously strong drug. It points to a picture of Prince long having used other drugs before he got to fentanyl. While it really bothers me to say that it seems far more likely the case, than him just stumbling upon fentanyl soon after starting other pain medications.

Also the silence from family, friends and former band members again points to something more sinister than just one or two time 'accidental overdose'.

Again this is all guessing. And I'm not sure what silence you're referring to. Sheila E. said she never even saw Prince take aspirin. Des Dickerson said the Prince he knew was not involved with drugs. Prince's lawyer and bodyguard said he was not abusing drugs. Of course the response usually is to discount what they said because either they worked with Prince a long time ago or weren't around him 24/7. One could also argue that if Prince had been using opioids for a long period of time there would have many more rumors about it (and the floodgates would have opened after his death).

I just don't buy the "Prince was on drugs for 30 years". The "clean living Prince" image was so strong, and he fell out with so many people over his career, that if there was the slightest hint of him being a habitual drug user for most of his life I think someone would have called him out for his hypocrisy by now.

The only article I've seen which said he had an addiction lasting that long is the interview with his "dealer" from the Mail, who also said he was already addicted to opiates by the time he filmed Purple Rain, and also speed... I can't see how it stacks up - someone would have noticed something over three decades - mood swings / anxiety / near misses (like on the plane)... but there's nothing, other than the collapse in the studio 20 years ago...

Robbajobba said:

rogifan said:

fortuneandserendipity said: Again this is all guessing. And I'm not sure what silence you're referring to. Sheila E. said she never even saw Prince take aspirin. Des Dickerson said the Prince he knew was not involved with drugs. Prince's lawyer and bodyguard said he was not abusing drugs. Of course the response usually is to discount what they said because either they worked with Prince a long time ago or weren't around him 24/7. One could also argue that if Prince had been using opioids for a long period of time there would have many more rumors about it (and the floodgates would have opened after his death).

I just don't buy the "Prince was on drugs for 30 years". The "clean living Prince" image was so strong, and he fell out with so many people over his career, that if there was the slightest hint of him being a habitual drug user for most of his life I think someone would have called him out for his hypocrisy by now.

The only article I've seen which said he had an addiction lasting that long is the interview with his "dealer" from the Mail, who also said he was already addicted to opiates by the time he filmed Purple Rain, and also speed... I can't see how it stacks up - someone would have noticed something over three decades - mood swings / anxiety / near misses (like on the plane)... but there's nothing, other than the collapse in the studio 20 years ago...

In my opinion that article was fake and that dealer doesnt even exist, it came out too fast and was too detailed to be real, and what drug dealer would ever pose for a picture after what they dealt killed the biggest star on the planet? They would be in freakin hiding. Also, he was holding up a fentanyl patch 5 weeks before the world knew what killed him. None of this strikes anyone as odd? Just seems all too easy to me, the undiscerning 5 weeks later will say, oh yeah, fentanyl, wasn't his dealer holding up that patch? Yeah, that makes sense. Case closed.

[Edited 8/18/16 12:06pm]

leadline said:

Robbajobba said:

I just don't buy the "Prince was on drugs for 30 years". The "clean living Prince" image was so strong, and he fell out with so many people over his career, that if there was the slightest hint of him being a habitual drug user for most of his life I think someone would have called him out for his hypocrisy by now.

The only article I've seen which said he had an addiction lasting that long is the interview with his "dealer" from the Mail, who also said he was already addicted to opiates by the time he filmed Purple Rain, and also speed... I can't see how it stacks up - someone would have noticed something over three decades - mood swings / anxiety / near misses (like on the plane)... but there's nothing, other than the collapse in the studio 20 years ago...

In my opinion that article was fake and that dealer doesnt even exist, it came out too fast and was too detailed to be real, and what drug dealer would ever pose for a picture after what they dealt killed the biggest star on the planet? They would be in freakin hiding. Also, he was holding up a fentanyl patch 5 weeks before the world knew what killed him. None of this strikes anyone as odd? Just seems all too easy to me, the undiscerning 5 weeks later will say, oh yeah, fentanyl, wasn't his dealer holding up that patch? Yeah, that makes sense. Case closed.

[Edited 8/18/16 12:06pm]

Yes it was like planting the seed. Very fake & a very strange situation.

Robbajobba said:

we've already discussed this article. at a photoshoot there are often a shitload of lights around, that seems to be a fairly obvious answer.

rogifan said:

Robbajobba said:

I just don't buy the "Prince was on drugs for 30 years". The "clean living Prince" image was so strong, and he fell out with so many people over his career, that if there was the slightest hint of him being a habitual drug user for most of his life I think someone would have called him out for his hypocrisy by now.

The only article I've seen which said he had an addiction lasting that long is the interview with his "dealer" from the Mail, who also said he was already addicted to opiates by the time he filmed Purple Rain, and also speed... I can't see how it stacks up - someone would have noticed something over three decades - mood swings / anxiety / near misses (like on the plane)... but there's nothing, other than the collapse in the studio 20 years ago...

Exactly. I get that someone managing chronic pain could be using painkillers and still functioning normally so no one would know If they weren't told. But it's highly unlikely Prince would be managing chronic pain in the early 80s so then he would've been using this stuff just to get high and if that's the case I think it would be nearly impossible to hide that from people, especially if was something he had been doing for 30+ years. Then of course just the notion that you could take stuff like this and live that long and with no adverse side effects. Up until late 2014/2015 Prince looked perfectly normal and healthy. That's why I call BS in all of this.

I tend to agree, but one thing sort of nags my mind. Have you ever seen an alcoholic who they call a "maintenance drinker" someone who drinks all the time and still holds it all down and doesn't come across as a drunk? I don't really know why that is the case with some people and not with others but it is. Some people you give them one drink and they either get violent, can't speak, get sloppy and others drink all fucking day and function fine. I don't quite understand it, I guess it would have something to do with what's really going on in a persons subconscious. People who have a lot of unresolved childhood issues just fall apart, people who are just sort of going after a buzz don't. I really don't know though. Just look at Native American's, i don't think it's just the alcohol, it's tons and tons of trauma.

a nurse stated on another thread that longtime users and people who have dependancies don't usually have tell-tale signs of using. that has been experience as well.

i know what you're saying about drunks tho. the way they hold their drink is a unpredictable.

[Edited 8/18/16 14:06pm]

PeteSilas said:

leadline said:

wavesofbliss said:

Wow, what an amazing article. She has a unique perspective and I'm glad she shared it. For Prince fans, I think she offered something really vaulable in telling her story and it gave us more insight with what he may have been suffering with. I really always wondered why Prince was so secretive about his life, sometimes irrationally so imo, however, if part of that was due to struggling with an opioid dependence off and on for years, it would really make sense. Someone else on this board mentioned Prince was a very prideful man, and I agree. But the more people talk about their struggles that can help strip away the "shame" of additction and disipate the stigma surrounding stuff like this. Since Prince has been through many traumas and a painful childhood, I can completley understand why he had this fierce need to protect himself, and gaurd his privacy. The sensation of being "open" and vulnrable is very frightening to those who have been victims in some way and I suspect this is why Prince always seemed to act like everything in his life was fine. His need for control always seemed to be at the forfront of his life, common for those who have suffered from abuse or neglect in their younger years. And yes this lady's observation that fame, notoriety, was very isolating for him and that was very tragic because how did he really know who to trust?, how could he stay connected to others, who really liked him for who he was as a person, not the star? All of his behavior makes sense in context. However, now that he has passed on and in heaven, I actually think whatever happened to him and/or his struggles could be used to bring awareness and eventually help others. Sure there will always be judgemental people out there but there are also compassionate ones as well.

fortuneandserendipity said:

lwr001 said: