jewels

Especially since the Coroner ruled it as "accidental".

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We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
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MSD

Ambien is a benzo derivative, which slows everything down, and he was on at least two opiates, which generally cause respiratory depression. I think there was an antibiotic or two in the mix, too. OTC antihistamines combined with opiates can kick up the effects, so if someone is at a high dose of opiates and takes Benadryl (etc.) it's possible to fall asleep and just stop breathing, especially if there are a bunch of other medications. There's also the possibility of Amiben-induced sleepwalking and ODing on whatever is around.

Frosstbyte

An "accident" is when an air conditioner falls out of the wall of a 30 story apartment building and lands on you, not when you take 6 different powerful pain and sleep medications at the same time and your heart stops. It's an overdose. It might not have been recreationally motivated overdose and it might not have been suicide, but the man still took a lot of drugs.

The_Jazz

It was an "accidental overdose", which means that he didn't do it to kill himself and didn't do it to get high. He did it to relieve symptoms and miscalculated.

On a side note, maybe Westboro Babtist will go to Australia to protest the funeral and be refused entry back into the country. Hey, I can dream, can't I?

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Willravel

I was hoping they'd crash and join the cast of Lost. Not get hurt, but rather be surrounded by what they would automatically interpret as "the devil".

Frosstbyte

You don't understand the most basic imperative of existence? In case you missed the memo, it's to stay alive long enough to create offspring and care for them until they can care for themselves. The self affirmation is "I'm a better survivor than that person. Yay me." Yay indeed for those of us who are still here because we knew better than to overdose, accidentally or intentionally.

Hain

That is far more interesting than my idea... Maybe I should watch that show...

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Glory's Sun

I don't understand why everyone thinks he's a dumbass. Ok so the man took alot of powerful meds. Most people don't even know how powerful med's are unless they are directly told. They just blindly take whatever the doc prescribes. They don't know about interactions and the possible consequences. And (even though it's been mentioned several times already) it's very, VERY, possible the man was in a sleep-walking type state of mind from the Ambien when he took the lethal combination. This is why I have my pills locked up when I'm on Ambien. I don't want to be in that state and do this exact thing. So everyone can say he's stupid, blah blah blah.. but the truth of the matter is that most people don't really know what they are taking and just how powerful what they are taking can be.. or how lethal.

Hain

[sarcastic]In case you missed all that history, the demands have changed. Nothing is simple. With that in mind, let's keep you awake for days on end with little sleep over a period no longer... than a few months. We'll observe how well you make decisions at that point.[/sarcastic]

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mixedmedia

The most basic imperative of existence is to gossip and judge others based on specious, mean-spirited opinions of the events leading up to someone's death?

Thanks for reminding me that we all, truly, deserve to die.

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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Frosstbyte

Judging others indeed.

I'm not saying he deserved to die or that he was a bad person. I'm saying that, for me, personal responsibility is very important and holding people accountable for their choices-good or bad-is important. It sounds like he made a lot of bad choices-overextending himself for his career, getting lots of powerful medications and using them simultaneously, being so stressed about work or life that he couldn't sleep and continuing to do things despite that. Even so, I'm not saying he deserved to die because he made those choices, just that I don't think excuses need to be made for him. I think he was a good person, and certainly a good actor, who overburdened himself and got trapped in a nosedive of high stress, unhealthy living and prescription medication. That doesn't make him a bad person but it does make him at high risk to have what did happen to him happen.

The people I feel bad for are Michelle Williams and their young child. Heath had the opportunity to make different (perhaps better) choices. He didn't. I like that he's free to make those choices. But I'm not going to say "poor him he was stressed and tired" or "blame his doctors for prescribing too much medicine" because it ended poorly. That's life.