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carrie toms's avatar

Either you don't understand/didn't give any thought to addiction and what it means to help yourself, or you are just a mean sonofabitch.

Any addict that undertakes to do things differently than their addiction demands is helping themselves on a massively heroic scale. That he piled day after day of getting up and doing it again one on top of another is laudable. He definitely helped himself and will help countless more who are taking his death as a wake-up call to deal with their own addictions (regardless of how his death played out).

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Kathy Geer's avatar

Carrie Tom’s comments above are apt. I am a bottom end of the baby boomer so have some personal insight into the early generation x economic challenges and don’t believe they were unique. I am employed in mental health with a background in journalism. In rebuttal to this article:

1. addiction has both neurological and psychological components that can lead to tragic outcomes despite access to help and intention to take personal responsibility. Your discussion of this seems both uninformed and mean spirited.

2. Check your facts. Perry had major dental surgery from which he was still recovering during the filming of the Reunion.

3. Friends was a fun escape for many in a laughter as medicine way. You may have wanted it to be more profound but that’s not what it was meant to be

4. While I agree that the Keanu Reeves digs were dreadful I have always wondered how they got past his editing team. Someone let him down there.

5. Perry did know he would be mostly remembered for Friends. He hoped to be remembered more for helping.

Sometimes hope is what we have.

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