The Real Tragedy of Whitney Houston

As we have all become aware, iconic singer/actress/entertainer, Whitney Houston passed away at the age of 48. As disturbing as any premature death is; one wonders if our society has, perhaps come to expect things like this to happen to our most cherished and talented celebrities. That's not to say we are unmoved by the early demise of a star or superstar. But we are less naive about the toll that fame and celebrity takes on people these days.

There have been many losses of talented people that were far too young to come to such an early demise: Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Chris Farley, John Belushi, Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith , Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse, just to name a few. These people, apparently, did not figure out how to balance fame, celebrity and life in general. They succumbed to medication and drugs to help them cope with whatever pressures they faced.

Sadly, when one reach a certain status of celebrity, very few people will tell you "no" or be brutally honest when it comes to ones welfare. Too much money is riding on the artist and if that artist cannot be sustained at whatever cost, many people will lose money, homes and careers. What many agents, production assistants and "handlers" fail to understand is that if they enable an artist to engage in what will become self-destructive behavior, they may solve a problem in the short run but will create a far larger one in the long run.

Whitney Houston had great struggles with drug addiction after her biggest successes in the 1980's. What often happens with artists is that they are "hot" for an period  of time and when they cool down or interest has waned, they panic. Each artist handles those transitions differently. Houston became involved in an apparently toxic marriage that increased her proclivity towards drugs. Did the people closest to her know what was happening and could they have helped more. Probably. But was it in their best interest to interfere? I don't know.

As a society, we are becoming more used to drug use and addiction problems and in a way have become desensitized to them. We see them as a societal concern, but people with these problems do not bear the weight of rejection and shame that was once associated with drug users. We exercise greater understanding, empathy and tolerance towards drug problems. At times, perhaps too much.

Would Whitney still be alive if she had people whom she loved and trusted who would accompany her to rehab or stay with her twenty-four hours a day to keep her safe and away from temptations? Whose to say? We have lost some truly amazing and talented people over the years. After their deaths, people sometimes wonder why more wasn't done to help them or why they didn't see a problem. I always have to wonder; how much did they really want to know what was going on and could they have helped? In retrospect, one never really knows what would have been effecticve.

Will we continue to lose our most talented and gifted entertainers to prescription and illegal drugs? Yes. Will stricter government regulations of any kind help? Can we better prepare people for being a "celebrity" and give them more insights as to what that really means and entails? I doubt it.

Our celebrities enjoy privileges and lifestyles that most of us can only imagine; at least on the surface. They also are subjected to pressures that none of us can imagine. Being famous and being a celebrity is about learning to walk a fine line between reality and fantasy. It's tough to have a "normal" life. The bigger the star, the harder the life. It's probably inevitable that to cope with these pressures celebrities do whatever they can to relieve the stress.

Those aspects of "celebrity" will probably never change and history has shown that neither the artists, nor their families nor we as the fans have gotten better at managing and controlling the fallout of celebrity that causes a premature death.