Peaches Geldof dies aged 25

[A*O]

If every child being raised by druggie parents was removed by social services the fostering/care system would quickly be overwhelmed and collapse, let alone the costs involved. Families could take some of the burden but that's not always possible. This is just another "hidden" consequence of the damage caused by drugs.

[rollo]

This is why the people around her are enabling her and they are STILL enabling her by the recent smiling pics of her husband and the family pics on the coffin. They are determined it is not going to be a sordid death like Amy Winehouse's.

[levitt]

My roomie works in forensic science and gets lots of drugs from these cases. Apparently there was more than heroin there.

[sputnik]

Like what? Ask him/her.

[sputnik]

This is why the people around her are enabling her and they are STILL enabling her by the recent smiling pics of her husband and the family pics on the coffin. They are determined it is not going to be a sordid death like Amy Winehouse's.

She's dead. Doesn't mean they didn't love her even if she was a junkie. Jesus, what do you people want? Should they have thrown her body to the wolves, buried her in an unmarked grave at a crossroads and publicly renounced her in death? That coffin may have been tacky as fuck but that's not 'enabling', that's a family grieving the loss of a loved one. If my sister died I wouldn't love her any less or be any less sad about her death if it were from a heroin OD rather than cancer. I don't understand the satisfaction people seem to derive from self-righteously gloating over someone's death just because they were druggies.

[KrisNine]

I've known way too many loved ones of addicts who did everything they could, who went above and beyond only to lose someone, to believe the bull that anyone can recover as long as they have the right family support and it's just up the loved ones to "do the right thing." It's bullshit and a guilt trip to lay on the survivors.

My family lived through this and it's true. They would have done anything in their power to change the outcome.

At my brother's treatment facility, they actually encourage financially cutting off the addict and limiting social contact with them if they will not get and stay clean and refuse attempts by family and friends to help them with their sobriety. We were told that it's important for family members to make it clear that drug use is not acceptable, and holding the person accountable for their drug use is part of that. You have to let them know that if they're going to continue to use, you will not support them - financially or otherwise. You are there for them if they want to get clean, but if they're going to choose drugs, they're on their own.

If Bob had "washed his hands of Peaches," as reports say, it may have been because of something like this. It sounds harsh, but continuing to interact with the addict as if nothing has changed when they will not stop using is a form of enabling. We already know Peaches had no problem choosing drugs over her kids, so I doubt she'd have any qualms about choosing drugs over her dad, either. Although I do think if he knew she was using, he should have had the kids removed from her custody. I'm not sure how that works over there, though.

But, you have to be prepared for the possible outcome. It's easy for people who run treatment facilities to tell the family to cut them off financially, don't give them a place to live, don't allow them in your house, don't bail them out (the list goes on and on) but in the end the family must be prepared to live with whatever happens. In the case of my family, the outcome was death. Was it the fault of any of them? No, but they sure think about all the "what-if's" to this day, 15 years later.

[rollo]

She's dead. Doesn't mean they didn't love her even if she was a junkie. Jesus, what do you people want? Should they have thrown her body to the wolves, buried her in an unmarked grave at a crossroads and publicly renounced her in death? That coffin may have been tacky as fuck but that's not 'enabling', that's a family grieving the loss of a loved one. If my sister died I wouldn't love her any less or be any less sad about her death if it were from a heroin OD rather than cancer. I don't understand the satisfaction people seem to derive from self-righteously gloating over someone's death just because they were druggies.

Um, you've missed the point big time here. Who said she wasn't loved? Who said her family should be less sad? I am talking about the PR.

[sputnik]

^^^
no, i'm not missing the point. when people die, their loved ones can grieve them any way they want. and i don't think choosing to remember the good is 'enabling' or anything of the sort. like any other dead drug addict, she meant way more to her family than her drug problems or the way she died. nor do they have to turn her death into some PSA about the perils of drug use. seriously, she's dead, that's bad enough, why do you feel the need to judge the way they're mourning or how they're portraying her?

[rollo]

This thread is 26 pages long and it's not finished by a long way. If you have been following the story, you will know that contradictory information has been coming out and it is obviously being 'managed' by PR. Some of it doesn't even make sense. So people are bound to be unpicking it, here and elsewhere, and they are doing so because it is in the public domain.

[Beeyotch]

Well, judging is what we do here, so all's fair, including back-and-forth discussion.

Sure there was a cover-up, and even if many other families would do the same, they're celebs so of course people are going to talk shit about the drug cover-up attempt.

[Belt Up]

Aye, they're fair game, same as any other celeb - alive or dead.

[sputnik]

^^^
of course it's fair game. i'm not trying to silence anyone, just pointing out that i completely and wholeheartedly disagree with their self-righteous finger-wagging and questioning their motivation for doing so.
i feel the same when people judge suicides as 'selfish'...

[Belt Up]

I get where you're coming from but the whole thing of her shooting up while be the soul carer for that little kid, well baby really, is what's making people really sharpen their pointy judgment sticks I think.

Fine, fuck yourself up in your own time but don't be irresponsible enough to do it when you're supposed to be looking after a baby FFS. That's pretty damn inexcusable in my book.

[southernbelle]

In my family, we don't worry about my brother overdosing on drugs (his drug of choice is marijuana) so much as we worry about him committing suicide because of the shame, frustration, and hopelessness he feels about his situation; he had a very bright future, every opportunity in the world, and he threw it all away for drugs. He was valedictorian and was voted "Most Likely to be a Millionaire" in high school, and image and success have always been extremely important to him. He's now at a stage where his friends are graduating from law school and medical school, getting married, etc... and he doesn't even have a college degree. He also has no friends because they all turned their backs on him when he started having serious problems, and he's too embarrassed by his situation to date. Even with the improvements he's made (he has been sober for a year, is working a part time job, and takes a course at the local community college), I worry every single day that he will commit suicide. Every time the phone rings, I worry that it's going to be that call.

As sick as it may sound, I have already started to mentally prepare myself for the possibility of that happening, and I know that if it did, I would not try to protect his reputation at the expense of possibly reaching even one person and sparing another family the devastating impact that addiction has on the addict himself and all of the people who love him. I think it's important to be honest about addiction and let people see the impact and the consequences that it has. Drug abuse is an entirely preventable thing, and I think not talking about it just exacerbates the problem; people see it as so shameful that they can't ask for help, even if they want it. I think it's important for people who are or are thinking about using drugs to see family members who love the addict despite the addiction and want to help - not who were so embarrassed by the addiction that they won't talk about it. That could make the difference between someone choosing to get help, or not to use in the first place, and in making the same choices and mistakes that ultimately destroyed the addict. Having a loved one who is an addict is a very difficult, stressful thing. It's always in the back of your mind, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

[NoNoRehab]

This thread is 26 pages long and it's not finished by a long way. If you have been following the story, you will know that contradictory information has been coming out and it is obviously being 'managed' by PR. Some of it doesn't even make sense. So people are bound to be unpicking it, here and elsewhere, and they are doing so because it is in the public domain.

I've read the thread and the problem isn't PR, it's people believing whatever random rumor printed by the tabloid press and not being to handle it when other rumors or the news contradicts that. If her family was managing PR we wouldn't have any details at all.

Look at the people still stating "there was a cover-up" as if that's a fact, all because there was a vague tabloid report right after she died that no drug paraphernalia was found at the scene, which was already publicly contradicted by the police who said said several days ago that they DID in fact find paraphernalia near her body. Yet we're still treated to people still repeating the "there was no stuff found at the scene, so her family must've come in and cleaned up therefore they're enablers!"