Addiction is Terminal: Mindy McCready 5th Celebrity Rehab Death
It was so sad to hear that country music singer Mindy McCready committed suicide. She had battled addiction, inner turmoil and recently watched her former fiancee commit suicide. She was even committed to psychiatric care in the wake of her fiancee’s death, and once back out, she turned a gun on her dog and then herself. This is the fifth person from Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab show to come to an abrupt end. Gawker tried to blame Dr. Drew. What they fail to comprehend is that mental illness coupled with addiction is a terminal illness that often progresses faster than cancer.
From Billboard here:
Dr. Drew Pinsky, who treated Mindy McCready on his VH1 show “Celebrity Rehab” — which has now experienced five deaths among cast-members over the years — says he reached out to the country singer in the past month after hearing of her boyfriend’s death.
“She was devastated,” he says of her reaction to the Jan. 13 death of record producer David Wilson, the father of her now-orphaned son Zayne.
“Although she was fearful of stigma and ridicule she agreed with me that she needed to make her health and safety a priority,” he says. “Unfortunately it seems that Mindy did not sustain her treatment.”
McCready died Sunday afternoon at her home in Arkansas of an apparent suicide at the age of 37.
The singer was a part of the series’ third season, which has now suffered three deaths — after Alice in Chains’ Mike Starr and “Real World” alum Joey Kovar of unrelated drug overdoses in the past two years. From the second season, “Grease” actor Jeff Conaway and Rodney King have also died.
Dr. Drew’s statement:
I am deeply saddened by this awful news. My heart goes out to Mindy’s family and children. She is a lovely woman who will be missed by many. Although I have not treated her for few years, I had reached out to her recently upon hearing about the apparent suicide of her boyfriend and father of her younger children. She was devastated. Although she was fearful of stigma and ridicule she agreed with me that she needed to make her health and safety a priority. Unfortunately it seems that Mindy did not sustain her treatment.
Mental health issues can be life threatening and need to be treated with the same intensity and resources as any other dangerous potentially life threatening medical condition. Treatment is effective. If someone you know is suffering please be sure he or she gets help and maintains treatment.
Drug addiction is incipient and will more often cause death today than cancer. I never looked at Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab show as another reality-TV freak show- I looked at it as an insider’s view into how addiction and counselling worked. And anyone who tries to blame the Doctor who provided treatment to these sick people as complicit are simply soulless ghouls.
