Co-Dependents of actor Heath Ledger–friends and fans didn’t get it.
Co-Dependents of the Month:
Friends of Actor Heath Ledger, described as “an intense, restless man known as much for his partying and wild streak as for his sweetness and sensitivity” and “devoted to his daughter [yet] driven by reckless impulses.” Friends watched him “drinking and taking drugs to excess” on New York’s party circuit, but everyone seemed to think he had it “under control.” Here’s the problem, friends: we aren’t mind readers or little gods. There is no way to predict when an addict will lose control, or in what destructive way.
Perth, Australia locals, who expressed “dismay at speculation in the media that actor Heath Ledger had used drugs.” A supervisor at Royal Perth Hospital, Margaret Byrne, 56, commented, “If a person dies, let him go in peace. All this rubbish they bring up about drugs…is a lot of rubbish.” And that is why so few are in a position to nip the disease in the bud, Ms. Byrne–hardly anyone understands it and almost everyone assumes that misbehaviors are caused by something other than drugs because there’s no way “my little Johnny” or “my favorite actor” could be “so stupid as to use drugs.” Sorry, locals of Perth: Heath Ledger was an addict. In one anecdote of many, John-Bruce Shoemaker, who owned a Prague nightclub where Ledger was a regular while filming “The Brothers Grimm,” said he was “in my club practically every night for months” and snorted a gram or two of cocaine every night. “There were lots of beautiful girls in my club–but he ignored them. He was interested only in drugs.”