Thread by @FreedomFriesInc

(1) Thread: Another celeb critically ill because of drug addiction.

He's 50 year old DMX aka Earl Simmons and he's hospitalized near his home in White Plains, NY.

From his biggest album, in 2000:

(2) I've witnessed first hand the insanity that can result from drug addiction and I've had to learn more about it than I ever wanted to. This quote sums up my current views nicely:

(3) I wish the best for DMX, his loved ones, and his fans.

Just as I did for Prince, George Michael, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, and countless more celebs like them.

I want us to learn from their experiences.

(4) Along with addiction issues, celebs are often at high risk of preventable death from other causes, such as Tom Petty was. I wrote about this at the time:

https://twitter.com/FreedomFriesInc/status/954515169618542592

(5) Addiction is often linked to domestic violence and suicide. We can learn from celebrity cases, like that of British celeb Caroline Flack:

https://twitter.com/FreedomFriesInc/status/1228769398296461312

(6) After a certain lowlife massacred 8 innocent people, including 6 women of Asian heritage, in GA I did some fact finding about his background.

I think he might have been placed on a different course if his mental health issues had been properly treated by actual providers.

(7) Instead, he reportedly had "treatment" in a so-called "rehab" facility that was linked to his extremely fundamentalist Christian sect. I checked out the "credentials" of the staff; not one of them had been trained to deal SAFELY with actual mental illness.

(8) I'm not advocating for him to be treated with lenience now. The bar is very high to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. J/s, his problem was more about clinical mental health than politics or anything else. He assumed he'd been to "rehab" when he'd been to church camp.

(9) Access to appropriate, timely, & safe mental health care is bad everywhere, not just in the US. All I can do is keep raising awareness of what individuals and families can do when their spidey senses tell them something is amiss. Real medical help is better than other things.

(10) And when drug addiction is involved, it won't be fixed unless and until the person wants to be clean more than he or she wants to use; and gets effective (& long enough) treatment.

Learn how to stop being an enabler. Detach with love. Safety first.

(11) If you're a devoted fan of an artist who uses hard drugs or has in the past, and you have the chance to see them performing live, don't pass it up. You might not get the chance again.