Michael Jackson, Phil lynott, kurt cobain ? etc makes no sense to me ?

You tell me.

Tomorrow i'm going to help clean out the house of a mate.
He was made redundant from his high-paying IT job at Woolies, 4 days later his father died & then we found out his alcoholic partner had been beating him for months.
She's gone but he's living like a tramp.

The house looks like something from 'a life of grime' & is quite frankly a health hazard.
Tomorrow we're going through the place and binning everything. the place is disgustingly filthy.

He's not a thick waster. he has two law degrees & is bloody brilliant at IT stuff.
Thing is, he's a pisshead. he used to be a functioning alcoholic but now he's not even that.

I don't know what to do.

Inability to deal with real life. Simples

It's just "some people" do. There is no class, gender, race, age or anything else.

Good luck with your mate muddydwarf.

Because the neural pathways that make them brilliant tend to be incompatible with the society norm.

Hope your mate gets sorted muddydwarf.

I'm still not convinced Cobain done himself in…..

Because life can be hard work, and being rich and famous doesn't protect you from this – if anything it makes it worse (eg MJ). I can see how it's hard to understand if you've never been there, but lots of seemingly normally functioning people are simply holding it together.

muddydwarf: good on ya for standing by him; I've had friends, relations and associates go down a variety of sticky paths and having someone there really makes a big difference to them. EVen in his darkest moments it will make a difference.

Why do talented people throw there lives away

They werent 'given' a talent, they were chosen to hold something special. It just happens that they were better at something. In addition, there will be large black female singers out there far far better than Beyonce. It also comes down to how they look as well (i.e a package).

In addition people in the above are human. How much could you deal with being manipulated, seeing people try to be false friends with you, try and use you, the fickle nature of the industry? It'd take just a semi-intelligent person to start becoming depressed. Look at Winehouse- having to perform like some sort of monkey for others as part of agenda- you wonder why these people crack up. Then you've got alot of people bitching about you and printing it for everyone to read. I would crack up FFS.

pressure of expectations. i'll never lose the plot because people know to expect nothing of me…

Mountain bike perspective- imagine you found out you could hit a 20ft double really well and people came and watched you. Everytime your expected to hit it the same however some days you really dont feel good about it/tired/worn out and you land wrong, have accidents. You make mistakes then people sigh and wander off as your no good anymore…

Paul gasgoine / george best probably would have been piss heads even if they had not been famous

Very good point beerbelly

Might want to include in the statistics: (a) all the talented people who didn't throw their lives away, and (b) all the talentless ones who did.

It's quite simple

A) tons of cash

B) easy access to drugs

I watched a programme on telly the other night, where a British jounalist was trying to get an interview with Neil Armstrong.

At the end, other astronauts (fantastic word) said that his life would have been unbearable had he stayed in the public eye.
Every meal, shopping trip even walking down the road he'd have been accosted by fans wanting his autograph, or to ask that question " what was it like being the first man on the moon".

So you can deal with the talent if you stay grounded i.m.o.
Others need, family and friends to 'keep it real'.

Muddydawf-you are doing a top job. Hopefully your friend can get back some sort of normal life, I'm guessing he's still young.

That was a good program.

I couldn't think of anything worse than being famous. Privacy aside, you're going to see yourself in the media on a regular basis, half the people will be saying you're ace, half will be saying you're crap, your life will be dragged around like you belong to the people or something, the people close to you will be pumping away at your ego like crazy while the others will be stabbing you in the back and trying to steal your knickers and it will only take one tiny little miniscule mistake like hanging your baby over a balcony or ramming a gerbil up your chuff and it'll all be gone, in a second.

Nah, sod that for a game of soldiers. I'll have the money they've got though.

Depression is weird. When you're in it, NOTHING has any savour, any colour, any reason or tone. Now, several years on from my last bout, I really can't remember the despair and feeling of it. I have what I wrote when I was working my way out but the actual nature of it is utterly lost; not forgotten, just not visible from here.

I have since found a good, good woman and mountain biking and a job I want to do so, with luck, it is gone for me. All the same, I think the difficulty of understanding other people's suffering is a part of it; their isolation is part of what makes them ill. That's why it's so important not to give up on people, even when they are in a real mess. Hence, good work, muddydwarf.

Hora wrote

Then you've got alot of people bitching about you and printing it for everyone to read. I would crack up FFS

………………..we're waiting 😉

The addition/alcoholism rate amongst successful people is high for a number of reasons :- pressure to perform, environment, availability, social acceptability amongst peers, workload, no financial constraints etc. etc. all the way to altered states of consciousness and the perception of expanding artistic boundaries.

No surprise that doctors have the one of the highest (if not the highest) rates of alcoholism amongst any profession !

Many of my relatives are/were professional musicians and with the exception of my Mother every one of them is/was an alcoholic. Comes from constantly being bought drinks when playing 😥

Well, that's half the house cleared & the front garden back looking like a garden again.
We filled a skip up to the limit & the kitchen is now habitable, as is his front room & downstairs lavatory.
I've scrubbed, washed & polished as much as i could but the kudos must go to my mate's wife who faced up to cleaning the kitchen – that was one 'orrible job!
Not out of the woods yet though, he's not eating properly if at all & he still looks ill.

A beginning though.

I'm bloody knackered now!

Well done Muddydwarf, everyone needs a friend like you.

Still think of all the pussy/dick that these stars have on offer to them to get through. Its not all downsides- detox, gipping into buckets to lose weight and PR events 8)

Good on ya muddydwarf it's easy to turn you'r back on people sometimes and just get on with your own life hope he pulls through it all