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Showing posts with label addict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label addict. Show all posts

Friday, August 18, 2017

A Few Celebrities


A famous actor at the Four Seasons showed me a pimple on his eyelid. This was a sty, I explained, a blocked gland. It wasn’t serious. There was no treatment except hot compresses. It would go away in a week or so.

He needed it to go quickly, he said. He had a television interview the following day. A previous doctor had stuck a needle into an earlier sty, and he’d be grateful if I did the same. He endured it stoically.



“You wouldn’t have any Oxycontin?” asked a guest. He was consulting me for a rash.

“I’m the doctor you call when you feel sick,” I said. “For Oxycontin you need a different sort of doctor.”

We parted on good terms. My refusal did not offend him; from his point of view there was no harm in making the request.

It’s wrong to divide celebrities into upstanding citizens and the drug-addled exceptions. They are a cross-section. Many work hard at their careers but enjoy the occasional drug if it’s available, and they move in circles where scoring requires only a modest effort. Wrecking your life with drugs, as with alcohol, takes persistence.