All the Different Ways They’ve Died from Drugs
Overdoses aren’t the only way drugs have killed my friends
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When people die from drugs we assume overdose. That’s not always the case. There’s lots of ways drugs can kill a person.
I’ve lost count of the people I’ve known who have died from drugs. Today I will remember the people that drugs have taken too soon.
I’d like to tell you about my friend’s lives but it will need to wait. These are the ones who didn’t make it and what role drugs played in their demises.
Health complications
The world knew her as Dutchess DeSade but she was Barb to me. Her and her self titled band were big in the Los Angeles underground fetish scene during the 80’s. When I met her, she was drinking at least a jug of wine a day.
A few months before Barb passed, I noticed her gut was distended but kept it to myself. One day she wasn’t feeling well and bleeding rectally. She went to the hospital and she was admitted. She called me and asked me to bring her vape juice. I told her I’d come visit in a few days.
She didn’t have a few days. I got a call from a mutual friend telling me Barb passed the night after we spoke.
There was no mention of alcohol in the coroner's report. The rectal bleeding was due to hepatis that was aggravated by her drinking. I watched her drink herself to death. Barb was 53.
Watching Louis Planas die scared me straight. I don’t want to die like that.
A year before he died, Lou was diagnosed with chronic heart failure. Lou’s body would swell up. It would get to a point where the pain from bloating became unbearable. He’d go into the hospital for a week and have the excess fluid drained from his body.
The day after his latest procedure I went to visit Lou. I got his room number from reception and followed the signs. The signs lead me into the critical care ward.
He was hooked up to a half dozen machines. After the procedure Lou’s blood sugar level dropped to 9. He was on life support and there was no recovering. A week later his family pulled the plug.
Lou kept breathing and lived for another 10 months. He was a vegetable. His eyes were open when he was awake. Sometimes he’d focus. When people came to see him, he wept.
Though doctors said otherwise, I believe he was still there. Locked in. Unable to move. A prisoner in his own body. Lou was 52.
Overdose
I knew Jason Haskell since I was little. We called him Pooter. If you didn’t like Haskell, the problem was you.
Haskell wasn’t an addict, he just liked to party. His drug of choice was weed. He liked pills when they were around but we all did.
One day he didn’t show up to work and no one could get a hold of him. His sister went to his house and found his body next to his desk.
Jason was partying alone at his computer. He passed out and his airway closed. Normally that wakes a person up. He suffocated in his sleep.
Xanax was to blame. Big people and pills are a bad mix. Pooter was 40.
There should be stories on Medium from Diviana X Ingravallo. Div was a published poet and writer. She used to tour with Avril Levine as her masseuse. Her life was something out of a movie.
We quit heroin around the same time. A few years later I saw a post on Facebook that vaguely implied she was looking for dope.
“Hey, I saw your post. Don’t. What are you doing next Sunday?” I messaged.
We made plans. I was excited to tell her about the website I was writing on and tell her she should publish there too. On Friday I saw a post from her friend announcing her passing. I messaged him and he confirmed she had overdosed in her apartment 2 days ago.
According to this article I found it may not have been accidental. Says she spray painted DNR on her bedroom door. She didn’t have a bedroom door though, she lived in a studio. She did stuff like that all the time. Who knows? Div was 60.
Detox
The most tragic of all drug deaths is people dying while getting clean. If you know you’re in deep you should go to a hospital to detox. Withdrawals can be more deadly than the drug itself.
Clay Rollins was a mountain of a man. Great guy. We rode motorcycles together. He rode a Kawasaki ZX — 14. I was faster than him on my 600 because he so damn big.
When I heard he died while detoxing I was shocked. I didn’t even know he got down like that. I didn’t expect that from him. Clay was 32.
At one point everyone loved Mike Bones. He was a legend. The ladies adored him. He knew everybody. He liked to party, but the partying kept getting harder. Eventually he was homeless hooked on heroin and duster.
One time we got arrested together. Cops saw a black guy and a white guy together and figured something was up. They were right, but it was still bullshit.
His rock bottom was lowest I’ve seen. He was living in the streets without even a backpack. The comments on his Facebook posts were mostly threats. He felt everyone turned their back on him as he hit rock bottom.
He checked into the Tarzana Treatment Center and got help. Two months sober while in inpatient rehab he had a massive heart attack while brushing his teeth and dropped dead. Mike Bones was 46.
The most tragic of all might be Hannah Krane. She’s the adopted daughter of Sally Kellerman and Jonathan Krane.
Hanna had the worst drug problem I’d ever seen. She didn’t look at all like she did in the I picture posted of her. When I saw it I couldn’t believe she was that same person. She looked like she’d aged 15 years since that picture was taken. It was from 3 years ago.
Hanna was the happiest, funniest, and most polite hard-core drug addict I’ve ever met. She could do or be anything. Her choice was to hang out at the opium den next door while putting as much dope in her body as possible.
One day I got a friend request from her on Facebook. I accepted and saw she was at a rehab in Long Beach. I sent her a message congratulating her on getting help and let her know I knew someone with a dog walking business in Long Beach looking to hire someone.
The next day I saw the message was unread. Then I saw her twin brother’s post on my feed announcing she died at the hospital a few hours after she sent me a friend request. Hanna was 27.
Suicide
It’s impolite to ask the family how it happened or why. I assume out of the dozen people I’ve known that have taken their lives some of them overdosed intentionally.
What influence substances had on their decision to end their lives I can’t say. I can’t ask them what made them do it. I didn’t read the note. It doesn’t matter now.
Misadventure
I never knew the guy who jumped off a rock and fell 60 feet at the rave. But I stroked his hair as he took his last breath. I’ve assumed he was on drugs but don’t know. A rave is strange place to kill yourself. I’ve written a story about it. Link at the bottom.
Ambiguous Loss
The term for when someone is gone but not dead is ambiguous loss. It’s suffering loss without closure. They’re alive but with asterix next to the alive.
I have a handful of friends still deep in addiction. They’ve embraced the addict lifestyle. People have tried to help them, but they don’t want help. They want to get high.
They might not dead yet but it’s only a matter of time. Some of them could be dead. They don’t have a phone. No one knows where they are.
One day on Facebook I will see a post announcing their deaths. I won’t be sad because I’ve already mourned them.
You can die from any drug. Some kill faster than others. There’s no safe way to do drugs. Harm reduction education helps prevents overdose and disease for people that aren’t ready to quit.
This story shows people that not all drug related deaths are overdoses. Only one of my friends who’s died of drugs died of an overdose. Now I find out it may not have been an overdose. Learning this changes nothing. She’s still dead.
I wrote this to remember my friends but hate that I only have space to tell you about how they died. They’re more than just statistics. Drugs were just a small part of who they were. Everyone who’s picture I posted was someone I loved. I wish they could read this.
When they died, they knew me as a junky. They never got see me reinvent myself. Maybe I would have inspired them. I like to think they’re watching and looking up at me smiling.
