Drugs, Death, and Rock & Roll

Wayne Static in 2005 [WIKIPEDIA]

 

Did not know Wayne Static had died in 2014.

What a frikkin’ bummer.

I’m a fan of Industrial Music — Rock, Metal, Electronic — with Nine Inch Nails being my typical band of choice whenever I’m jonesing for a deep, dark, dystopic fix.

But whenever I was in need for an adrenaline fix, Wayne Static — his stage name obviously — with his band Static-X would always get me to where I was fixin’ to go.

It’s been a while since I needed a high-tempo rush like that so I hadn’t heard nor thought of Static-X in many o’ moons; however, now that I’m to the point where I’m working out regularly, a Static-X classic popped up on my Apple Music Industrial Rock Workout Playlist that Apple nerds had kindly and conveniently curated for me.

Warning: If you’re not familiar with this genre of music, you may want to check, first, with your doctor to ensure your heart can handle it, and then, second, with your Priest/Spiritual Advisor to ensure your spirit can handle it, as well…

 

 
Awesomeness, no?

Yes, indeed, ’tis…

And yes, Wayne always wore his hair like that in public — Static, get it? — even up until he died as an old dud of a fart pushing fifty in 2014. He also wore a chintail beard which, in his last interview before his death, was mostly gray and looked to be close to dragging on the floor it was so long.

It’s weird, even as old as he was he was still able to pull the goofy hair and beard off because, surprisingly, he always seemed so down to earth.

But, alas, he was a lifelong rocker which meant, sadly, he was a lifelong drug and alcohol abuser.

And even more sadly, he is now so down to earth he’s become of it as having been yet another rocker of my age and era to have been snuffed out over his love of vice.

His family issued a statement stating that rumors of his death being drug-related were false, noting that he and Wray [his wife] had stopped using illicit drugs in 2009. An autopsy later confirmed that Static had died of multiple prescription drug toxicity, consisting of the painkillers oxycodone, hydromorphone, and the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam combined with alcohol, though the report also noted that years of past “chronic prescription drug and alcohol abuse” was a contributing factor. [WIKIPEDIA]

Frikkin’ pain killers.

Has anything ever been more aptly named?

I know there are drug apologists out there who say the concept of “gateway drugs” is a myth, that it is only Big Alcohol slanting the studies trying to control the market, or some BS like that. To which I reply…

BS!

All vices are potential gateways to the next, more addictive vice.

And this tragic Pain Killer to Heroin to Casket trip we are collectively on as a nation is so painfully incomprehensible to me…

Damn it, I Hate pain killers.

I had quite a harrowing experience with them throughout my whole leukemia trip. Mostly oxycodone for various palliative reasons which I always tried to resist save for the most crushing of pain.

However, the most serious incident with them for me came right after my bone marrow transplant when, for some reason still unclear to me as I don’t remember being in pain, they hooked me up to a fentanyl drip.

That junk shoveled me so far under that I was essentially comatosed for three days until my wife finally figured out that it was the drug that had plowed me under and had the drip stopped.

What a nightmare.

I’m no doctor but I strongly, urgently recommend that if you are in pain you first try to find a natural way to manage it so that your body can heal itself naturally.

See the article I posted a few days back about Wim Hof, try acupuncture, meditate, and even try to embrace your pain at least in a way that you understand that it is there, not as your enemy, but to let you know that your body is aware of the problem and that it is now actively drawing from an inexhaustible source of infinite, universal wisdom in an irrepressible effort to heal itself.

Yeah, I know that’s a bit too much whacked out hippy talk for most but let me tell ya, I know me some pain so I speak from experience.

Anyway…

I am very pleased to see that more and more studies are coming out showing that these pain killers do little to help in the healing process, which had always been my argument with first the many nurses and then, after s/he escalated my resistance to taking the drug, to the many doctors… that pain killers were only making things worse for me than the actual experience of the pain.

The nurses/doctors’ argument was, of course, that, without the physical effects of pain wracking my body, the body could heal itself faster.

Wrong.

Studies are now showing, what has always seemed pretty much as commonsensical to me, that a drugged body is, in most cases, always less effective in healing itself than a sober body.

And not to mention that the constipation they cause is hell on both body and mind.

Yeah…

So on that note.

I’ll pour out a bottle (of water since I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since the night before I was diagnosed with leukemia) for Wayne Static.

RIP, Rock Star… RIP.
 
#prayfortheaddicted

 

5 thoughts on “Drugs, Death, and Rock & Roll”

  1. OMG – LOVE! I listen to such a wide variety of music I don’t ever know the specific genre or artist name, but this is most AWESOME.

    On the drug note – I’m such a light weight that anything stronger than an Excedrin extra strength and I’m subject to trip for DAYS (daze)! When I had my hysterectomy they hooked me up to a morphine drip without my consent. As soon as I could get conscious (and yeah, it took me a minute to figure out what was knocking me on my ass every so many hours) I told them to take it out. They kept trying to push some kind of pain killer on me, and I kept turning them down. When I was released from the hospital, I used the prescription for the pain meds as a book mark and never ever thought to fill it. The prescribed my daughter with Vicodin after wrist surgery to set a broken bone. She was 12. Never got that prescription filled either and she didn’t miss it or ask for any painkillers, ever.

    I hope I am never in the kind of pain that would have me asking for those major narcotics.

    Reply
  2. so that’s where you get your incredible stride, Kurt.
    love the bit about pain letting you know that your body is [what was it?] drawing from an inexhaustible source of infinite wisdom, etc. etc.
    I so totally agree with the whole slew of this post.
    have been a chronic pain sufferer for 20 odd years. No drugs. Never use em. Body can deal with healing much better without that sickly, soporific, artificial interference.
    I meditate, I walk, I listen to…. in my case a stiff cocktail of Beethoven’s 7th or Mozart’s Requiem. same ride, different means. or Jimmy Hendrix.
    I write. I read.
    Them’s the only ways my feet know how to climb the mountain.
    and the mountain gets you a good view. Oxygen pumping and the lungs soaring.

    Reply

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