An addiction problem is an addiction problem. I'd bet real money Rush didn't wake up one day and decide "hey, today's a great day to get addicted to Oxycodone". It never works that way, especially if he was initially taking the painkillers under a doctor's care. It could've happened to anyone, and does happen far too often.

There's a huge difference between Rush getting trapped in a self-medication loop and someone voluntarily making the decision to start using illicit drugs. The end result is pretty much the same, granted, but the process that gets someone there is quite different.

Once someone really gets hooked it's amazing what they'll go through to continue the habit, laws or no laws. Addicts have committed murder in order to get $100 worth of heroin.

Rush's mistake of self-medicating was further complicated by our society's attitude toward addiction, that somehow he's a weak person because he couldn't stop. (It's pretty likely he also has some negative personality traits that didn't help either.) Unfortunately it's not so much a slippery slope as a steep cliff, and once you decide to continue using painkillers on your own it's pretty much all over--"It'll be just one more", ad infinitum.

Because of his public stature, it would've been that much harder for him to get any real help. It's likely his career will suffer because of the revelations, but anything he might've done to help himself would probably have had much the same effect.

I'm not a Rush fan, but I think he deserves a bit of a break on this one. It will be interesting to see how he handles it going forward.

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