Compared to other recently and tragically departed celebs like Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, or Whitney Houston, among others, “Glee” star Cory Monteith didn’t exactly seem like a train wreck waiting to happen: He hadn’t recently portrayed a psychopath with frightening realism, wasn’t known for a having a death-wish, and hadn’t been slipping into comas. He also wasn’t creepily reclusive, publicly unstable, or punching paparazzi.
Yes, the 31-year-old Monteith had some demons in his past—mainly from his teenage years—and he was forthcoming and public in acknowledging that a few of those demons had recently resurfaced for an encore performance. He entered rehab in the spring.
But from a viewer’s or fan’s distance, the big picture didn’t seem all that dire. He was a fit, strapping man in the prime of life and had believably portrayed a kid 10 years younger than himself for the past half-decade. Hardly red-flag worthy.
Yet, he’s gone.
For these reasons and more, Monteith’s July 13 fatal alcohol and heroin overdose seemed to generate a little extra sadness.
The actor was the star of a TV show, but not just any TV Show. ‘Glee’ is a rare successful musical in modern U.S. TV history. Almost as rare, its storyline champions inclusion, and tackles tough topics like homosexuality, teen-pregnancy, and bullying. It’s very popular among teen-agers and adults alike. And while edgier and more adult in content than a traditional family show, “Glee” boasts an audience full of members who’ve essentially grown up with it.
Monteith’s “Finn,” as the show’s male lead, was an extremely familiar face, voice, and character to fans. “The guy next door” in many ways.
Beyond the scope of the show, Monteith’s sudden passing served as a cold reminder that no addict is ever “out of the woods”—a lesson in perception that not all celebrity tragedies can teach.
In concept, because of the notoriety and positive messaging of ‘Glee’ in particular, Monteith’s passing shares substantial ground with another drug-overdose tragedy, from my own childhood, that happened 27 summers ago.
History Lesson: Len Bias
Way back in the early 1980s, Len Bias was a star basketball player for the University of Maryland. He was compared to Michael Jordan. He was the X-factor before people talked about X–factors. Not only was he one of the most talented young basketball players around, he was a new kind of interesting, known for a swagger that really didn’t exist back then. In a way, he was The Future.
In 1986, Bias realized his lifelong dream and was drafted by the Boston Celtics. He was going to be great.
Instead, Len Bias died. The Future died. Cocaine overdose. Many said it was the first time he tried the stuff. 22 years old. One day after getting drafted.
Not totally unlike today, the U.S. media landscape was in a crazy state of expansion and flux in 1986—cable T.V. had been around only a few years—and perhaps that’s part of what made the Len Bias story such a big deal. Everyone knew about it immediately. It was among the first nationwide “breaking news” events that I recall.
But why did it stick? What was its staying power?
As memory serves, it’s that Bias was an athlete. Drug-overdoses were supposed to be the province of entertainers. Comedian and actor John Belushi, for one, had passed away similarly just a few years prior. And names like Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix all floated around enough for us kids to have some notion of what happened to them.
But drugs and…athletes? No. Not them. Don’t be ridiculous.
Athletes were strictly heroes. The NBA was about “Magic,” “Bird,” “The Doctor,” and a new gravity-defying wonder they called “Air Jordan.” These guys were pure. Pure and awesome. Modern, real-life Superheroes, really. Len Bias was called “Frosty” by his college coach. He could have been a Superhero, too.
And as such—because Len Bias wasn’t the type of person drug overdoses were “supposed” to happen to—anti-drug programs such as D.A.R.E. expanded, and added some assembly days to the school calendar. Slogans like “Just say No,” and others were suddenly everywhere.
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Bias’ death quickly came to symbolize the massive public denial of “what was really going on,” a wake-up-call that shook the walls of an entire culture. It was an emergency that had stolen our innocence and we were gonna solve this thing: Drugs were evil. They would kill you. The Len Bias story proved it. Try it once and you die.
On a personal level, I certainly was never going to do drugs—and would absolutely never use cocaine. I was 12 then.
I made it through high school honoring most of that commitment. Only once did I smoke marijuana—which was also the only time I had ever seen it. I began to drink beer, Boone’s Strawberry Hill, and Purple Passion some as a senior, but for the most part I played the High School gig on the straight and narrow. Most of my friends did too. It was the Len Bias effect—in full force even 2000 miles away.
A few years later, I was in college. My own life wasn’t wonderful, or didn’t feel wonderful anyway. I was naïve. Felt like I hadn’t lived. Felt like everyone around me had known and experienced things I never had. In short, I suddenly felt ripped off. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was basically feeling like everyone feels in their early 20s; more aware of all the lives I wasn’t leading than the one I was.
Vulnerable and looking for something new, I overlooked the memories of why Len Bias scared me straight. My latest reminder at that point had been Kurt Cobain, who was crazy and suicidal and not at all like me and certainly no athlete.
Curious, and all too forgetful, I finally gave in.
Even with a powerful, generation altering event like the death of Len Bias, it all still wore off. I still gave in. Worse, I felt like I had some catching up to do. Drugs were cool again darnit, and I wanted to be cool. There were other, better, lives to lead beyond my own. Kurt Cobain was dead, but still cool, and still on the radio. How dead was that, really?
So, I started smoking weed. Then snorted some cocaine. Ecstasy was popular so I did that too. And I drank. For a decade, I drank. Eventually, at 29, only after having a bout with some severe internal bleeding and later believing I was seeing large Komodo Dragons crawling up the walls inside my home—I checked-in to a rehab center. My mom and sister drove me.
I’ve been clean since, for another 10 years and counting; free from booze, blood, drugs and dragons.
In rehab, they told us over and again that death, incarceration, and insanity are the only three options at the end of an active addict’s path. To non-addicts, this kind of conclusion is as simple as D following C in a recitation of the alphabet.
But to an addict, those understandings do not come naturally. We make slightly different versions of the same mistakes over and over, and even in sobriety tip-toe rather awkwardly and mechanically through aspects of daily life that might seem a bit elementary to others. Worse, we don’t always see danger, or if we do, we don’t give a damn just now.
The Romance of Relapse
The overdose death of Cory Monteith might just be chalked up and forgotten as another cautionary tale, another sad tragedy that proves drugs are bad and that heroin is the worst of them all. But if that happens, it will be unfortunate. This particular tragedy has some more to it, and shouldn’t be lumped in with the others. This is also a story about the romance of relapse.
In this important sense, Monteith’s passing could be seen a sequel to the Len Bias story: It’s a modern addiction lesson, one that illustrates the potency and danger of relapse—even among those we presume to be “over all that stuff,” the ones who are happy, healthy, and hopeful.
We have come a long way in our understanding of addiction since the death of Len Bias; his story was powerfully and effectively simplified as the reason never to try drugs. Not even once.
Now, we have a story more in tune with today’s reality, one that reminds us why we shouldn’t return to drugs—even though it’s really freaking hard for a lot of us not to. And in a culture where 16.4% of teenagers (about one in 6) already have been categorized as drug-abusers, that temptation is going to be relevant to millions of people for the foreseeable future.
Let’s not forget that unlike so many celebrities whose lives tumble out of control, Monteith appeared to be someone who had successfully avoided an inevitably tragic end. He had overcome so much, and even spoke out on the virtues of leading a sober life. He was supposedly on the other side of all his troubles, and seemed to really walk the talk.
Monteith was the redeemed one, the one who figured it all out, the one who succumbed to the allure of drug-induced escapism as a kid, but lived to tell about it.
One summer weekend, he tried it again. It killed him.
All of us know folks–are folks, who have overcome some formidable demons in all kinds of forms to subsist or thrive or survive in whatever form we are doing so now.
It only takes a few moments of unmanaged vulnerability to throw it all away. Len Bias succumbed to the thrills of his own success 27 years ago, perhaps lulled into false security by a sense of invincibility. His death was sad and tragic and shocking and remains that way for many, to this day.
Given the throngs of young, admiring fans who’ve grown up with “Glee,” aftershocks from Monteith’s passing could reverberate for a long time as well—and that may not be entirely sad. Whatever the motives were behind Cory Monteith’s relapse, his tragedy reminds us that any experiment is always a walk on the ledge—no matter how long it’s been since you last dabbled, no matter how much “just this once,” might seem justifiable and harmless. Most important, his fate is hardly unique. The CDC attributed 40,000 deaths in 2010 to drugs, and 25,000 more to alcohol. Combine those figures, and drugs and alcohol kill twice as many people annually as firearms.
Thanks to the lesson of Len Bias, fewer folks in my own generation ever had a “first time,” with drugs, and countless lives were likely saved because of it.
Hopefully, for at least a few people in 2013 who have had the first time, or the first hundred times, or first thousand times, the lesson of Cory Monteith can inject some value into the “last time.”
I know for a fact that it reminded this recovering addict that my own “last time,” 10 years ago, is worth more than any “next time” could ever be.
I needed to write that down, somewhere. That kind of detail can be hard to remember.
Al Miller is a blogger for COcentric and freelance writer
Connect with Al via @almiller66 on Twitter or almiller2020@gmail.com