Stealing Ones Soul- The Pain of Addiction
I watched the movie Bird the other evening. It is the Clint Eastwood directed biography of probably the greatest jazz saxophonist ever, Charlie (Bird) Parker. Born in 1920, he died in 1955 having changed the jazz idiom forever.

But it was a remarkably sad and overwhelming story. Bird was an addict. Heroin. And alcohol when he wasn't able to score his heroin. His was a life on a downhill slide almost from the word go. Here was a man with more talent and creativity in his little finger than any thousand people you might meet. But slowly and surely he just kept slipping away, inch by inch at first, then faster and faster. When he died the investigating officer reported he was probably in his 60s.

He was only 34.

Such is the story of addiction. It doesn't matter whether you are Charlie Parker, or Lindsay Lohan, or Mel Gibson, or ... well ... just you. In 1955 the treatment for addicts was primitive, at best. Today it doesn't have to be deadly. But it is. It remains a slide into hell- and beyond.

There are many good movies that depict addiction and alcoholism. In Bird, director Eastwood and actor Forrest Whitaker have given us a powerful vision of its pain and sadness. You walk away overwhelmed and wondering how many great things could have come from Bird's (and many other nameless addicts) if they could have found recovery.