| Every life lost is a sad loss. If we know the person, the | | | | misinterpreted for another’s profit, is it any surprise |
| death can be a load that some cannot carry without | | | | that you reach for Xanax? I think not. |
| the help of something like Xanax. Then comes Heath | | | | In fact, the whole movie industry is probably built on |
| Ledger — a man who lived his life in the public eye. It | | | | Xanax. Feeling nervous or anxious before you set foot |
| was like we all knew him — so alive one minute; so | | | | outside your front door knowing you’ll be stalked |
| uncompromisingly dead the next. A few days after his | | | | by photographers wherever you go? Take a Xanax. |
| discovery on the 22nd January 2008, the Medical | | | | That’s not agoraphobia threatening to keep you |
| Examiner’s Report was published. Heath was | | | | hiding away, is it? Take another Xanax. The next |
| relying on Xanax to keep him going. Let’s not judge | | | | magazine you open has pictures of you getting |
| him. Who is to say where the dividing line between | | | | (un)dressed in your bedroom. They were taken with a |
| genius and madness lies, nor how anyone stays on the | | | | telephoto lens from the building opposite. That’s not |
| right side of that line without help. | | | | the first sign of a panic attack is it? Draw the curtains |
| Here was a man at the centre of a perfect storm of | | | | and take another Xanax just to keep on living. |
| expectations. The movie studios pitch their latest | | | | But you need the relationship between public and |
| offerings to you on the backs of the stars who front | | | | private to stay blurred. To carry the films, your name |
| them. Just think how much money rides on each star | | | | has to be on everyone’s lips. You have to be the |
| name. It used to be that a movie would only cost a | | | | eye candy for the media voyeurism. Drop from those |
| few million. Now the production costs can pass $100m | | | | celebrity magazines and gossip columns, and |
| without pausing for breath. How does a young man in | | | | you’re no longer the bankable star. Where can you |
| his twenties cope with that pressure? In 2000, he and | | | | buy Xanax without someone taking a picture of you? |
| Mel Gibson carried The Patriot at just $110m. Then he | | | | Buy Xanax online. But Heath lost control, mixed his |
| was headlining and on the run from the pack of | | | | medications, took too much, and paid the price. Let that |
| celebrity magazines, gossip mongers and their | | | | be a warning to you all. Stay alive by keeping control |
| paparazzi photographers who shred your privacy and | | | | of your intake of Xanax and any other medications. |
| compete with each other to catch you in your most | | | | The one consolation in all this is that, even though |
| unguarded moments. | | | | Xanax was not able to keep poor Heath going, we still |
| The medical profession define social anxiety disorder | | | | have the next Batman film to look forward to. By all |
| as extreme anxiety about facing the judgement of | | | | accounts, Heath’s performance as the Joker in the |
| others or behaving in a way that might cause you | | | | Dark Knight is well worth the price of entry. Although |
| embarrassment or ridicule. How would you react if, | | | | there’s perhaps something inherently ironic about |
| everywhere you look or turn, you find a camera’s | | | | Xanaxman playing the Joker. Here’s a character |
| intrusive lens hoping to catch you in a moment that will | | | | so completely over-the-top, so excessive in his nature |
| sell a million magazines? Even the ordinary becomes | | | | with all that malicious glee bubbling over into destructive |
| the potentially extraordinary depending on how the | | | | energy. Did Heath have to take Xanax to act the part |
| camera captures it (and how some software package | | | | of someone who so obviously doesn’t take |
| can manipulate it to make it more exploitable). When | | | | Xanax? |
| you know that anything you do or say can and will be | | | | |