Why Do They Always Overdose? — Transcript

Celebrity overdose.

It is such a common story, I feel like it doesn't even shock us anymore when it happens.

And it always feels like the same story, a young artist amazes the world with how talented they are.

We fall in love with not only their music or their acting, but we fall in love with them, their personality.

They always seem so raw and honest.

We relate to them, we love their quirks.

And as they grow, they become part of our lives, part of our identity.

And when you see them win and achieve everything they said they wanted, it makes you happy.

And as they do that, get the fame, fortune, respect, everything that they asked for, it seems like they always mess it up with drugs.

It starts with the rumors, maybe a high performance, maybe a public meltdown.

We see them, the people that we loved, deteriorate and ruin what they built with drugs.

And sometimes they try to get better and sometimes they don't, but then you get the news.

Matthew Perry.

Michael Jackson.

Marilyn Monroe.

Mac Miller believed to have suffered an overdose.

So today we're going to look at the most famous celebrity overdoses and kind of dissect them a little bit from a drug nerd's perspective.

And I have actually not done the research for this video, so we will be learning together.

You said country music was always a part of the influence on my on my type of music anyway.

It's a combination of of country music and gospel.

So starting off this list chronologically, we have Elvis Presley.

And I don't really think I need to introduce Elvis.

He was famous back in a time where there was no blueprint for fame.

I mean, he was beyond royalty, he was a living God.

He lived famously in basically Elvis world.

In his own little bubble.

And it seemed like he loved the fame.

You see the performances and just looking through them now.

The dude was charismatic.

He knew how to perform and captivate an audience.

And he loved it.

But his downfall and eventual death is kind of a debated one.

Um, depending on who you ask, it's a different story.

I was told as a kid, he famously died on the toilet.

Uh, from a heart attack.

But then some people say, well, no, he died on the toilet because of an overdose.

Some people say, it was a heart attack caused by drug use.

But it seems like what is not debated is that he was a big fan of drugs.

And drugs were a huge part of his deterioration.

His use of drugs, but he thought that they were legal drugs.

Because they were all prescribed.

But was there anybody around him who could?

No.

Convince him to stop.

No, you couldn't convince Elvis on anything.

But he had taken them for a long time before I even met him.

Even in Germany when I met him, he was already taking uppers and downers.

And sleeping pills because he could not sleep.

This is the famous Priscilla Presley.

That he met when he was in Germany serving in the military.

He was 24 and she was.

Not 24.

I'm not going to touch that with a 10-foot pole.

But what Priscilla said is very interesting because she said before she even knew him.

He was doing these medications and this was early in Elvis's career.

So it sounds like drugs were maybe always part of Elvis's career.

What were these drugs?

Now, based on context and the time period, I can kind of guess on what the uppers might have been.

Um, and they were probably.

Either Benzedrine.

Dexedrine.

Or Methadrine.

These were somewhat common uppers at the time.

And what they are.

Benzedrine is amphetamine sulfate.

Which is street speed.

Dexedrine is dextroamphetamine, which is a major component in Adderall.

And then Methadrine is just meth.

And these medications were given to people for a number of reasons.

Narcolepsy, uh, for weight loss medication, for getting energy and focus.

It actually seems like from my limited research, it wasn't super uncommon for military men to use them to stay up on shift.

But I don't imagine that's why Elvis did them.

I suspect one of the major reasons he used them.

Is alongside being basically a good way to wake up, almost like a very strong cup of coffee.

These medications can often give you this feeling of euphoria and confidence that can almost give you a charisma.

And I would imagine that sometimes he might have to do a performance or be in the studio.

And maybe he's just not in the mood.

And these medications can almost forcefully get you in the mood to be creative or charismatic or talkative.

In fact, whenever you're seeing me on camera, most of the time I'm doing a version of these medications.

I currently take Ritalin, which is kind of a relative of these medications.

But there's a huge side effect to taking these drugs, which is they can make sleep really hard.

And that's where downers and sleeping pills come in.

You talk about how the doctors would basically give him anything he wanted.

So they were really enabling him.

Right.

Very much.

He was Elvis, you're not going to say no to Elvis.

The way she said that was terrifying.

So finding the complete list of all the drugs that Elvis took is really hard.

Uh, he did a lot of drugs.

But as a drug nerd, there's two medications that he seemed to like to use a lot.

They're very interesting.

And they're antihistamines.

And laxatives for the constipation.

AKA allergy medication and medication to make you poop.

Now, on the surface you might think, the dude might have had allergies and constipation.

What's the big deal?

Well, those two things combined kind of smell like a very certain type of drug addict to me.

You see, antihistamines can be used for allergies.

They can also be sometimes used for sleep.

Benadryl is a good example for that.

But when someone uses opioids, a common symptom of opioid use is an itchiness.

And that is because opioids cause the release of histamines in the body.

And that itchiness for a frequent opioid user can be very annoying.

So some opioid users can use antihistamines to get rid of that itchiness.

And the reason the laxatives are added in there is because long-term opioid use can cause severe constipation.

And sure enough, my suspicion is confirmed with this 60 Minutes story from two years after his death.

After analyzing body tissue, they reported traces of 10 separate drugs.

Jesus H Christ.

That list is like all the legendary drugs of that era in like the 1900s.

It's like that's.

He had them all.

At the top, Codeine and Morphine, these are two opioids.

So we have that.

He liked opioids.

Next we have Quaaludes, the legendary ludes.

And if you don't know what ludes are, they're sedative hypnotics.

They were actually prescribed for insomnia.

So they actually help you sleep.

I think a lot of people think that they're like.

Like almost MDMA like.

They're not.

They're very much a very sedative thing.

But the reason why Quaaludes were phased out is because people were getting really, really, really addicted to them.

And so they were replaced with benzodiazepines.

Which is the next one on the list.

Valium.

The hilarious thing is Valium, which is still used today.

Benzos are very common today.

They're also very, very, very addictive.

And super terrible to get addicted to.

One of the worst addictions.

But Valium.

Used for sleep.

Valmid.

Another sedative hypnotic used for sleep.

Placidyl.

Or Placidol.

I don't know.

Used for sleep.

And then the last four are barbiturates.

Which again are old school medications used for sleep.

So the dude definitely had a problem with sleep.

It's also worth noting, most of these on this list are also known to give you a pretty good euphoria or high.

So.

But the thing that I find very noteworthy about this.

Is that a lot of these sleeping medications, um, and this is a thing common today.

There's this idea that they are good for sleep.

Which is false.

With sleeping medication, there's a bit of a deception with it because a lot of people who have insomnia.

Are just exhausted because they can't sleep and so these medications that they take.

Finally help them get to sleep and that's what they are good for.

Helping you get to sleep.

But it comes at the cost of the quality of sleep.

If we just look at one of these drugs like Valium that is still prescribed very much today.

Multiple studies show it is not good for the quality of sleep.

Especially for long-term use, it is not advised at all.

Now, this isn't to shit on any of these medications or Valium.

There's very good uses for those medications.

But after literally years of dependency like Elvis did on these drugs.

It reduces the quality of sleep.

Your lifestyle.

Your natural body's processes after years of this, it deteriorates your body and mind to a really extreme extent.

And that's exactly what happened with Elvis.

The rose is stained.

It needs to be played apart.

I think what I want to hear in your life.

It's kind of sad.

Um, it's not super sad.

Elvis.

Not my cup of tea.

To each their own.

I think he's kind of a prick.

But let's finally get to how the old man died and I just want to say I will definitely make a lot of people upset with this.

Because it is a super debated thing till today.

People on Reddit and.

We'll get super fired up about their opinion.

Here's the information that is agreed upon.

Elvis's fiance Ginger was there the night he died.

And.

Side note.

Apparently he met Ginger when she was five years old.

But they didn't start dating until she was 20 and he was 41.

Um.

The more I read and watch Elvis, he's literally just Drake of the 1960s.

Like that's.

It's the same person.

Like they're both kind of almost fabricated people to parody black American music and art.

It's a it's they're very similar.

And they both love.

Anyways, this is how Ginger recalls the night.

Elvis turned on the television in his room to relax for a little while.

At about 6:30, Elvis called downstairs for Ricky Stanley.

To bring up his packet of medication to help him get to sleep.

Elvis took his packet of medication.

So at about 8:00, I woke up.

Because Elvis was restless saying that he just couldn't sleep.

Ricky came up and brought up another packet of medication.

The second packet.

Right.

Elvis took that.

The third time I was awakened again.

Elvis was was starting to get up saying that he still couldn't sleep.

I slept until 2:00 and the bathroom door was still shut.

So I opened the door and that was when I saw Elvis.

According to the medical investigator, the body was purple or deep blue.

So just using that account, I can see how it would be a heart attack.

But I can also see how it can be a drug overdose.

The specific drugs that he was taking and that he obviously took a lot of that night.

Are central nervous system depressants.

Those sleeping pills.

Uh, relax your body essentially.

And another thing that they cause that I've experienced firsthand from taking things like Valium is they cause a disorientation and a memory loss.

You can often black out, I've experienced multiple times where you take it.

And sometimes you forget that you've even taken one.

Which can put you at risk at taking another one, forgetting that you've already taken some.

And when you have a laundry list of very strong sleeping medications, that mistake of taking another dose can be deadly.

And how someone would die on these is because they are depressants of the central nervous system.

You become so relaxed and your breathing becomes so shallow.

That your body starts to lack oxygen, that can actually cause that purple or blue discoloration in the fingertips or the hands.

And from Elvis's perspective, if he did die from overdose, he probably just would have experienced becoming so relaxed that he fell asleep and then just passed away.

It's it's one of the more peaceful ways to die as far as overdoses are concerned.

But.

Yeah, I don't know.

Uh, could be overdose, could be heart attack.

Um, we could deduce.

I just don't want to do more.

This guy depresses me.

We're moving on.

Man, you know what doesn't depress me though?

Don't fucking do it.

Don't.

Don't do it.

Today's sponsor, Inoculate the World.

This is a cool one, okay?

This is not a regular sponsor.

You've never heard of these people.

And it comes with a science lesson.

So mushrooms, unlike plants or most plants.

Do not have seeds.

And so how they pass on their genetic material are called spores.

Now, if someone wants to grow mushrooms.

Any type of mushroom.

What you do is called inoculating.

And so what you'd have is a syringe filled with these spores of whatever mushroom you want.

And you inject it into something like this.

Which this is grain spawn that.

We don't have time.

But you inject the spores into this and it will colonize and you'll have this block of mycelium.

Like like just white block and you can use that to grow mushrooms.

Like Lion's Mane, mushrooms like Shiitake, so many different types of mushrooms.

But the question is where do you get the genetics, where do you get these spores of all these different mushrooms?

Well, that's exactly what Inoculate the World is here for.

They have tons of gourmet mushroom genetics that you can buy.

Like Lion's Mane.

Pink oysters, golden oysters.

Blue oysters.

On top of having a massive library of genetics to choose from.

They also have things like flow hoods if you want to get more into mycology.

So use my discount code Metta next time you go to inoculatetheworld.com.

To save.

Uh.

I don't know.

10%.

I forgot.

It's 10%.

When that makes the tall grass.

Bending to leaning.

And suddenly.

If you're not familiar with Whitney Houston.

As far as talent, she was like actually really special.

She was a church girl, she grew up in church.

And I say that for a couple of reasons.

One is if you know anything about black church, black church creates some of the best musicians in the world.

And has for decades.

Just kind of the nature of how it works.

I actually used to play in black churches.

It's.

I was bad.

It was hard.

It's intense, the music is very difficult to play and it often makes very, very talented people.

And Whitney Houston is definitely an example of them.

But the other reason I bring that up is that music in that church is very much interconnected with feeling the spirit.

As it is with a lot of churches.

But it it it just feels much different in black church.

I can't tell you the amount of times as someone who's not religious that I've teared up or even cried during a sermon.

Because the music takes a hold of you.

And the crowd will will break out as people jumping out of their seats screaming.

Feeling the spirit as they would say.

And seeing how that power of music can affect everyone around you.

Seemed like it very much affected Whitney Houston and how she thought about.

Really her purpose on this earth.

It was to share her music.

Could you see the reaction on everybody's faces when you sang?

You know what I used to do, Diane?

I would close my eyes.

Like this.

I would sing.

And then when I would open my eyes, the people would be what we call Holy Ghost fired out.

They would be in such spirit.

I think I knew then that it was an infectious thing.

That God had given me.

She truly believed that the reason she was given this voice by God was to share that with others.

It gave her a purpose.

And as she became famous in her early 20s, it seemed like people recognized that.

She wasn't just another beautiful pop star that got famous because she's beautiful.

But she loved music.

And in fact, was a musical genius.

But.

How did drugs play a part in this?

As time went on in her career, it looks like there was rumors of her doing drugs.

But not a lot of like concrete evidence.

But there was talk that maybe she was doing drugs.

And more and more time passed and then those rumors were confirmed.

She started to lose a lot of weight, look really, really unhealthy.

Maybe a high performance where she just acted kind of strange.

And eventually, it seemed like the major accusation of what she was doing was crack cocaine.

But that's not just thin.

No, what is it?

Tell me.

Do you know?

It's scary, then.

Do you really know?

No, you know.

Thank you.

Anorexia.

No way.

They've written it.

No way.

Bulimia.

No way.

That it's because of drugs.

No.

Whitney dying, crack rehab fails.

First of all, let's get one thing straight.

Crack is cheap.

I make too much money to ever smoke crack.

Let's get that straight.

Okay.

We don't do crack.

We don't do that.

Crack is whack.

To borrow a black American phrase.

A hit dog is going to holler.

Yeah.

She was doing crack.

But.

Technically she wasn't.

And before we get into that, let's just go into where did this drug habit start?

It seems like it's a pretty popular discourse to blame her husband Bobby Brown.

Apparently, a lot of people say that he introduced her to crack.

And when they started to do drugs together.

It kind of was the downfall of her.

Right.

But I actually found evidence of the contrary.

According to one of Whitney's best friends in the entire world, Robin Crawford, who actually was a bit of a part-time lover for.

Whitney admitted to doing drugs when she was 14 years old.

Cocaine being one of those drugs.

And from other reports I'm reading, it seemed like it was pretty common knowledge that on her way up.

She never really dropped the drugs entirely.

It was kind of part of it.

And she didn't really stop.

But why would someone who's clearly so talented feel the need to do drugs?

Now, of course, we don't know Whitney.

There could be a million of reasons.

But one of them that I think is probably very likely is for the exact reason Elvis did stimulants as well.

Cocaine is a different molecule than Adderall or meth.

Or any of the stimulants that Elvis was doing.

But they're all classified, these stimulants as sympathomimetics.

Now, translating what that means very basically is that these drugs simulate the fight or flight in our body.

That reaction you have when.

You might be, you know, getting chased in the jungle or whatever.

Right? And for creatives, especially like Whitney, who have a lot of pressure on themselves for achieving very highly.

Stimulating that fight or flight.

Is really beneficial.

Like I said earlier, you can get these feelings of confidence or charisma.

But on top of that, and this is a really big thing that I'm kind of reflecting on right now.

It stops second guessing a lot.

Like for me personally, I think a lot about why I do ADHD medications.

And obviously, obviously, I have ADHD.

But sometimes I feel like the real reason why I do it is to stop myself from being so hard.

And second guessing everything I do.

Like I have this habit of I'll film a section and then refill it and then refill it and then be like, oh, I just didn't use the wording.

It's not interesting enough.

I need to change my inflection here.

And I'm so hard on myself.

But when I take a stimulant, a sympathomimetic.

That stimulates that fight or flight, what happens is.

I don't second guess myself.

Because when you're in that fight or flight, you don't have time to.

Your body goes just make a decision and do it.

Right?

And that's exactly what these medications or drugs like cocaine can do.

And I'm imagining that's exactly how Whitney felt at times.

Especially someone who's so clearly talented and grew up in such an environment that was so harsh because she was so talented and had so many expectations.

It's counterintuitive.

But.

I get it.

But as far as linking her drug downfall with her relationship with Bobby Brown, that was famously toxic.

I think one blaming Bobby Brown is tired and she was a grown woman, she made her own decisions.

You don't blame her on other people.

But I do think that it is something that should be focused on.

Because I hate to be cliche.

Toxic love is a legitimate drug.

So many of us can relate to the feeling of losing sleep, having anxiety, losing the ability to eat.

To function and have your job and maintain friendships.

You literally in a toxic relationship have all the symptoms of a drug addict.

And what happens when you try to separate from that toxic relationship?

You have heartbreak.

AKA withdrawal syndrome.

And that can have just as much of a severe toll on someone's health as actual drugs.

Truly.

And I also think it's really worthwhile to mention that drugs or toxic love.

Are not the reason why people have the downfall necessarily.

But it's the effects of those things on the later parts of people's lives.

A good example of this medically is what causes meth mouth is actually not just direct meth use.

It's often meth use that is associated with other habits.

So someone who's addicted to meth.

Is not eating right.

Which can affect dental health.

They are staying up for hours.

They are not brushing their teeth.

They are living in unsafe, dirty environments.

That is what links to meth mouth.

It is not actually just the meth.

Meth doesn't cause that at its alone.

It doesn't.

Meth like I think like can reduce saliva in the mouth.

Which can affect.

But it's it's really the rest of the environment around it that causes that.

Same thing with Whitney's health.

Was it cocaine or was it the lifestyle she led with cocaine and toxic love?

Now to finally get to how Whitney ended up dying.

And also how I mentioned earlier that she didn't technically do crack.

Do you see how in this interview she was pretty offended by the accusation that she was doing crack?

It was like really.

She she took offense to it.

We don't do crack.

We don't do that.

Crack is whack.

Well, I actually have an old acquaintance.

That uh, helped me understand this a little bit.

I grew up in a crack house.

When when Whitney would talk about like what she would smoke, right?

She'd be like, no, no, no, I don't do crack.

Like crack is whack.

I did free base.

Was there like this idea back in the day that like free base, that's not trashy, that's cool.

While crack, that's whack.

Yeah.

It was a party favorite to me.

I was told.

My grandpa, he's from he's from that time.

So they would tell you.

There was more partying.

They were partying.

Free base was like that.

We and crack put together.

So she was just like.

She wasn't there was like what we call that rose.

It's like she wasn't really just pretty smoking crack.

She's just.

So it was like a different perception.

Like back in the day.

It was a they didn't see it as the same.

It was a party.

It was like, oh, yeah.

I just got a little head change.

And then it got then it where motherfuckers can't can't afford their drugs.

They got addicted.

People couldn't come off.

And it just went to another level.

Like anytime.

Bobby, come anytime.

Okay.

Thank you, man.

Okay.

Peace.

You see, Whitney wasn't smoking crack, she was smoking free base.

And this might be a little bit hard to explain, but I'm going to try my best.

And so regular cocaine, cocaine hydrochloride, the stuff that you snort.

You can't smoke it.

And there's a lot of reasons why you'd want to smoke it.

One of them being that it's really hard on your nose.

Your nose might be clogged up.

So you can't snort.

The other reason is that when you smoke it, it hits harder and better.

So if you want to smoke cocaine, you have two options that you can chemically do to that cocaine to make it smokable.

One of those is making crack.

And crack is the process of making smokable cocaine using baking soda.

But the problem with crack is that it's often kind of dirty, there's a lot of baking soda in it.

It's often cheaper because there's a lot more baking soda in it.

And so there's back in the day was perception that crack is kind of like cheap and like for poor people.

But there's another option if you want to smoke cocaine.

Called free basing.

Now, the process of free basing cocaine is actually the exact same chemical process.

The end product is the same.

But you have to use a lot more like chemistry to do it correctly.

But the final product is very, very pure smokable cocaine.

Often much more expensive.

And was back in the day, seen a little bit classier.

That's why Whitney took so much offense to saying, you smoke crack because she didn't.

She smoked free base.

And actually in a later interview with Oprah, she confirms this is exactly what she did.

No, we were lacing our marijuana with with with free base.

Free base.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And our weed.

And and weed.

We weren't doing glass, we weren't doing like pipe smoking.

Yeah.

We didn't get that far.

No.

Whitney's final days were sad.

She was reported as being kind of disheveled and mismatching clothes, her hair was soaked.

And eventually she was found dead in a hotel bathtub.

And the cause of death.

It's kind of a complicated one.

The final cause of death has been established as drowning due to atherosclerotic heart disease.

And cocaine use.

Atherosclerotic heart disease is essentially just a lot of plaque in your arteries.

And science shows that heavy cocaine use over years can build up plaque and cause this.

So after years of cocaine, her circulatory system was getting fucked.

And what probably happened is that she was in her bathtub.

Smoking some free base or crack or whatever it might have been.

And she probably had a a bit of a heart attack or or some type of of heart problem.

Causing her to lose control or or panic and started to drown in the tub.

And this is what often cocaine overdose looks like.

It is not a kind death.

It is essentially.

You get so high, but you start to have basically like a panic attack on steroids.

Until you actually have a heart attack.

And some people just die from that.

But it sounds like her death was during this attack, she drowned while having it.

Um.

It probably was not a very kind death.

Sad one.

This whole video.

What was I expecting?

This is a fucking depressing video.

Finally, someone of my generation.

Mac Miller.

Mac was loved.

Bestie Josh, the guy who helps me with music on this channel.

Uh.

He fucking loves Mac Miller.

I.

Never really liked him that much.

And that was the thing about Mac.

You hated him or you loved him.

And it and it wasn't because he did controversial shit or nothing like that.

It was really for two reasons.

One of them, he was a swaggy white boy.

It's easy to hate on a swaggy white boy who wraps.

That was my like complaint.

Like, oh, he's a swaggy white boy.

Uh, try hard.

Which is so ironic because I was such a swaggy white boy.

Like.

Totally hypocritical.

But the other thing about Mac is that he was very easy to read.

He was very transparent.

And it was corny at times.

Because it was like endearing, but he would say some shit that you could tell he thought he was cool while saying.

But it was just kind of like.

Cringe.

Like he would say some shit like, um.

Oh.

She bubbling, we fucking then you cuddling like baby, where the fuck you been?

Don't want to tell you she in love with him.

So so we ain't saying nothing.

You could probably tell she bluffing cuz she kiss you with the mouth, she gave me head with my concussion.

The inner swaggy white boy still calls me.

But the cringe is exactly why people loved and love Mac.

It was just so relatable.

Like he was active on social media, you saw his sense of humor, his group of friends.

You saw cringy ass freestyle wraps that are just.

Ugh.

We all did that shit.

We all did cringy wraps.

We all wrapped about the same stuff that Mac did, which was fame.

Women.

Money.

Drugs.

And like, yeah.

That's.

Yep.

And so to begin the journey of when did Mac start drugs?

We don't have to wonder.

It was part of his charm.

You knew that he was doing drugs.

The whole goddamn time.

Now, early Mac talked about.

Getting drunk with his friends and smoking weed or whatever.

But pretty quickly he got into using drugs.

And I use the term drugs generally.

Because it was just kind of drugs.

But there was one drug.

That he seemed to really take a liking to early on.

That it's also a very legendary drug in rap at this time.

Which was lean.

So lean is a very legendary drug.

So you had a styrofoam cup often.

That's what people like to serve it in.

And then you would put Sprite.

Then you'd add Jolly Ranchers for more flavoring.

And then it was time for the active ingredient.

Which was a blend medication that was Promethazine and Codeine.

Now, this is a medication that is given to people as like a cough suppressant.

To help them go to sleep for general pain, aches and pains.

And just help people with sleep generally.

But those two medications combined are really funny, especially when we remember Elvis.

So if we just start with the medication Codeine, it's an opioid.

It's generally, I think, seen as a bit of a shittier opioid.

It's not as euphoric.

It's not as strong.

But it's also weirdly enough a very, very, very ancient, like thousands of year old drug.

It's not like a chemically, you know, made in a lab.

Codeine is found in the poppy plant.

Like it's one of the major active components.

Morphine and Codeine.

So it's cool.

But as we know about opioids, it has these side effects.

Like constipation.

It has the side effects like itchiness.

Right?

This irritability.

And so that's where Promethazine comes in.

Promethazine is.

As you'd guess.

A very strong antihistamine.

So it battles some of the side effects of the Codeine of the opioid.

Just like Elvis used to do back in the day.

But the other thing that Promethazine does is it's called an antihistamine, but it's called a first generation antihistamine.

And what first generation antihistamines are.

They're antihistamines, but they have a strong side effect of sleepiness.

And in this case with this medication.

That's actually intended.

It causes people to be very drowsy and fall asleep.

That's why people like that medication.

And for reference, a second generation antihistamine is like Zyrtec.

Which helps with the itchiness with the allergies, but it doesn't cause sleepiness.

And so in this lean cup, people would be sipping this and it would kind of just get them high.

And I've only seen it in the wild, one, I think it was like I saw it in one studio I worked in like Carson.

Now to kind of get into the mind of why rappers like Mac.

Used this lean stuff.

Because it is kind of weird.

Like why do you want to get sleepy at the studio?

Right?

One, it seems like Mac in his interviews talks about how it was just honestly the pressure of the lifestyle.

That was just exhausting.

It was also just the people shitting on him.

All the time on the internet.

Just kind of put a lot of pressure on him and it finally with that medication allowed him to just exist.

And do what he does without having to think about all the external stuff.

But to extrapolate even more why I think the rap industry at the time was really into it.

Besides just fashionability.

I think it's also worth saying that a lot of rappers had a lot of traumatic childhoods.

Had a lot of like unresolved shit.

And then got all this fucking money.

And opioids sometimes allow you to not have to deal with that.

It's kind of like Benzos as well.

Where it's like you don't actually have to self-reflect.

Because you don't care.

You're just like, let's just fucking exist and I'm actually okay with the moment right now.

Finally.

But you know, that's my fucking opinion.

No.

As time went on with Mac, his addictions got worse.

But the difference was that there was no secrets behind it.

You could hear his music, him talking about it.

And the weird thing about it is that as you listen to his music as he progressed.

You could feel the self-reflection happening.

Like like his verses were instead of just, yeah, bitches and drugs are fun.

It went from like.

Bitches and drugs are fun, but I think there's a hole in my heart.

Like he'd say things like.

I think I see a fucking halo.

Halo, bout to meet my maker, bought a double cup of draino, some soda for the flavor.

Uncontrollable behavior with some psychopathic tendencies.

Lonely as your neighbors with the bitches, he's got special needs.

Word to my denim fiends, I'm Kennedy on ecstasy, my flavor from the nature.

Need an acre for my recipe, they got my soul, but I don't let them take the rest of me.

Funny because it's like you're hearing a young man.

See that there's a problem, but he hasn't put the puzzle pieces together yet.

Um.

And that was one of the things that really solidified Mac as someone that people loved.

Because you saw that self-reflection.

You saw that growth and you saw him evolve into like a deeper, more advanced complex artist.

And person.

And Mac kind of almost became a success story.

After a while, he started talking about trying to live a more sober life.

And it seems like he actually did that.

It seemed like he was kind of on the up and up.

And he also found love with Ariana Grande.

That looked like a really beautiful relationship.

And it just seemed like he was doing it.

He had really resolved whatever that hole was.

But then they broke up.

And then news kind of came out that maybe it was a bit of a toxic relationship.

That she was a support system for his sobriety.

And his vices.

And it seemed like after that breakup, he spiraled.

Got a DUI.

Did some kind of morally questionable stuff.

And I think in retrospect, uh, it looked like he was what my mom always said to me as a kid.

Is he was a dry drunk.

Meaning the underlying issue for why he needed the drugs and the women and all that kind of stuff.

Were still there.

But he just didn't indulge in the drugs.

And as a lot of people in that situation, and I'm so projecting because I sadly identify with him really hard.

Find love in relationships that are beautiful and think that that's the missing hole that they need.

Right?

And it's not.

Sadly.

And with Mac, when Ariana Grande, like that hole was reopened.

And he just had to re get re-exposed.

It seemed like he went right back to the habits if not worse.

And the last few nights of his death was just you can read the text exchanges.

Uh, this creator did a fantastic job.

Just reading them all out.

Basically, he hits up one drug dealer.

It's a laundry list of stuff.

But essentially he's asking for opioids, Benzos and Coke.

Okay.

That drug dealer was only a few minutes late to like their agreed time.

And so he hit up another drug dealer.

Who sold him an even longer laundry list of drugs.

Again, opioids, Benzos, Coke.

And then also sold him a hooker.

And then the first drug dealer ended up showing up, so he also bought those drugs as well.

And then he was found dead, overdosed by his assistant.

What killed Mac was different than Elvis or Whitney.

Um, it wasn't after years or decades of drug use.

Your body deteriorating.

It was a young 26-year-old guy who took some pills and one of them ended up killing him on accident.

Because.

It had Fentanyl in it.

Of all the drugs that he had.

One of the pills that he bought from the drug dealers were what we call blues or M30s.

And these are Oxycodone pills.

That were basically so widely prescribed and so famous.

That people eventually started counterfeiting them.

And in Mac's time of death.

Basically, doctors were not allowed to prescribe Oxy's as much as they used to.

And so the illegal market came in.

And you had drug dealers who basically would press in Fentanyl into these uh, pill presses.

To make them look like real M30s.

And the thing is is that it wasn't Fentanyl that killed him, right?

It wasn't just the fact that he took Fentanyl that killed him.

It was the fact that the way Fentanyl works as far as dosing, I've explained this many times in other videos.

But.

It's so potent per gram that if you do not have the proper equipment to mix the pill mixture.

To dose it correctly.

What you'll have is some pills that are correctly dosed.

And then some pills that you just didn't mix right will have a little bit too much Fentanyl in it.

And that little amount because Fentanyl is so potent.

Causes an overdose.

That's exactly what happened with Mac.

It seems like the assistant said that he found him on his knees in kind of a praying position on his bed.

Uh, kind of insinuating that potentially he knew that he was dying and he was kind of praying to not die.

Which I'm not saying could not have happened.

There there I can see a world where that is what happened.

But I think another very likely thing is that's just generally when you do opioids.

And you get really, really high.

You kind of fold over like that.

I would imagine that he was probably so high.

He didn't even think to pray.

He was just like feeling it.

And as with overdoses with opioids, you just kind of fall asleep until you die.

It's not a painful death.

Um, I think that is something that I bring some peace.

He didn't he didn't die painfully.

That's the video.

Fuck, that was dark.

I was going to do like 10 more celebrities.

Like I was going to do like Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson.

And and I had so many people in different like ways.

But like Matthew Perry and some of like the more recent overdoses are kind of like interesting.

So if you want to hear stories like.

Comment below if you want another series like this.

Also, it's my birthday today.

And you know what I was really wanting lately?

Money.

Um, subscribe to my Patreon, please.

Uh, you can unsubscribe immediately.

Or, you know, join the YouTube membership.

I just want a little bit of money for my birthday.

Come on.

The next video shall be.

Either in the Amazon rainforest or in Cusco with the Inca Empire.

I'll see you then.