Chris Cornell R.I.P. (1964-2017)

True. You know what you're getting, kind of, but it a hairy situation when medical professionals cannot really be trusted to make sound ordinations. Where I live it's almost impossible to get benzos and the types of meds Chris had in his system prescribed legally due to the addiction risk. Though if you're a rock star that's of course not a problem anywhere.

 

There is a heroin epidemic in the USA that is under-reported and doctors and --"big pharma" --played an (unwitting) role in it. Perhaps they are being overly cautious where you are....

 

The heroin epidemic up here in the north east is certainly NOT under reported in the last few years anyway. It's all you hear about and I know a lot of people affected by it. The prescription drug epidemic has now started to come to light more but I feel it has been hidden not under reported. Whatever this isn't what this thread is about.

 

I was not aware of that, how awful.

 

For an addict there is no difference in abuse of heroin or prescription drugs of the sort it seems Cornell has in his system.

So he might have *been* clean but he wasn't when he killed himself. Very sad. I know of a number of addicts who committed suicide after they relapsed.

 

They were prescription drugs apparently taken at prescription level and the ME said outright in his report they did not contribute to his death. He had no alcohol in his system either. He was physically otherwise apparently healthy(healthy weight, nothing wrong with his heart/lungs/liver, etc).

One of those medications was for migraines(which I didn't know he suffered, but I just read an interview linked in a thread on another site where he talked about once being hospitalized due to a migraine so bad he couldn't remember the word for blue).

Some people noted he seemed to grab his head leaving the stage - is it possible he was suffering from a migraine? Could that explain some of his behavior, at least at this show, esp if combined with ear monitor issues making it hard to sing?

Whatever it was, it's both better and worse that the tox report came back "clean" so to speak. At least he hadn't relapsed, it won't be "oh another rock star who OD'd/killed themselves high on drugs" but on the other hand it means he felt so depressed, was in such a dark, lonely mental state that he wanted die and he was able to do it.

 

Thank you for this post. I've been waffling as to whether or not to bring up migraine in this thread at all.

My adult son is a chronic migraineur, from age twelve. (read: near-daily excruciating head and eye pain for those not familiar.) Migraine is still poorly understood by science, and society - society says Oh, it's just a headache, why can't you just get on with it. During the early years of hospitalizations, doctors, and endless tests to rule out other things such as brain tumors, a blizzard of prescriptions were tossed his way.

You would not believe the number of side effects pages in tiny 6-point type accompanying these scrips. Topmost warning? Suicide.

Collectively as a family we said, NO. My son said he'd rather use OTC and live with the pain than be yanked into the abyss by a prescription. So that's what he does. He lands in the hospital when OTC can't cope and the pain spins out of all human bounds. (And yes, as Cornell himself mentioned, these pain levels and their resultant brainchem stew get you to a point where you are not thinking straight.) These migraine meds also were/are apparently a supposed cure-all for seizures and all manner of other maladies which he does not suffer from. Yet the docs just kept on writing out the scrips. And we kept on not having them filled. They do provide some relief to some migraineurs, but migraine does not behave in universal ways, nor certainly do the meds.

Migraine can be crippling and life-stopping, sometimes for days at a time. When someone like Chris Cornell is in a profession which demands one's appearance regardless of how utterly awful one might feel, turning to a prescribed med hoping for relief is 100% understandable. Of course I can't know that this is what happened. But I can absolutely see the possibility of it. And for a migraineur with an active migraine to perform, around incredibly noisy amps and instruments, holy mother of God that would be literally the stuff of living nightmares. I have wondered about this possibility ever since he died.

The US prescription med problem ranges far beyond the confines of treatments for depression and various mental illnesses. Physical pain and barely-understood maladies like migraine and cluster headaches are also making Big Pharma wealthy while the patients continue to suffer.

 

Ativan (Lorazepam) is an anti-exiety medication, which is fairly easy to get a prescription for. I know, because I've had it prescribed to me for anxiety on things like plane flights. A usual dose is one tablet, which while it will relive the anxiety, can also make you feel pretty loopy. You're not supposed to drive or operate heavy machinery while on it, as it can also make you dizzy or drowsy, or both. It can also interact badly with other medications, and one of the possible side effects, especially with long term use is - "may cause suicudal thoughts". Ironically, just like a lot of anti-depressants if taken at the wrong dosage. Chris had taken FOUR, plus other medications. I can easily see how this could have severely altered his mental state to the point where he wasn't in his right mind, leading to the unfortunate decision that ended his life. So while they want to say the meds didn't play a factor in his death, I think, like his wife, that they most certainly did. Yes he didn't OD in the traditional sense, but he still took more medication than he was probably supposed to, and mixed it. The fact that the EMT's administered Narcam says they wanted to try and counter the effects of any meds he had taken, so there's that, too.

 

Not to mention that bright stage lights, too. My wife suffers from occasional migraines, and when really bad, you might just as well put her in an isolation chamber. It's gotta be no sound, no lights, no strong smells or it will only make it worse.

 

Essential reading!
Great article. Very tragic suicide.
And now there's Veder........
Beave

 

Ativan can also induce hallucinations, especially in that quantity.

 

It's beautiful. I find that the simplest ones are often my favorites. They give you room to think.


Buddy Holly




Freddie Mercury
(this vanished in '13)

 

He seems to have been on Ativan for quite some time, and the 4 mg fits in with his supposedly telling his wife he took a couple extra. His normal dosage per dose could have been 2mg. 2mg, 3 times a day would be a perfectly normal prescribed dosage. Taking extra would make him more tired/relaxed, it most likely wouldn't cause hallucinations because if he'd had a tendency towards having hallucinations on the drug, they would have been noticed before and he would have been taken off of it and given something else. Anywhere between 1mg and 10mg is normally prescribed per day. 4.1 mg isn't really that much Ativan for a regular user.

In fact for bedtime usage, for help with getting to sleep, 4mg is a normal dose. So having 4.1 mg in his system, at bedtime, isn't extreme.

I think people need to accept maybe it wasn't the drugs. Depression can be a terrible and unpredictable thing. Even if he'd been the happiest he'd ever been, he could have still walked into that bathroom and done the same thing if the depression suddenly came on strong. Nothing needs to "cause" it.

 

All this consideration, speculation and conjecture of the mind of a man...
"Alive in the superunknown
First it steals your mind
and then it steals your soul."

Fare Thee Well

 

Just listened to a little of Audioslave's self-titled. Love a lot of these songs--but man, "The Last Remaining Light" is so damn good.

 

I've read about the rare cluster headaches, the suicide headache. Affects men more than women. Scary stuff.

 

Not to forget the bonus track Give

 

Yes. It's easy blame the drugs for everyone involved as that removes the stigma of suicide (it was an accident) and the responsibility of close family and friends (they didn't see it coming). There must have been something heavy going on in his private life, but we'll probably never know.

 

Yeah I like that too. "Super Stupid" and "Turn to Gold"

I remember getting the "Like a Stone" CD single with "We Got the Whip" when they were still somewhat easy to get in a local store. Not anymore!

 

I'm traveling to Detroit next week for a work retreat......found out we are staying in the MGM Grand. I'm such a big fan, I have to admit, if I can, I at least have to check out the floor. I don't know why, but I wanna walk by it. I'll never get out to CA to see his memorial, so this is as close as I can get.

 

Great acoustic performance of 'moonchild' by chris.. love this song. The loss of cornell has really hit me over the last few days .. Enjoy ...

 

Here's a recent tribute from Serj Tankian during Prophets of Rage set

 

Yeah - i've been watching a lot of the 'euphoria morning' shows .. Chris looks a little worse for wear.. he looks pale and i think he is wearing eye liner...
He also sounds tired and flat on some performances during the tour but excellent on others..
Really loved Alain Johannes performances on guitar - great player ...
Cool that you met susan silver even if she was unfriendly ...

 

.. watch the master at work .. this performance is so good its unfair on other vocalists..
Just chris and a backing track...

 

Ha! Just picked up the new EU double vinyl of "Badmotorfinger" for 34€. The lenticular sleeve looks great. Not that there's something wrong with my 1991 Dutch original, love the alternate purple/ green artwork but... it's a long album to be presented as single disc. Pretty positive that if this had been released a couple of years later it would have been a double album - possibly even a limited edition with "Satanoscillatemymetallicsonatas" - but in 1991 we had to be happy that there was a vinyl release at all. RIP CC