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For Ozzy [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-22
As a drug user whose most problematic drug use is currently on pause, I note Ozzy Osborne’s death with interest and his life with respect.
I wager every other obituary of Ozzy will be made a cautionary tale about his drug use, despite the fact the he died of Parkinsonism. Obituaries I have already read append “exacerbated by chronic drug use” to this cause of death, but the mechanism of the exacerbation is left unspecified. For these writers, and perhaps even the doctors he trusted, his drug use must have been involved, because drugs are bad.
What we have from Osborne is an impressive contribution to music and culture, all of it fueled by drug use. You might take a moment to reflect on whether Osborne could have done this for us had he taken our advice to quit drugs.
And how he tried. He had to shuck and jive endlessly about quitting drugs to avoid stigma and ostracism. But he never did quit, and he made great music and art deep into his life, past the age when most of the rest of us have died of other causes, including boredom.
My drug use is on pause because I have, at the moment, gotten what I used drugs for to the extent I can. I invite you to consider that Ozzy used drugs for the same reason, and his late-life productivity indicates that he continued to get what he wanted from his drug use. And we reaped the benefits, moralizing at him all the while.
I think this interpretation does less violence to his life than the interpretations of other writers.
I hope you accept this contribution to our discussion of the meaning of his life, and join me in this spirit in wishing him well in whatever happens or doesn’t happen next.
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