Whitney Houston Final Autopsy: The Horror of Addiction

"(NewsCore) - Whitney Houston's body was ravaged by scars, cuts and burns when she died, autopsy details showed.

She also had a needle mark on one arm and was high on a cocktail of nine drugs when she died in a hotel bath in Los Angeles on Feb. 11, 2012.

Years of drug and alcohol abuse had left the "Bodyguard" star with a damaged heart and liver, a hole in her nose and 11 front teeth missing.

Sources said the temperature could have been as high as 150F (66C) when she got into the tub. Evidence from police and medical teams showed swaths of skin was burned from Houston's back after she got into the scalding water. It also resulted in "skin slippage" on her legs. Six hours after her death, the water was still 91F (33C) and medical sources said she may have been so high she did not notice how hot her bath was.

Traces of cocaine, cannabis, anxiety pill Xanax, muscle relaxant Flexeril, allergy medicine Benadryl and painkiller Ibuprofen were found in her body.

Houston's lifestyle also had weakened her heart so badly that one of her coronary arteries had narrowed by 60 percent. She had marks on her stomach, chest and upper left thigh believed to be from cosmetic procedures. A scar on her left forearm may also have been self-inflicted. The 48-year-old was also scarred by decades of cosmetic surgery, alcohol-fueled fights and falls.

The official cause of death was accidental drowning with heart disease and cocaine use as contributing factors."

Read more: MyFoxLA

Addiction has No Friends and Whitney Houston was No Different

I read in yesterday’s news that there is likely no further need to investigate the death of Whitney Houston and that the investigation is coming to a close. With that being the case, enablers and drug dealers get away without being held accountable for contributing to Whitney’s death.

Are we ready to settle for the fact that large entertainment gatherings, especially in the music industry, are sought out to be a drug users playground where anything goes? Are we just going to stand by and condone this, turning a blind eye so evildoers can pray on those who are vulnerable? In my view, more should be done to protect sober people in his or her first two years of recovery. Here is my solution.

When Whitney was able to achieve recovery and spoke openly about her, then past struggle with drug addiction, no one except a physician trained in addiction disorders should have had the right or authority to aide Whitney with any medical need. Those who allowed drug dealers back in Whitney’s life and condoned her drug use, have a lot to answer for. Whoever gave Whitney the cocaine she used on the day she died should step forward and take responsibility for his or her actions.

Dr. Drew: Whitney Houston is an "Addiction Death"

What can we learn from Whitney Houston?

Whitney Houston’s memorial service is a prime example of how people learn to talk well of those who struggled with his or her addiction, feeling sympathy for what they don’t understand, after they are dead. Yet what makes an addict? We should really start examining this question.

Whitney Houston’s cause of death has not been announced, yet everyone who followed her career knows, that addiction had taken away part of her voice, her looks, affected the way she felt about herself to a breaking point and that addiction took away her light. Drugs shattered Whitney’s spirit, accompanied by violence she experienced from her ex-husband Bobbie Brown, who battered her, degraded her and spat on her, knowing she was one of the greatest vocalists of all time.

Drugs will break and pull down even the greatest, most successful, most genius person into the hell of self-doubt, low self-esteem, lack of boundaries and all that once seemed innocent and so very precious. We are no longer the person we once were; yet we try so desperately to hold on to who that person is, while regretting our mistakes and knowing there may never be a way back for us.

We know we lose control of what has become of us and when we start making promises about all the things we’re going to do to improve; inside we know, with every promise made, we fall deeper and deeper into doubting ourselves, because we have lost our way. We lose hope and try to hide it, we lose confidence from others and we know it.

While in our addiction, there is, once in a while, a small glimmer of willingness to stop abusing drugs, but those who judge us and convince us, that in fact we are hopeless, crush it. This is part of the revolving door of the wickedness some of us never come out of. Holding on to the will and the belief of recovery is only possible if we are surrounded by those who understand that this willingness is not strong in our first two to three years of recovery. Keeping the wrong kind of company easily crushes this willingness, and if we risk being around those people and we relapse, we often do not survive.

People get tired of being judged and even more, throughout history; people have spoken out, protested, even died to end the tyranny of discrimination and oppression. On the horizon, maybe, just maybe one day, there may be a flicker of hope that people will end the oppression of those hopelessly addicted to drugs. I hope for humanity to one day arrive at this realization, because getting sober is a matter of life or death.

Whitney Houston Home Coming Memorial (Live Stream)

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Bill O'Reilly: Saying What Needs to be Said

Wendy Williams Remembers Whitney Houston by Revealing Her Past Struggle with Crack

“The John & Ken Show” Suspended for calling Whitney Houston “A Crack-Ho”

KFI-AM 640 should never bring back John Kobylt or his co-host and their minions, for the deliberately hurtful comments they made about Whitney Houston. No one should ever be downgraded to such disgraceful words, that only those use, who look to create a false impression, that they are better than the person they are falsely describing.

How many people gained joy from Whitney Houston’s music? How may people gained employment because she gave her best, to be the best there ever was? Whitney Houston stood for far more than the eye could see and if she found a young woman on the street, addicted to cocaine and she would have been in position to help her, having been able to hold on to her own recovery, Whitney would have done exactly that. She would have not looked down on someone who is dying, having lost his or her way.

John Kobylt was trying to make a joke at Whitney’s expense. He is a small man and a coward. He would have never said those things about her while she was alive. Now that she is dead and can’t defend herself, we can see how jealous of her he was. So jealous, that he forgot all ethics in broadcasting, which has now cost him the show. If that’s how he has to learn that he’s just a little man trying to tear down a music titan, then so be it. It’s all very sad to me. If I were him, I’d move to another town, cause the people in Los Angeles and the Country, are going to be and are furious!

Whitney Houston Understood Her Addiction

In this interview with Oprah, Whitney Houston proves my point; that addicts have a disability when new to recovery. Clearly, Whitney describes how she was harassed by her own feelings about drugs. This is a disability. We have to start looking at people who are getting sober from addiction, as people who are handicapped. Addicts get better over the years but most of us heal slowly, which means it takes years not to feel the feelings Whitney is describing in this video.

I drafted the Addiction Rehabilitation and Protection Act, which recognizes people suffering from addiction, as people who should be protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act in their first two years of recovery.

Many addicts do not survive relapse. Call on your elected leaders to create laws that punish those who sell drugs to known addicts. Once an addict commits to rehab, that person is ready to let go of addiction. But really letting go takes years, not days. Keep drug dealers and unethical doctors away from vulnerable people trying to recover. We must draw the line if we want to save those we love.

Goodbye Whitney

Whitney Houston: She Said She Needed Help, 10 Years Ago

Whitney Houston was an American Music Icon, adored throughout the world. Many who watched Whitney’s life unfold in the past decade knew there was a growing chance that drugs and alcohol might end her life early,... if she did not take care of herself.

Whitney even coined the phrase "crack is whack." Translation: I NEED HELP! What we all feared might happen to Whitney sadly came true. Yesterday afternoon, she was found dead at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in the bathtub, with her head submerged under water and her legs out of the water. According to TMZ, in wake of tonight’s Grammys, Whitney had been partying heavily the night before she died and authorities confirmed that there were downers such as Xanax, Valium and Lorazopam, found in her hotel room.

Certainly it is easy to speculate what might have happened to Whitney, but let's face it, chances of someone drowning in the bathtub without a sleep aid or some other from of intoxicant are pretty slim. The question now is, did Whitney take downers before she went in the tub?

The drug culture refers to Xanax as “the sleep of death” and according to those closest to Whitney, she liked to take Xanax before she would go on stage. What’s worse than that, like Michael Jackson, Whitney admitted she had a drug problem long ago. Why was no one watching her? How could a doctor or anyone else stand by and let her go back into the gates of hell by continuing to condone her drug abuse?

The financial impact of Whitney’s death is greater than those around her might have thought. Like Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and so many other music icons who have died as a result of drug abuse or accidental overdose, so many people lose their jobs as a result. No one was interested in paying attention to Whitney’s continued recovery, especially those closest to her. And now she’s gone.