To have little sympathy with celebrities with their addictions?

Drug addiction I have very little sympathy for, whoever you are. Everyone knows it’s a bad idea to take drugs in the first place. No one starts taking drugs without knowing they’re dangerous.

Not just a lack of sympathy, but a complete lack of knowledge and understanding around addiction and it’s causes.

At least if you're just Sarah from the council estate you can be an addict fairly privately. The worst that can happen is your neighbours might know about it.

If you're famous the whole flipping world knows about it. So I do have sympathy for that. I have sympathy for all addicts anyway as it's a mental illness.

This ^^ 100%

How they earn their money is irrelevant.

The OP has no sympathy for any addict from what they've written.

You can feel sympathy for the family and still feel for the addict at the same time. It doesn't have to be a one or the other. Addiction is so complex. It absolutely destroys lives both the addict and people around them. It's a shit situation.

I dont think celeb addicts are celebrated. Their scandals are shown on every outlet, their personal lives are leaked to the press by so called friends. A crap photo can be manipulated into a thousand different scenarios bar the truth. There's nothing glam about being a celeb addict bar money and sadly even the richest still end up in a grave if the addiction takes over. Maybe those who recover are celebrated but so are normal people, there are plenty of recovered addicts who go on radio, tv, online and I always think good for them.

. Of course active addicts blame others, they are addicted to a substance that has altered their reasoning and behaviour. It's bloody awful and so unfair to their families but it's not that black and white.

I’m a recovering alcoholic. I don’t think I’m any more special than anyone else. I have generally had quite a good life (minus some childhood trauma and generally shit parents). I’m not any more or less deserving of an addiction than someone in the public eye or someone who has had a less privileged life.

I know a lot of addicts and they come in all shapes and sizes. They do not fit the stereotypes you might think at all. And you almost certainly have someone close to you who you like a lot who is an addict, but you truly don’t know.

Aside from my husband, I can guarantee that absolutely no one in my life knew I was drinking 200+ units of alcohol a week. I was going to work in a very prestigious job. My kids are well put together and do well in school and involved in lots of activities and high achieving. I’m active and fit. I have hobbies and do lots in the community. I never got a DUI or lost my job or lost my house or got in trouble with the police. I know very few alcoholics who fit that caricature you describe. People are shocked to hear I don’t drink now.

Most people feel warmly towards people they don’t think are tits. Anyone who is drunk and abusive towards their kids, isn’t going to be thought of very kindly, though, yes, of course, we know if you’re middle class and white, you’re more likely to get a free pass. If you’re generally nice and well liked and people think that every couple months, you might have one too many (this was me!), they’ll still think good things of you…because they don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors every day if you’re good at covering your tracks.

Celebrities are a bit of a wild card. People either love them and have weird parasocial relationships with them. Or they vehemently hate them. I can guarantee if, say, Meghan Markle said she was an addict and went to rehab, people would not treat that information kindly! I think it depends what sort of crazy person you talk to. I personally hardly know who most celebrities are, so I’d have zero opinion about them other than I could relate to them from an addiction standpoint, but whether they’re famous or not would mean zilch to me. Someone who is a fan and super obsessed with that crap would likely feel differently.

Your title is misleading, and clearly you don't have sympathy for anyone with addiction- celebrity or not.

YABU.