Dr. Drew Pinsky Blames Pain Medication for DJ AM’s Relapse
Posted on August 31, 2009Addiction specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky told the Associated Press that pain medications likely led celebrity disk-jockey DJ AM to relapse, resulting in his death on August 28th. Pinksy is the host of VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab,” where he helps troubled starts recover from drug and alcohol addiction.
Pain medication “very slowly and subtly reawakens addiction,” Pinsky said. “I’m not saying it was inappropriately prescribed, I’m saying he didn’t know the risks.”
DJ AM (or Adam Goldstein), 36, was found dead in his apartment, along with a crack pipe and prescription pills. Goldstein and musician Travis Barker were the only two survivors of a plane crash last September, and Goldstein’s burns required two skin graft surgeries, and Pinsky believes the anti-anxiety and pain medication Goldstein took as a result of the crash reawakened his addiction to drugs. Goldstein had openly discussed his former addiction to drugs, including crack cocaine and Ecstasy.
A medical examiner’s office spokeswoman said Saturday that toxicology tests, expected to take weeks, are needed to determine what killed Goldstein. An autopsy Saturday was inconclusive, said the spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove.
Goldstein was to debut his own show centering on rehab in October on MTV called "Gone Too Far," featuring Goldstein staging interventions with young people battling their own addictions. MTV said it has not decided on the show’s future.
In an interview with The Associated Press last month to promote the show, Goldstein said that it was terrifying watching people go through harrowing addictions and it made him recall his own battles.
"I am a recovering drug addict. When I see it and I’m in their room and the paraphernalia and the whole lifestyle and everything, I still, 11 years later, have that little thing in my head that starts thinking, ‘Oh, where’s that? I wonder what that is?’"
Pinsky recalled how when Crazytown’s Seth "Shifty" Binzer, a former patient on "Celebrity Rehab," was going through his recovery process, Pinksy urged him to reach out to DJ AM, who was a former member of the defunct band, to help learn how to stay sober.
"He was someone I referred people to learn about recovery," said Pinsky, which is why he finds the circumstances of his death so shocking. "It was so much of a surprise I have a hard time believing it."
