Philip Seymour Hoffman, an American actor who sadly passed away at the age of 46, faced many hurdles in his last days, according to People.
One of his neighbours, when interviewed about him, stated, “I remember he had just gotten back from rehab, and he ordered ‘one half of a beer.’ The bartender said, ‘Phil, a beer is three bucks. You can’t splurge for a whole?’ Then it hit us that he was trying not to drink by drinking only ‘half.’ But that’s not how it works, unfortunately. He just couldn’t fight the demon.”
Hoffman passed due to a drug overdose, having been found unresponsive at his apartment with a syringe still in his arm.
“This is a tragic and sudden loss,” his family had stated at the time, “We are devastated.”
“He’d go over to Oliver’s restaurant with his son Cooper. They’d have lunch, and you’d see them talking and laughing for hours at a time,” continued the neighbour, “Then, come nightfall, you’d see Phil back at Oliver’s, hunched over the bar, alone, looking like an entirely different man. He looked very dark and depressed.”
Speaking about his addiction in the past, being admitted into rehab first at the age of 22, Hoffman had claimed, “You get panicked … and I got panicked for my life. I had no interest in drinking in moderation. And I still don’t. Just because all that time’s passed doesn’t mean maybe it was just a phase. That’s who I am.”
Director Matthew Warchus, who worked with the actor in True West reflected that he was a “really bright person, a family man who made so many good choices,” adding, “That’s the hideous part about addiction.”