Originally Posted by golittleperson

If we are going to play psychoanalist today, I may as well jump onto the band wagon and get slammed.
I adore Richie, but I think we all tend to "judge" for lack of a better word based upon what we know, see, hear from the media and his videos, interviews and now tweets. I think he has lived most of his life with excess upon excess but he seemed to enjoy it. Purhaps at 54 he has finally reached a point for some inner reflection. Trying to find the best him he feels he can still be (hitting the gym and he does look as fit as I've seen him in years) But, what still stands out for me is that this is a man who lived with chemicals and alcohol constantly influencing him. He has per most been clean for sometime (although I did fear a bit of a relapse with some of the behaviors) and recovery is a very difficult time. There is no cure for an addictive personality and they often sustitute something else, maybe not as harmful but still trying to constantly fill a need. They often flee from the negativity because they have not yet learned how to handle it. Facing it yet must be part of the process. It's easy to post blame and credit on others because they don't know their self. It can take years requiring solid therapy and true friends. Now, he is in IMO the most plastic place in the world where my perception is that most of the people now around him have their own agendas and not his best interest at heart. Again, as you point out too much pressure on the teen to fill voids. My children are corner stone to my life but I can not allow them to be my all. They grow up and move on, we are to be the adult for them. All celebs wear a persona, it's hard to know which may be real. I KNOW I'm off on a wild tangent but I do understand the process. My mother went through rehab 5X and eventually lost the battle to alcohol induced dementia. Every relapse was always someone/something elses fault. Or it was the "disease". Loath the day some psyc. major put that crutch in her hand. I've seen it all. He seems to be going through this self discovery, mid life crisis as you will at the same time he is still young in recovery. Precarious time. I hope whatever it is, he figures it out. Even more so, I hope I'm just overly assumptive as I also know from my circles that all addicts are different, but support system is mandatory no matter.