The key is in the story . . . . . .

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CHESTER BENNINGTON R.I.P. 1976-2017

This announcement from Big O today:

Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington has died aged 41, LA County Coroner says. The coroner said Bennington apparently hanged himself. His body was found at a private home in the county at 09:00 local time (17:00 GMT) on July 20, 2017. Bennington was said to be close to Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell, who took his own life in May. Formed in 1996, Linkin Park have sold more than 70 million albums worldwide and won two Grammy Awards. The band had a string of hits including Faint, In The End and Crawling, and collaborated with the rapper Jay-Z. In May 2017, Linkin Park released their seventh studio album, One More Light.

A key element in the group’s success was to fuse elements of metal and rock with rap and hip-hop to shape the nu-metal genre on songs such as Crawling, In The End and Numb. Arguably their biggest asset was Chester’s powerhouse voice. He had a huge, raspy vocal which suited their stadium-filling, singalong anthems. Whilst his vocal persona could be described as angry and harsh, in person he was warm, articulate and funny. The singer is said to have struggled for years with alcohol and drug abuse, and has talked in the past about contemplating suicide as a result of being a victim of abuse as a child. Bennington wrote an open letter to Chris Cornell on the latter’s death, saying: “You have inspired me in ways you could never have known… I can’t imagine a world without you in it.” Cornell would have celebrated his 53rd birthday on July 20. He hanged himself after a concert in Detroit on 17 May. - BBC

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I cannot pretend to have liked Linkin Park or have been very aware of their lead singer Chester Bennington who has been found dead (taken his own life on his friend's Chris Cornell's birthday) but what I do respond to is his story which is all too familiar to anyone who has spent any time working in recovery. What I do know is those who struggle to cope with abuse as children are tormented, tortured and harrowed for the rest of their lives often and the facts and figures around heroin and alcohol abuse are clear. I once did a training course on working with the survivors of child abuse that gave the bare facts that amongst the entrenched heroin and class A drug abusers some 83% have been abused in some form or other and of those eighty percent, 67% have been sexually abused so when you next hear a story about 'bloody junkies' or addicts behaving badly maybe try to put it in some context. That Chester Bennington was able to discuss or even mention his abuse is the exception and suggest he had some therapeutic help along the way and I hope he did but sometimes it is not enough and I have lost so many people I worked with because it became too much. So judging suicides is not helpful  . . . . . . .  a 'coward' he most definitely was not

Chester Bennington Obituary - BBC Canada