The Elvis War
Some anonymous addict once said, “My disease wants me dead, but it will settle for miserable.” Meanwhile, non-addicts incredulously watch the spectacle of gratuitous self-destruction and shake their heads.
Take Elvis Presley, for example, one of the most famous people in the world, a man who had plenty of money and more than enough attention and praise, and all the sex he wanted, and scads of hangers-on waiting around to do his bidding. So, what was his problem? Why did he eat himself into an unhealthy state of corpulence and gobble up masses of drugs?
To relieve psychological suffering, some people do destructive things like shoot up fentanyl. Others find that physical pain is a satisfactory antidote to psychological pain. Even over-exercising to the point of injury may be included in the chronic addict’s repertoire of behavior — although obviously not in this particular case.
At any rate, substance abuse is often considered to be a manifestation of the self-injury impulse. Outsiders tend to perceive addicts as hedonistic, irresponsible airheads dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure, but, as we have seen, the true source of addiction just might be self-punishment.
Food addiction as self-flagellation — how bizarre does that sound? But what about Elvis? He, like so many other unfortunate humans, was quite literally at war with himself. While ordinary people have clever ways to conceal the self-hating nature of their addictions, the larger-than-life persona of Elvis made the underlying fact glaringly apparent.
Supposedly, Elvis got started on drugs in the army, when he was given pills containing a stimulant to stay awake on guard duty. Usually, a person tends to prefer either one category of high or the other, but apparently Presley later able to enjoy downers as much as he had formerly appreciated uppers.
A point came where his life offered no genuine satisfaction, but only several different varieties of pain. According to a rather sleazy website, some former employees wrote a tell-all book describing that awful stage of what was left of the artist’s once-stellar career:
Elvis was frustrated by lightweight movie roles and overwhelmed by the endless demands of his fans. He retreated behind the gates of his Memphis mansion, Graceland… His absences, affairs, and drug use led to the end of his stormy 6-year marriage to Priscilla.
He would get himself in a rage over that. You know, he would get himself so worked up over it, that he’d begin to take the medications to deal with the depression of the rage.
Shows started to be cancelled, and the downward slide accelerated. Sequestered in his palace, three times every day Elvis would stuff himself with a pile of high-calorie, low-nutrition food and pass out, watched over by someone to make sure he didn’t choke to death in his sleep.
Even worse, what preceded every appalling meal was a different sort of meal — a banquet of drugs including (but not limited to) Seconal, Nembutal, Valium, and Quaalude. The horrifying aspect of this ritual is that he himself called the load of drugs an “attack,” each of which included not only a handful of pills, but a syringe loaded with Demerol.
Dr. Pretlow has noted that “Displacement behavior bears a striking resemblance to addictive behavior.” Similar to “an animal that sleeps or feeds when threatened by a predator,” Elvis did both, which certainly constituted “not an appropriate response in the various sets of conditions in which it occurs.”
According to his long-term friend Red West, Elvis never wanted any counseling. When it was suggested to him that he did not need all the pharmaceuticals, he reportedly said, “Nuh-uh. You’re wrong. I do need it.” On the day he died, Elvis apparently somehow tricked his watchers, and saved up the contents of three “attacks” to self-administer all at once.
The coroner’s toxicology report did not confirm that the death was due to overdose. Vernon Presley, Elvis’ father, is said to have privately ordered up a second autopsy, the results of which will remain sealed until 2027.
Written by Pat Hartman. First published September 5, 2025.
Sources:
“Elvis Presley,” Unsolved.com, 2023.
“Reconceptualization of eating addiction and obesity as displacement behavior and a possible treatment,” NIH.org, June 2022.
