David Carr, journalist and media critic, dies at 58

There was a time when David Carr's friends didn't think he would survive his drug addiction. But he not only turned his life around, he went on to become a writer with The New York Times and one of the world's prominent media and culture critics.Carr died suddenly last night. He was 58. David Brauer met Carr while they were waiting tables in Minneapolis and studying at the University of Minnesota. He says they shared a fondness for "chemicals."
In his 2008 memoir, The Night of the Gun, Carr wrote openly about his addiction to crack cocaine. Brauer describes the day he sought his friend after hearing he was near death.
 

"I just decided, on the spur of the moment, that I was going to try this with him. And it was mostly because I wanted to see what had done this to him, and it seems stupid and risky in hindsight... I left that night thinking there was about a 90% chance that he was going to die and that this was clearly the bottom," says Brauer.

But as Carr describes in his book, it wasn't the bottom. However, he did eventually seek treatment and turn his life around, largely because of his love for his family. 
"I'm just so grateful that he lived long enough to show everybody the gifts that were always there under the drugs, under the disease, under the crazy."