Ironically, one of the songs I liked most recorded by Whtiney Houston was “Didn’t we almost have it all”.

More than a great majority of us, and in the top echelon of entertainers, Whitney Houston did have it all. Beauty. An angelic voice, pitch perfect. Passion. An ability to transform that talent onto the silver screen as if it were second nature, probably because it was.

Many radio and records folks have posted on Facebook and other social networking sites about her death. How she was too young to die. True. About how her barrage of hits changed pop music in the mid 80’s and through the 90’s. Also true.

About how Bobby Brown, entertainer and ex-husband, ruined her and ultimately is responsible for her death. False. Or, in a more direct sense, dead wrong.

No, Bobby Brown isn’t or wasn’t a perfect person or would be on anyone’s list for husband of the year. His transgressions are well documented, and so are the stories of the early years of their marriage. Most had the common theme- “How did a class act like Whitney end up being attracted to Bobby Brown?” The stories got wild. Some were true. Some weren’t. And we’ll never know just which ones got proper credit.

With her incredible success, sold out tours, record sales that helped put her label on top year after year, Whitney had resources available to her that the average person doesn’t. With all of the fame and fortune she had, and the movie “The Bodyguard” was also good to her in both record sales and at the box office, there isn’t anything she couldn’t afford.

In the George Benson penned song “Greatest Love of All”, the line that sticks out in my mind two days before Whitney is to be laid to rest is this one- “No matter what they take from me, they can’t take away my dignity”. How ironic to see that her dignity is what people now are discussing, and not her tremendous success.

The higher you climb the more people expect of you. They also put you under a microscope, especially if you’re a public figure. No, Whitney Houston didn’t remain the sweet, innocent girl from the debut album that sold millions of copies in the mid 1980’s. As I write this, we have sufficient reason to believe the singer died from a combination of alcohol and prescription medications, and it was common knowledge in the industry that this was a problem for her for years.

Put the “Bobby Brown is the one that ultimately killed Whitney” argument to bed. She was an adult with resources most people don’t have at their immediate disposal. We are all responsible for our own actions, regardless of circumstances. It is not the first time a person that many admired and adored died before their time because of self neglect. Elvis. Corey Haim. John Belushi. Chris Farley. Amy Winehouse.

What is the reason those seemingly with the world at their fingertips feel the need to alter their state of mind? Who knows. Addiction and alcoholism is a disease though. It’s treatable. It also knows no socio-economic boundaries. But you have to want to help yourself.

Maybe the fall was much harder than the climb. Maybe going from the limelight in top 40 radio, only to give way to younger and equally talented artists such as Mariah Carey, and perhaps in today’s world Adele, was a difficult thing for Whitney Houston, not to mention zero chance of living in any anonymity and knowing every move she made was documented, likely by a photographer or twenty. Throw in how difficult it is to raise a teenage daughter without any of the aforementioned. Most of us will never know what that kind of pressure was like. But maybe that’s a blessing. Because we also won’t have so many people analyzing what went wrong- and not giving a second thought about why it matters in the first place.

Rest in peace, Whitney Houston. Thanks for the music.