At 24, my head was as shiny as a cue ball on a billiard table. I naturally thought this meant curtains. Actually, I found it helped. When I was too young to play real character parts, they mistook me for older because of the bald noggin. I got juicy roles right from the start.
Death comes at you no matter what you do in this life, and to equate drugs with death is a facile comparison.
A good movie is made by an initial burst of energy, the way that, when you are in school, your class exercises are always better than your final projects.