I think it really was just an epic troll. The man had run out his cash reserves, was at an age where he must’ve started feeling old. Spent decades experimenting wildly with drugs. He was by every outward metric a broken person. And also a person that valued his freedom to do whatever above everything else. Prison, forced clean and facing the very real possibility of never tasting freedom again. I just can’t imagine that he wouldn’t snap, which is a failure of the state to not keep him safe while in their ward. He was also extremely action oriented, he wasn’t the type to contemplate suicide, it’s either do it or don’t.