Moon was
Paul McCartney's guest at a film preview of
The Buddy Holly Story on the evening of 6 September 1978. After dining with Paul and
Linda McCartney, Moon and his girlfriend,
Annette Walter-Lax, returned to a flat on
loan from
Harry Nilsson in
Curzon Place, London (near
Shepherd Market), where Moon died of an overdose of
Clomethiazole (Heminevrin). The medication was a
sedative he had been prescribed to alleviate his
alcohol withdrawal symptoms as he tried to go dry on his own at home; he was desperate to get clean, but was terrified of another stay in the psychiatric hospital for in-patient
detoxification. However, Clomethiazole is specifically contraindicated for unsupervised home detox due to its addictiveness, tendency to rapidly induce
drug tolerance, and dangerously high risk of death when mixed with alcohol.
[29] The pills were also prescribed by a new doctor, Dr. Geoffrey Dymond, who was unaware of Moon's recklessly impulsive nature and long history of prescription sedative abuse. He had given Moon a full bottle of 100 pills, and instructed him to take one whenever he felt a craving for alcohol (but not more than 3 per day). The police determined there were 32 pills in his system, with the digestion of 6 being sufficient to cause his death, and the other 26 of which were still undissolved when he died.
[30] Moon died in the room in which
Cass Elliot of
The Mamas & the Papas had died four years earlier.
Ironic that they had just finished watching the Buddy Holly Story.