 According to biographers, Caserta was one of many friends of Joplin's who did not become clean and sober until a very long time after the singer's death, while others died from overdoses.Although (Big Brother guitarist) James Gurley's wife, who was Joplin's close friend, died from a heroin overdose in 1969, he did not become clean and sober until 1984.Caserta survived "a near-fatal OD in December 1995," wrote Alice Echols.