Addiction

[Sick Boy]

I do recall hearing someone on the radio saying that the physical effects of heoin withdrawal are in fact quite trivial, and that most of the horrendous trappings are psychological.

I thought that heroin addiction actually makes changes to your metabolism, that you undergo a physical change when you become addicted. I have no medical background in the slightest though and everything I know about heroin comes from artists' or creative writers' portayals of it.

Burroughs used to talk about how each junkie has their own individual symptom when they go through withdrawal that is specific to them. I think he called his the "cold burns" or something. Is this the psychological aspect? A psychosomatic response?

 

[zhao]

I do recall hearing someone on the radio saying that the physical effects of heoin withdrawal are in fact quite trivial, and that most of the horrendous trappings are psychological.

take home reading assignment: a chapter in first half of Infinite Jest called "Poor Tony Had a Breakdown" (or something like that)

anyone know what I'm on about?!?!?!

(incidentally jonesin for some ganj right now... )

 

[zhao]

someone on the radio saying that the physical effects of heoin withdrawal are in fact quite trivial, and that most of the horrendous trappings are psychological.

i dont really know if this is true or not but ultimately, i believe that physical and psychological realms are indistinguishable and one and the same.

physical ailments come from psychological disturbance, and vice versa, probably in ways medical science has yet to describe.

people always privilege the visible, physical, concrete, over the emotional, psychic, spiritual. this i think is very wrong.

emotional neglect/abuse is no less disastrous for a child than physical neglect/abuse; and of course they are often intertwined. sure food is directly needed for survival, but the damage done by emotional neglect is just as drastic -- but more difficult to measure, and the effects often take longer to become apparent.

 

[josef k.]

Burroughs in Queer: “In my first novel the protagonist Lee comes across as integrated and self-contained, sure of himself and where he is going. In Queer he is disintegrated, desperately in need of contact, completely unsure of himself and of his purpose. The difference of course is simple: Lee on junk is covered, protected, and also severely limited... When the cover is removed, everything that has been held in check by junk spills out.”

Thomas Nagel in "Concealment and Exposure": "The point of polite formulae and broad abstentions from expression is to leave a great range of potentially disruptive material unacknowledged and therefore out of play. It is material that everyone who has been around knows is there -- feelings of hostility, contempt, derision, envy, vanity, boredom, fear, sexual desire or aversion, plus a great deal of simple self-absorption.

Edit: Ultimately, heroin is a painkiller.

 

[zhao]

Their stimulus of choice is not a button pressed to get pleasure, but to stave off hideous physical and psychological agony. Until you've crossed that line, until your brain becomes dependent on the substance, you still feel pleasure from it, so you think--ha! I can beat this, I'm not an addict like all those losers. But once you've crossed that line, you're there, there's nothing you can do to go back.

Ultimately, heroin is a painkiller.

but that line is not so clear cut is it? i mean isn't one of the definitions of pleasure "absence of pain"? (not sure how much i agree with it tho).

but it does makes sense to think of the pleasure that the addict is not experiencing in terms of the pleasures that non-addicts experience -- in such a comparison addiction is like you said, just striving for that default "neutral" state that non-addicts take for granted.

dave hickey: heroin satisfies all your desires, while cocaine just make you very acutely aware of them.

 

[viktorvaughn]

i dont really know if this is true or not but ultimately, i believe that physical and psychological realms are indistinguishable and one and the same.

physical ailments come from psychological disturbance, and vice versa, probably in ways medical science has yet to describe.

people always privilege the visible, physical, concrete, over the emotional, psychic, spiritual. this i think is very wrong.

emotional neglect/abuse is no less disastrous for a child than physical neglect/abuse; and of course they are often intertwined. sure food is directly needed for survival, but the damage done by emotional neglect is just as drastic -- but more difficult to measure, and the effects often take longer to become apparent.

I don't think this is quite true - i work with child psychiatrists and people working on parenting interventions and courses and there is a massive emphasis on building a secure attachment between parents and child, affection, love etc. That doesn't mean that this view is reflected in the general public but i think people are aware of it by and large. In all these abuse memoirs I get the impression a lot of them detail with mental abuse (eg the one called Ugly) and highlight it as just as damaging as beatings etc.

I agree that the physical and mental are very closely linked and probably in ways we don't yet know about. But baldy stating 'physical ailments come from psychological disturbance' is plainly wrong. Did all these people contracting Swine Flu get it because they holidayed in Mexico at the wrong time or because of un-addressed neuroses and issues troubling their psyches?

 

[zhao]

well yeah... there are limits and exceptions of course... i mean if you break your leg playing ball...

 

[viktorvaughn]

well yeah... there are limits and exceptions of course... i mean if you break your leg playing ball...

I would content that it is the majority of physical problems which have demonstrable physical and medical cause, and the exceptions which are somehow linked to the mental.

 

[nomadthethird]

really? That's interesting and believable; is there any documentation of this? I'd like to read about it, and I'm trying to tempt you out of retirement.

I do recall hearing someone on the radio saying that the physical effects of heoin withdrawal are in fact quite trivial, and that most of the horrendous trappings are psychological.

I can look for some, but I bet if you check on youtube you'll find some good documentaries. There was an HBO doc on addiction that I think had some gamblers in it. I believe there are some good ones on Discovery Health, too.

Withdrawal for some substances is physically worse than others. Cocaine withdrawal is psychologically very bad but physically almost non-existent. For opiates, it's horrible physically ANd psychologically. Think of the worst tropical flu you can imagine, plus the worst stomach flu, plus imagine feeling so weak you can't walk or really even move, sweating and shaking, oscillating between feeling really really hot then so cold that your extremities turn purple, vomiting until it's green bile and then brown salts to the point of organ damage, and on top of that having cascading panic attacks that shoot through your system constantly and cause numbness and tingling everywhere and insomnia so bad you don't sleep at all for days and days. When you do finally sleep for 20 minutes or so at a time, your nightmares are so bad they're like Saw IV times a hundred.

When I transitioned onto maintenance opiates last summer, even though I was on the highest possible dose, it wasn't enough to stop the puking--which I was too weak to do standing up, so I mostly just lied on the floor puking onto a towel or bag. (It did help with most other symptoms, thankfully.) Eventually, I had to be hospitalized. They gave me some kind of anti-vomiting suppository made for people who are dying of cancer, and IV fluids, because I couldn't even keep down water. I lost around 20 lbs in a couple of weeks, and I didn't weigh much to begin with so I got down to less than 90 lbs. I had to be given a steady stream of blood pressure lowering medication too, because my BP was 210/100.

And that's just the "acute withdrawal" phase! This lasts about two weeks, then you have at least six months of "post-acute withdrawal" to look forward to. (No, this wasn't the first time I'd gone through all this...) Luckily, mine wasn't so bad this time. They tell me I shouldn't even be alive based on the shit I've done, and that it's a miracle from my "higher power" who wants me to live so I can do good things for others.

 

[nomadthethird]

I thought that heroin addiction actually makes changes to your metabolism, that you undergo a physical change when you become addicted. I have no medical background in the slightest though and everything I know about heroin comes from artists' or creative writers' portayals of it.

Burroughs used to talk about how each junkie has their own individual symptom when they go through withdrawal that is specific to them. I think he called his the "cold burns" or something. Is this the psychological aspect? A psychosomatic response?

One crucial difference is that when Burroughs was using, street heroin was only floating at about 15% purity (I think it even says so in Junky), whereas now it's up to 80-90% pure and much much cheaper than it was then.

Usually when the heroin is expensive and low-grade, people go to pills, and that's exactly what you see in Burroughs--heroin was considered not quite as good as morphine back then (even though heroin is twice as potent as morphine and crosses the BBB much faster) or the other pressed-pill opioids. They usually did only heroin if they couldn't get the pills. That's what it's like in rural areas, too--everybody prefers oxycontin because the farther you are from a big city the weaker the dope gets because it's been stepped on so many times.

Ok no more drug talk for me today.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

people always privilege the visible, physical, concrete, over the emotional, psychic, spiritual. this i think is very wrong.

This is how I've always looked at it - Western medicine is great at crisis intervention, like if you break your leg & go to an ER. It's also much better at dealing with stuff that can be observed/defined/quantified - hence, at least to a degree I think, the emphasis on the "visible, physical, concrete". On the other hand it's not so great at encouraging general health in the first place (beyond some vague eat right/exercise line), or at dealing with more amorphous problems or at dealing with the psyche.

Other forms of medicine/healing - Chinese, Ayurvedic, Naturopathic, etc etc have their own strengths & weaknesses. one big advantage seems to be that most of them encourage a more overall approach to health which makes a lot of sense to me. On the other hand a lot of traditional/alternative medicine quite a mixed bag. Also cos unlike "regular" medicine it's not so closely regulated & thus there are unfortunately a lot of rip-off artists mixed in with the legitimate practicioners. And either way if you got shot you'd still want a Western-style doctor to patch you up.

There's obviously loads more that could be said on this topic, but generally I think it could boils tdown to what you're aiming to have healed. Also obv there's some crossover between Western & more holistic styles of medicine - i.e. my aunt who has termincal colon cancer has been for some time now doing chemo alongside various alternative approaches.

Anyway I think that's a valid point you raised - I just think it's more of a case by case thing than a sweeping statement that can be generally applied.

 

[...]

I must say, I'm extremely pleased - I mean, experiencing much pleasure - to see you back Nomad, but I must ask, why

They came from hardworking immigrant families who took it as a huge point of pride that their own children do better in life than they did. I resent the fuck out of that and always have

why why why and how can this be a bad thing or a thing to be resented? That's the most important point of parenting. That's why parenting breaks down in the upper classes! Or why, for example, Bill Gates is saying openly that his children will not inheret his wealth, because they have to make their own way in the world to make them functioning and successful individuals.

In a way, like teaching, the ideal is to teach a generation so well that they will be able to pass skills and knowledge and principles to their own kids.

There is some point to this, a social function.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I do recall hearing someone on the radio saying that the physical effects of heoin withdrawal are in fact quite trivial, and that most of the horrendous trappings are psychological.

well nomad already eviscerated that myth (and welcome back nomad! even if it's just a cameo?) but to add my two cents - that is bollocks, I can't imagine who would've said such a thing.

not speaking from firsthand experience - but - I saw an ex-girlfriend's brother go through withdrawal & the horrendous trappings were most certainly very physical. I wasn't there 24/7 or anything - she & her folks were looking after him & I was just popping in & out for moral support & to run errands for them & stuff - but I thought there was a real chance the withdrawal would kill him. he actually pulled through, tho unfortunately he wound up relapsing about a year later & I'm not sure what's happened since. also known several accquaintances - unfortunately heroin is the scourge of a certain part of the traveling punk scene - actually scared me straight back when I was 17-18, seeing all these haggard 23 yr old junkies with gray skin & missing half their teeth & scars from abcesses and so on.

 

[...]

I would like to know your opinions on porn, Nomad. Mainly because mine have been changing radicallyin recent years, and I'm still interested and open to all the arguments.

As disclosure, I got paid three times for writing stories for Mayfair magazine in my pseudo-journalistic "career" in 1999, and I'm not very proud of it now.

 

[Mr. Tea]

not speaking from firsthand experience - but - I saw an ex-girlfriend's brother go through withdrawal & the horrendous trappings were most certainly very physical. I wasn't there 24/7 or anything - she & her folks were looking after him & I was just popping in & out for moral support & to run errands for them & stuff - but I thought there was a real chance the withdrawal would kill him.

I think smack withdrawal is hardly ever fatal, unless maybe you're badly ill with something else as well. The only commonly used drug (since barbiturates were phased out) that generally has fatal withdrawals for the very badly hooked is actually booze. Edit: maybe benzos as well.

 

[Sick Boy]

I think smack withdrawal is hardly ever fatal, unless maybe you're badly ill with something else as well. The only commonly used drug (since barbiturates were phased out) that generally has fatal withdrawals for the very badly hooked is actually booze.

This doesn't sound right to me. Surely if you're constantly vomiting, not sleeping or eating, and going through mass physical shock, death is not a far off possibility?

 

[Mr. Tea]

This doesn't sound right to me. Surely if you're constantly vomiting, not sleeping or eating, and going through mass physical shock, death is not a far off possibility?

I guess it's probably going to depend to some extent on whether you've got dependable people around to look after you. I've just heard that there are drugs with potentially much more severe (i.e. fatal) withdrawals.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I think smack withdrawal is hardly ever fatal, unless maybe you're badly ill with something else as well. The only commonly used drug (since barbiturates were phased out) that generally has fatal withdrawals for the very badly hooked is actually booze.

This is true AFAIK. My impression was, I'm sure, greatly magnified by how physically grotesque & severe heroin withdrawal is - I mean, if you've no prior experience with it (which I didn't) it looks like the person is on the verge of death.

 

[Tentative Andy]

Craner, there are a whole load of thing I want to say in response to that, but sadly I don't have the time to concentrate on it right this minute. I will, however, have a response up to it by the end of the night.
(I know I've said things like this on the board before, and then have managed to forget/avoid actually doing them, but this time I will. Promise! ).

Hardly turned out to be 'by the end of the night', but I did promise so here goes:

You said -
"Fine, it's a case-by-case issue, and I used to buy that. But is it true? Think about it. Yes people are fucked up, individually, but, then again we give birth to children, and have to raise them.The best way, ideally, is with a strong mix of masculine and feminine influence, and a stable background. It's ideal, and hard to instill and maintain, but I think it's been generally proved to work. All children from broken homes miss it. I mean, weirdly, I don't wish my parents had remained married, but I also miss the family, who barely exist in my case. Really, I just wanted an older sister, a key to my psychology. "


Well, I don’t think I’d actually say that it’s a case-by-case issue. There are general trends that can be observed, and at a general level I would say that a typical nuclear family set-up – married hetero parents – is slightly more conducive to a positive upbringing than a single parent situation. However, I would always the following caveats: that these are generalisations so there are many exceptions on both sides, that the difference between the two is far from dramatic, that these conclusions are based on my own fairly haphazard observations and so not scientific, and finally that neither models are either anything like perfect or anything like awful, and indeed neither would represent my ideal or ‘favourite’ family model; for that I would agree with Zhao that extended families are to be preferred. I mean, if we’re going by what’s traditionally accepted as working, then after all these have been the norm for most of human history, and indeed continue to be so for a huge proportion of the world’s population.
Also, what I find a bit questionable is your automatic equation of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ with strictly men and women respectively. I think the difference between sex and gender is real and important. There are feminine men, and masculine women. So, if we do believe that a balance of masculine and feminine is crucial to an ideal upbringing, then there’s no reason to think that a 1 man-1 woman couple will be the only structure that can provide this, or indeed that it will provide it in every example. Presumably this is at least part of the reason why gay male-male and female-female couples seem to provide perfectly acceptable upbringing environments, because within the couples there would still be contrasts in personality, different power dynamics and social roles within the relationship, so the child would still receive the variety and balance of input that seems to be important.
There were other things I considered saying, but they sounded too much like attempting to sound clever for the sake of it, which I’ve not very good at anyway. But my main point is that I don’t so much disagree with you as think that you’re drastically oversimplifying things.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Boys need a father figure when growing up. Doesn't have to be the biological father of course (though there's no reason why it shouldn't be, unless he's useless or an ogre), could be an adoptive father, stepfather, uncle, grandfather or even a (significantly) older brother. But boys who grow up without one at all are badly disadvantaged in all sorts of ways...school (under)achievement, mental health, getting in trouble with the law, and (to bring the thread back) substance problems.

Whether girls are inherently more emotionally hardy when growing up in circumstances like this, or it's to do with the fact that if kids grow up with one parent it's usually the mother, I don't know.

Good points from Andy, by the way.