Category Archive

Romancing Opiates,  a controversial book on opiate addiction was written by social critic, retired doctor and highly acclaimed author Theodore Dalrymple, many call the Orwell of our time.  He has written extensively for the City Journal, Manhattan Institute; a social journal worth viewing.  His 2006 book, Romancing Opiates treats addiction and treatment much in line with his social commentary on failed states and systems.  Most of his writing follows an Orwellian ideology.  Curiously,  in his book about opiate use, he compliments Mao Tse Tung’s methods of eradicating  opium and heroin use in China with extreme coercion or death.  You can read the rest of this review right HERE

THE ALCOHOLISM AND ADDICTION CURE: a book with a claim to cure addiction.  Most have seen the ad’s.  It sparked my curiosity.    Heroin addiction is the genesis of Chris Prentiss’s book and his claim to cure addiction.  His son, Pax Prentiss was a 10 year heroin user among other drugs, including alcohol.  Pax conquered a larger than life complex about his dad by co-founding Passages Treatment Center with him.   http://www.dadonfire.net is not sold on a simplistic cure.  I do like the four points.   Here are some links for your own review:    Hollywood Rehab •   Breakthrough Addiction Recovery •   Addiction Tomorrow. “Curing addiction” at Passages is reduced to four  problems  in an addict’s life:  1) Chemical imbalance,   2)  Events of the past,  3) Current conditions and  4) Things we believe that are false; biggest being that addiction is a disease and “I” have it. (Of course this flies in the face of AA and NA.)

If you believe that addiction is not a disease; but it is “something” that is curable, read this book.  Addressing the four points will take a lot of cash.  Passage’s, Malibu,  is $78,560 per month.  A scaled down Passages, Ventura is $32,500 per month.  That includes daily work of nine therapists and doctors  a plethora of phlebotomy according to Judith @ Passages Admissions (805) 283-4737.  Those costs are based on Jan. 2010 pricing.

“The cure” is a commodity.  Life energy, you might say.   But, isn’t that personal effort no different that what has been known for the last 54 years since alcoholism and  drug addiction to follow, were defined as disease by the AMA.   It takes work whether done in 30 years or 30 days.  As far as “a cure”, I wouldn’t bet much money on a “cured” addiction left un-checked after a single month of treatment.     Addiction recovery, however one minces words, be it a  cure or recovery,  takes living in vigilance for an addict.  Most can’t afford luxury treatment, but probably wouldn’t argue the impact  of personal and public cost of  addiction.  It is  a financial burden to all of us and big dollar treatment doesn’t  pick bones about this reality.  A “cured addict” is another story.

Excerpt from the book Trapped by Lori Stephens and Robert Nahas:

…My spinning head started to slow down.  I felt like I’d just stepped off the Tilt-a-Whirl at the carnival.  No point of reference, nothing around me staying in one place, everything changing shape.  My eyes slowly focused, filtering out the fuzzy, indiscernible shapes in the surrounding environment….  Local sounds still seemed off in the distance, coupled with a cave-like ringing sound in my ears.  My body, numb and lax, felt like it vibrated, so much that it hummed from the inside out.  Though I lay motionless, I could feel every cell in my body vacillating in frantic horror, trying to keep my organs in play and everything going according to the master plan.  It was mass chaos without the coordinated efforts of my brain, which was off-line and useless at the time….

…With the toxic concoction that had flown through my body for the past twenty hours, there was a cellular panic of a different order.  The desperate urge for more was well heard by the incumbent resident.  My insatiable body scorned the exhausted liver and kidneys for robbing the precious poison, while they approached total shutdown.  And like every other time, the voices, in unison, grew louder and louder with each pump of my heart:  “MORE METH!… MORE METH!… MORE METH!… MORE METH!”  Like in the final mile of a marathon, my heart struggled to thrust yet one more time….

Excerpt from the new book What’s Left of Us by Richard Farrell.  The book will be available from Amazon after June 30, 2009.

I am a heroin addict.  My life is limited to three concerns.  The first thing I gotta figure out every morning is how to get a bag of heroin into my arm no more than ten minutes after I wake up.  If I fail, I’m dope sick.  The cramps inside my lower stomach go on a full-scale attack….

… The majority of heroin in Lowell originates from New York City.  Puerto Rican gangs bring it here by the kilo.  The drug dealers on Adam Street who package the heroin from one pound bricks into grams and half-gram are no Einsteins.  They cut the heroin or add fake shit….

… Too much pure heroin in a half-gram package equals a “hot shot.”  You’re history, because five minutes after the rush your heart stops.  Too little or no heroin in a half-gram package gets you dope-sick.

… But my major concern on Adam Street is “cotton fever.”  I’d rather be dope-sick all day than get what the Puerto Rican junkies down here call “cotton shot rush.”  It’s when a dirty piece of cotton fiber used to filter the heroin makes it into your bloodstream….

… “Cotton shot rush” is a perfect example of life as a heroin addict.  You live for the moment.  If it happens, it happens.  But there is no mistaking it when it hits.  Ten to twenty minutes after you pull the trigger it whacks you like you’re in the third day of the flu virus.  The ears give it away:  if they start to ring you’re fucked.  Pressure begins to mount on each side of your temple like a vise squeezing slowly together.  Sweat pours off your brow but at first there is no temperature associated with it.  The shakes progress quickly to trembles.  Chills hit immediately after and the body’s temperature spikes….

… I wasn’t always a homeless, jobless, low-life heroin addict.  Once I was a good kid, an altar boy for Father Muldoon right here at St. Patrick’s.  I went to the YMCA as a young boy and played basketball, baseball, and football… injuries from football got me addicted to drugs, and the night I watched my father die, and everything else that happened, sent me on a path to heroin.

“Yo, yo! Heroin, cocaine. Dimes and nickels.”