“in the cupboard sits my bottle
like a dwarf waiting to scratch out my prayers.
I drink and cough like some idiot at a symphony,
sunlight and maddened birds are everywhere,
the phone rings gamboling its sound
against the odds of the crooked sea;
I drink deeply and evenly now,
I drink to paradise
and death
and the lie of love.”
—Charles Bukowski, “Soirée”
Soon the monster roused himself and grasping the skirt shook it, saying as he did so: **If this be human, it’s light,” then he rushed back into the water.
Satan’s plan is to sow hatred and enmity amongst you with intoxicants and gambling, and to hamper you from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. Will you not give up?
Ah, devil ether. It makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel. Total loss of all basic motor function. Blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue. The mind recoils in horror, unable to communicate with the spinal column. Which is interesting because you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can’t control it.
“When the light turns green, you go. When the light turns red, you stop. But what do you do when the light turns blue with orange and lavender spots?”
― Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic
“Instead of being a gift that separates us from the animals, free will has become my gaoler. Junkies are the ultimate outsider, not only are we outside of society: we are outside of nature. I spit, turn, and wander towards the beach. Heroin gave me wings but took away the sky.”
― Drew Gates, The Crooked Beat
That familiar feeling starts sinking in
The crawling, the burning under your skin,
Your stomach churns, your skin is tight
Tis now the time for fight or flight.
Your mind plays tricks, it knows this game well
Its the price you pay during opiate hell.
Do I fight? Do I flee?
The guy on the corner will be glad to see me.
Its much to easy to go down that road
the one that shimmers and seems glittered with gold.
But today I fight, its this or my life
Too much, Too long have I hidden my vice.
Today I say No! and pray for strength,
This will take time, whatever the length.
Confessions of an Opiate Fiend
Read more: http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=231766#ixzz2vAeNTgCJ
DRANSFIELD
last week, I think on Tuesday,
she died
just gave up breathing
toppled over
a big smashed doll
with the needle still in her arm
I made a funeral of leaves
and sang the Book of Questions
to her face as white as hailstones
to her eyes as closed as heaven
‘For Ann so still and dreamy’
http://printedshadows.wordpress.com/category/australian-poetry/michael-dransfield-collected-poems/
“What was so painful about Amy’s death is that I know that there is something I could have done. I could have passed on to her the solution that was freely given to me. Don’t pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It sounds so simple; it actually is simple but it isn’t easy; it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring.”
― Russell Brand
The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict?
The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don’t wake up one morning and decide to be a drug addict. It takes at least three months’ shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don’t really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict.
The questions, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity. I drifted along taking shots when I could score. I ended up hooked. Most addicts I have talked to report a similar experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. If you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict’s special need. You don’t decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you’re an addict. (Junky, Prologue, p. xxxviii)”
William S. Burroughs, Junky
LAURIE DUGGAN
ADVENTURES IN PARADISE
Briefly – I fell in and out of love
and in and out and in and out some more,
swore off drugs and took them up again,
finished two books and started on a third:
was granted a modest place on the honours list
whenever two other Sydney poets got together, pissed.
If I see one more person freak out on drugs here, I’ll ring the fuzz in Wanganui, and when they arrive, I’ll point you out as the distributor. A broad man like you shouldn’t mind a spell in Wanganui jail.
(Oliver, W.H. Port Nicholson Press 1983).
“I’ve learned to get really good at this – say one thing when I’m thinking about something else, act like I’m listening when I’m not, pretend to be calm and happy when I’m really freaking out. It’s one of the skills you perfect as you get older”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium
– Dr T.P.Chia
Cocaine Lil and Morphine Sue
Did you ever hear about Cocaine Lil?
She lived in Cocaine town on Cocaine hill,
She had a cocaine dog and a cocaine cat,
They fought all night with a cocaine rat.
She had cocaine hair on her cocaine head.
She had a cocaine dress that was poppy red:
She wore a snowbird hat and sleigh-riding clothes,
On her coat she wore a crimson, cocaine rose.
Big gold chariots on the Milky Way,
Snakes and elephants silver and gray.
Oh the cocaine blues they make me sad,
Oh the cocaine blues make me feel bad.
Lil went to a snow party one cold night,
And the way she sniffed was sure a fright.
There was Hophead Mag with Dopey Slim,
Kankakee Liz and Yen Shee Jim.
There was Morphine Sue and the Poppy Face Kid,
Climbed up snow ladders and down they skid;
There was the Stepladder Kit, a good six feet,
And the Sleigh-riding Sister who were hard to beat.
Along in the morning about half past three
They were all lit up like a Christmas tree;
Lil got home and started for bed,
Took another sniff and it knocked her dead.
They laid her out in her cocaine clothes:
She wore a snowbird hat with a crimson rose;
On her headstone you’ll find this refrain:
She died as she lived, sniffing cocaine
W. H. Auden
Ghost busting smoking cocaine; searching for white particles in the belief that they are crack
(African
“Death’s got an Invisibility Cloak?” Harry interrupted again.
“So he can sneak up on people,” said Ron. “Sometimes he gets bored of running at them, flapping his arms and shrieking…”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Eddie Vedder (1965)
The tragedy of this life is not failure, but low aim.”
— Benjamin Mays
Tallulah Bankhead
“My father warned me about men and booze… but he never said anything about women and cocaine.”
— Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968).
http://www.oocities.org/yangyangetje/proverb.html
“People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other.
(pg. 61, “Racism and the Economy”)” ‘
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
― Neesha Meminger, Shine, Coconut Moon
Why did he quit drugs? “With the smack, I knew: ‘I’ve got to stop now, or I’m going to go in for hard time.’ The cocaine I quit because I fell on my head! Due to that — no more coke. Actually, my body tells me when to stop . . . the hard way. It’s a knock on the head — OK. It’s no big deal to me, to give things up.” Keith Richards.
“I think that it is a great tragedy that a child can lose their mother, father, sister or brother, because you and I made a decision that getting loaded was more important than they are.”
― Pamela Barrett, Tales of the Titmouse
Napoleon Bonaparte
“Ros was dead.
He had loved heroin more than it loved him. I was shocked beyond imagining; he was the first of my friends to fall.”
― Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot
~Wilson Mizner
Drugs are a bet with your mind.”
“It’s like gambling, somehow. You go out for a night of drinking and you don’t know where you’re going to end up the next day. It could work out good, or it could be disastrous. It’s like the throw of the dice.”
― Jim Morrison
… Jean Cocteau
“Any way I slice reality it comes out poorly, and I feel an urge to not exist, something I have never felt before; and now here it comes with conviction, almost panic. I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
― Jarod Kintz
“Heroin spread that soft blanket over everything. But once the blanket was ripped off, it took a layer of skin with it, leaving nothing but nerve ends screaming in the breeze.”
― Jerry Stahl, Perv – A Love Story
Harlan Miller
“She wasn’t about to go down that road herself, which was a testament to her spiritual awakening and her commitment to sanity. It was a real blessing that she didn’t follow me, because oftentimes, people go out together and one comes back and the other doesn’t. Or both of them never do.”
― Anthony Kiedis, Scar Tissue
History. Mystery. Research-in-Progress.
Learning to stumble through life without the comfort of booze.
A sweary alcohol recovery blog written by a Yorkshireman
Adventures in Addiction Recovery & Cancer Survival
A woman's quest for one year of sobriety
A mom, wife and professional's journey on recovering from addiction
ACoA Recovery Issues (adult-children of alcoholics & other narcissists)
WHERE TO START WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START
biographical, non-fiction
Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings in Mountain City, Tennessee
Emotional musings
Expedition website
ever seeking a right-fit life
Simple Thoughts on Life
Shortness of Breadth
Because we’re all recovering from something.
Climbing, Outdoors, Life!
History. Mystery. Research-in-Progress.
Learning to stumble through life without the comfort of booze.
A sweary alcohol recovery blog written by a Yorkshireman
Adventures in Addiction Recovery & Cancer Survival
A woman's quest for one year of sobriety
A mom, wife and professional's journey on recovering from addiction
ACoA Recovery Issues (adult-children of alcoholics & other narcissists)
WHERE TO START WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START
biographical, non-fiction
Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings in Mountain City, Tennessee
Emotional musings
Expedition website
ever seeking a right-fit life
Simple Thoughts on Life
Shortness of Breadth
Because we’re all recovering from something.
Climbing, Outdoors, Life!
THE OLD PROVERBIAL RECOVERY 