a young woman's life with heroin. The author, Ann Marlowe, had an experience different from that of most people who use the drug. Namely, she seems to be in the extreme minority of dope fiends; she managed to keep her (high-paying) job, have somewhat of a normal lifestyle (considering she was using heroin), and, for the most part, avoid addiction (this could be debated I suppose, depending on how one defines addiction). If you've read Junky by William S. Burroughs (also a heroin addict), you will find the nonchalant attitude taken towards the extremely addictive drug familiar. What you won't find familiar is the account Marlowe provides of her time spent with the drug; she apparantly is one of the few people in the history of opium using who managed to have such a laid-back relationship with it. If you are to take her account as true, she never gets in legal trouble, always has a place to live, and is able to control her heroin use almost compulsively.

I always like books about drugs. This is mainly (entirely?) because I am a drug addict in recovery. I always like books about heroin. This is because I used to be a heroin addict; I think that heroin is the best possible drug one can do (in terms of the sensation from it entering one's body), and the worst possible drug one can do (in terms of the physical, psychological, and social problems that always seem to surround heroin addiction moreso than any other drug) at the same time. So, of course, I especially liked the fact that it made me remember the first time, the second time, the seven hundredth time.



But something that I liked that a non-druggie could also like would be the way in which Marlowe tells her story, the way in which she weaves the words together. And the way in which she always manages to choose the right words. Marlowe lends some glamour to the usual unglamorous world of dope. She makes heroin seem like an exclusive club everyone wants to get into, a suave way of life that can only be experienced by the most hip. She lets you know immediately that, just like at the Beverly Hills Country Club or Oval Room at the White House, in her drug saturated world, there are rules to be abided by, unwritten customs to be observed, a specialized language, and deeply developed culture.

The thing that scares me about this book is that the wrong person could pick it up and get a false impression of the dope game. With that said,here is MY disclaimer: Marlowe's experience with heroin use can be called "atypical" at best, "impossible" at worst. I will tell you the truth right here, right now: A majority of the people who do heroin once love it, and keep doing it--and I would say that the VAST majority of people who do it three times or more keep doing it and find themselves addicted sooner rather than later. I have seen very few people able to control themselves in the face of heroin. It is a very powerful, extremely addictive drug, both psychologically and physically; and, though it is different for most people, I have seen first time users try to stop after a week or so of everyday use and feel ill. It is a myth that it takes three months to gain a habit initially, trust me. I speak from a completely honest place when I say that EVERY SINGLE PERSON I have seen use heroin for any length of time lose SOMETHING, and many of them come close to losing EVERYTHING. Among the things they have lost--and I include myself in "they"--the most damaging and hard to replace is not anything physical or financial, though I can attest for those things being much, much easier to lose than to regain. The hardest to replace are intangibles; your sense of normalcy, your self-respect, your ability to love and be loved, your confidence, sanity, ambition, and your innocence.{/b) Please use caution when reading this book. Though it is mildly educational, I can speak from experience when I say that the author's experience was about as far from mine as it could be. (((If anyone has any questions about addiction that has been brought up by this book, review, or anywhere else, feel free to email me.)))

Yikes; let's start with what I wanted to do while I was reading this book. Some of the time, straight up, I wanted to use.



When I finished reading it, I wanted to write my own story of addiction. But I always want to do that, and any decent literature makes me want to write, anyway.



I also wanted to contact the author and encourage her to put some sort of a "disclaimer" somewhere in the damn book, because, like I said before, her experience is very.....unique. So I suppose at the end of this book I felt a bit angry.

Good and bad. It made me feel as if I had never stopped using, not for one day. It is what people in twelve-step programs would call "a trigger."



Surprisingly, this book also led me to feel hip and included. Suddently, *I* was a member of this glamourous heroin club, one of the cool people. Of course, eventually the image of me sitting in a big group of physically fit, sane people who just happened to be heroin addicts dissipated. In its place, a picture of all of the junkies I've ever known

The book is laid out like a dictionary, with words (among them such expected words as bag, clean, and junkie, but many more unexpected, like guiltless, power, and watch) in alphabetical order, each with a corresponding entry underneath.



I didn't know whether to put this under things I didn't like or things I did like. The format lends itself to choppy reading; choppy reading--what I mean is skipping around, reading things out of order--can be good or it can be bad.



This book is almost like a reference book, or a book of essays. For the most part, you can read one or several entries and gain complete comprehension without having read the rest of the book.

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Created Jul 25, 2003 at 11:43pm • Submit your own review...