Writing About the Use of Drugs

Why write about drug use in a blog about fiction -- other than the fact that drugs figure in many stories and not always in a convincing fashion? Many authors seem have characters taking drugs because transgressive behavior appeals to readers looking for vicarious thrills or an escape from ordinary, presumably boring life.

But at the same time it is a serious real-life issue, particularly at present with the opioid crisis. Today, The New York Times ran a feature story about what seems to be an growing epidemic in largely white middle class America --among the folks who used to be thought of as the bedrock of U.S. society.



Somewhat maddeningly, the story provided little information on why people started taking the drugs in the first place. Similar recent stories in other major publicans have also had that problem.

After reading the article, I took a look at an email from Goodreads, an Amazon website that purports to be all about books. Among other things, the missive contained an interview with Steve Jones who attained fame and/or notoriety as a guitarist with the Punk-era band "Sex Pistols." At present, Jones is the host of the LA radio program "Jonesy's Jukebox" and he recently published an autobiography entitled "Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol."

A one-time heroin addict, what follows is Jones's explanation of how it came about:

"That two- or three-year whirlwind of the Pistols was pretty wild. Then heroin comes along after that ended, and it was perfect. I think heroin would have come regardless. Whatever the circumstances were, it was the next step for me. I tried alcohol, blow, all the rest of it. For someone like me who's constantly got a hole inside them that I'm trying to fill—hence the name Lonely Boy—there's always this hole I'm trying to fix with whatever. That's where I go to. It's almost like not wanting to deal with reality. Heroin was the perfect antidote to not dealing with reality."

Heroin was the perfect antidote to not dealing with reality.  That's an interesting notion for writers to think about.

In its story, The Times notes that opioids killed more than 33,00o Americans in 2015, more than the number who died from gun homicides and about equal to the number of deaths from car crashes.  Fortunately, Jones was not one of them.

Why not?

"I just know if you're lucky enough, you get to a point where you've had enough. A little light goes on in your head and you look at yourself and go, "Holy shit, look at me. I'm homeless. I have no money. I've got a heroin habit." For me it was like, "OK, I'm going to turn this around,"  he said.

But Jones also said that running out of money was perhaps the most significant part of it, conceding that if he had had more, he might not have quit.