Health and bodies
On Drugs, Part II
‘The addiction supplied me with a whole way of looking at the world – indeed, of being in the world: of suspicion, protection against the threat of embarrassment, pervasive guilt, the rigorous practices of prevarication: strategic concealment and sophisticated deceit, the utterly endless rehearsal of excuses.’ This is the second installment of Chris Fleming’s account of his drug addiction, and the modes, mechanics, and madness of legal and illegal drug acquisition.
On Drugs, Part I
‘These were, of course, not the only kinds of codes in operation, codes which – like many tacit social rules, one would learn about only when violated. The more time I spent at dealers’ houses, the more I learned that there was a hierarchy of drugs, a sort of regime of acceptability.’ This is the first installment of Chris Fleming’s account of his drug addiction, and the modes, mechanics, and madness of legal and illegal drug acquisition.
For love and hunger
In the year that I first became ill, I recognised the physicality of Teresa’s hunger, and I carried it with me for years, although the rest of For Love Alone did not stir me – I was nineteen, and probably too callow, too cold and self-obsessed to fully understand it. But in the last two years, I started hearing so many writers talk again about Christina Stead.