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2. Hooked Classic-era political cartoons often portrayed drug dealers as vampires or snakes -creatures who, once they plunged theirfangs into avictim, produced ineluctable death. Any contact with drugs posed mortal danger. Hence, the cliche "it's so good don't even try it once. " Recent research, however, has downplayed the necessary link between narcotics and addiction. Researchers such as Norman Zinberg have shown that many people can use heroin once, twice, or even semi-regularly without becomingfullblown addicts.I This does not mean that heroin is safe, only that some individuals manage to use it occasionally and recreationally in such a way that it does not take over their lives. Narcotic users themselves have long recognized this pattern, and have a host ofnames for it: "weekend habit," "chicken-shit habit," "ice cream habit, " "Saturday-night habit," "chippy habit. " Theproblem is that, while somepersons can continue to useoccasionally, others cannot. Our subjects all began as chippy users. Not one ofthem started with the intention ofbecoming an addict. Ifthey were aware ofaddiction at all, it was something that theyfeared. What happened was that they drifted into regular use over a period ofseveral weeks or months. By gradually increasing the size and frequency oftheir doses they became, without knowing it, physically dependent. When a chance event interrupted their use ofnarcotics, they experienced withdrawal symptoms. These includedyawning, chills, running nose, watering eyes, gooseflesh, sweating, cramps, tremors, vomiting, and severe diarrhea: When you're kicking, your bowels bust, you get nauseous. You're puking, you're sick. You lay there like a dog. You don't care what goes on; people could step allover you. You lay in your own dirt and everything else, and you don't think 1. Nonnan E. Zinberg, "Nonaddictive Opiate Use," inJames C. Weissman and Robert L. DuPont, eds., Criminal Justice and Drugs: The Unresolved Conneaion (port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1982),5-23. 64 ADDICTS WHO SURVIVED nothing ofit. It takes about seventy-two hours or so to get it out ofyour systemthat 's ifyou've been any kind ofa user at all. But physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms, however unpleasant, are not quite the same thing as addiction. To become fully addicted, or "hooked," users had to understand why they were sick, that their sudden, confusing illness was caused by the absence of narcotics. Once they made the connection and understood that they could solve (or ''fix'j the problem with another injection, then a powerful association was established between the continued use ofopiates and the prevention or reliefofpain. To the original motive ofpleasure was added a second, even more compelling incentive: keep using orget sick. They were now addicts. They had to have narcotics, and they knew it.2 One theme that ran through the interviews was the important role played by veteran users in the addiction process. Not only did they provide the subjects with opiates, they also acted as interpreters ofthe experience. They explained, for example, that the nausea they suffered as novices would pass after the second or third trial. The experienced users were also often the ones to provide the crucial information that the way to alleviate withdrawal distress was simply another fix, setting the stagefor the dramatic recognition ofaddiction. Conversely, addicts who were loners, who were afraid or ashamed to associate with other users, took longer to realize what had happened. They had to puzzle out thefacts ofaddiction for themselves. I VO RY Ivory was born to poor blackparents in PortArthur, Texas, in 1920. His father, "a street guy who did nothing," left when he was six years old: "I don't know whether he's dead or living." Ivory was arrestedfor stealing when he was eleven years old, and was in and out ofreformatories andprisonsfor the rest ofhis life. Between terms he married, conceived a child, and divorced. He also supported himselfas apickpocket and as a "mechanic," or card shark, first in Houston and later in Los Angeles. It was in Los Angeles that hefirst used heroin, in 1952. I had been in jail. I had gotten into a couple of fights in jail, and they moved me out of the tank I was staying in. A tank was where a lot of people stayed-they tried to have you segregated, they tried to have all the robbers together, all the burglars together, all the junkies together. 2. For an extended discussion of the addiction process, see Alfred R. Lindesmith's classic study, Addiction and Opiates, rev. ed. (Chicago: Aldine...

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