Addiction and Opiates

CHAPTER 6 CURE AND RELAPSE
resumed using it immediately upon release.
3. 1916: took another home cure without serious intentions of quitting.
4. 1916: took a free cure lasting twelve weeks. He managed to get off the drug, but drank paregoric a number of times
and relapsed at once when released.
5. 1917: took another free cure lasting six months. He resumed using the drug at once when released.
6. 1917: took a free cure in an asylum for three weeks. He was off the drug one week and drank paregoric the other
two.
7. 1919: He was jailed for fifty days. This was his only involuntary cure. He resumed using the drug at once when
released.
8. 1920: took a cure in private sanitarium at a cost of $200. He resumed use of the drug as before.
9. 1922: six months' free cure in a state asylum. He resumed use of the drug at once.
10. 1922: took the "Keeley cure" at a Cost Of $250. He relapsed at once.
11. 1925: cure lasting six months. Relapsed.
12. 1927: cure lasting three months. Relapsed.
13. 1930: cure lasting six months. Relapsed.
14- 1932: cure lasting three months. Relapsed.
15. 1933: six months' voluntary cure in the Chicago Bridewell. Relapsed.
16. 1934: quit voluntarily while living in the Chicago shelters for unemployed men because of the extreme difficulty of
begging sufficient money during the winter months. This was the first time in his life that he ever succeeded in quitting
by himself, outside of an institution. He resumed using the drug as soon as warm weather began in the spring of 1935
and was killed by a speeding automobile.
This man was repeatedly interviewed for a period of several months prior to his death, and the cures are described as
he recalled them. He said be was not quite sure he had included all.
It will be noted that this addict distinguished carefully between those cures he took with the serious intention of
quitting and those he took for other reasons. He told the story with an air of shame and bewilderment. When asked to
explain why he had taken so many cures, he was at a loss for an answer, except to remark that he bad hoped each time
to remain free. He confessed that his life had been ruined by the drug and all that remained for him was to wait for old
age and death. In the meantime, be thought he might as well go on using the drug, since be no longer had anything to
lose.
The addict's desire to be cured is readily understood as a consequence both of the social stigma attached to addiction
and of the fact that the habit becomes a burden when the beginning euphoria vanishes and physical dependence is fully
established. Prior to addiction, the addict generally shares the negative attitudes of the society toward junkies or dope
fiends. When he himself becomes addicted he necessarily applies these attitudes to himself and his conduct. The
realization that one has become an addict is not pleasant; it is a self-conception that is impressed upon the user when
he is trapped by the drug. The - desire - to - quit is so much an integral part of being addicted that it should perhaps
be eluded in the definition of addiction. (8)
The addict's wish to be cured indicates his membership and participation in the wider social order that condemns his
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