Chapter 4. Feeling No Pain – The opioid Era
I do not think that anyone completely understands its mechanism, but it is a fact that there are
foreign substances which, when present in the blood or tissues, directly cause us pleasurable
sensations; and they also so alter the conditions governing our sensibility that we become
incapable of receiving unpleasurable impulses
- Sigmund Freud
Positive Psychology and Natural Highs
When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion - Ethiopian proverb UNIVERSAL DESIRE TO FEEL
• Addiction: Self-induced changes (psychology) in GOOD
neurotransmission (biology) that result in problem
behaviors (sociology). The experience of pleasure is
• Addiction: Behavior characterized by compulsion, loss of derived from stimuli, originating
control and continuation despite harmful consequences outside or inside the body, that
• Natural highs: Self-induced changes in brain chemistry increase the concentration of
that result in positive feeling states, health, and well- dopamine in the nucleus
being for the individual and society.” accumbens, the primary reward
center of the human brain.
THE FAINTING GAME
Lonnie told me how one kid would spend a minute or so
hyperventilating until he was dizzy and when he was seeing
spots a mate would hug him from behind so hard and so
suddenly that all the air was crushed from his chest...
Lonnie and I tried it a few times. When he flat out
fainted, I went into a panic. He came to with a strange
moan and a stupid look on his face. Then he did it to me
and I went down with a curious tunnel vision and the whole
frame of my consciousness seemed to melt at the edges
before give way entirely…
The attraction was plain enough – it was cheap
weirdness in the days before we knew about drugs.
-Tim Winton
Breath
ADDICTION TO EXPERIENCE
1
, Drugs and Personality
• We repeatedly pursue three avenues of
experience as antidotes for psychic pain.
These preferred styles of coping—
satiation, arousal, and fantasy—may
have their origins in the first years of life.
• Childhood experiences combined with
genetic predisposition are the
foundations of adult compulsion.
• The drug group of choice—depressants,
stimulants, or hallucinogens—is the one
that best fits the individual’s
characteristic way of coping with stress.
• People do not become addicted to drugs
or mood-altering activities as such, but
Listen Carol just don’t get yourself into the kind of trouble rather to the satiation, arousal, or
I did when I was on maternity leave. One day when I was fantasy experiences that can be achieved
nursing Hilary, I turned on a soap opera just for fun. through them.
Within a week I was mainlining. I was doing four hours of Among the remedies which it has pleased
soaps a day. Then I really flipped out and started to mix Almighty God to give to man, none is so
soaps and game shows. Finally, I had to quit cold turkey. universal and so efficacious as opium.
It was awful! Do you know I still get occasional flashbacks —Thomas Sydenham (c. 1650)
from General Hospital?
Nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium:
Any activity that produces salient alterations in mood its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn
(which are always accompanied by changes in complexion.
neurotransmission) can lead to compulsion, loss of —Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English
control, and progressively disturbed functioning. Opium Eater (1821)
In France, a skinny man died of a big disease with a
The Opioid Epidemic little name By chance his girlfriend came across a
needle and soon she did the same.
From 2013 and 2014, there was an increase of —Lyrics from Prince’s “Sign ‘O’ The Times” (1987)
about 3.000 lethal opioid-related overdoses, and Signs of the Times
are probably significant of these overdoses are Several pills taken from Prince’s estate in Paisley
linked to fentanyl. Park after his death were counterfeit drugs that
actually contained fentanyl , a synthetic opioid 50
According to Courtwright (2001), the
times more powerful than heroin...many pills were
majority of opium/morphine addiction cases in the falsely labelled as “Watson 385”… that stamp is
19. century U.S. was due to doctors prescribing or used to identify pills containing a mix of
acetaminophen and hydrocodone.
recommending these substances.
2
I do not think that anyone completely understands its mechanism, but it is a fact that there are
foreign substances which, when present in the blood or tissues, directly cause us pleasurable
sensations; and they also so alter the conditions governing our sensibility that we become
incapable of receiving unpleasurable impulses
- Sigmund Freud
Positive Psychology and Natural Highs
When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion - Ethiopian proverb UNIVERSAL DESIRE TO FEEL
• Addiction: Self-induced changes (psychology) in GOOD
neurotransmission (biology) that result in problem
behaviors (sociology). The experience of pleasure is
• Addiction: Behavior characterized by compulsion, loss of derived from stimuli, originating
control and continuation despite harmful consequences outside or inside the body, that
• Natural highs: Self-induced changes in brain chemistry increase the concentration of
that result in positive feeling states, health, and well- dopamine in the nucleus
being for the individual and society.” accumbens, the primary reward
center of the human brain.
THE FAINTING GAME
Lonnie told me how one kid would spend a minute or so
hyperventilating until he was dizzy and when he was seeing
spots a mate would hug him from behind so hard and so
suddenly that all the air was crushed from his chest...
Lonnie and I tried it a few times. When he flat out
fainted, I went into a panic. He came to with a strange
moan and a stupid look on his face. Then he did it to me
and I went down with a curious tunnel vision and the whole
frame of my consciousness seemed to melt at the edges
before give way entirely…
The attraction was plain enough – it was cheap
weirdness in the days before we knew about drugs.
-Tim Winton
Breath
ADDICTION TO EXPERIENCE
1
, Drugs and Personality
• We repeatedly pursue three avenues of
experience as antidotes for psychic pain.
These preferred styles of coping—
satiation, arousal, and fantasy—may
have their origins in the first years of life.
• Childhood experiences combined with
genetic predisposition are the
foundations of adult compulsion.
• The drug group of choice—depressants,
stimulants, or hallucinogens—is the one
that best fits the individual’s
characteristic way of coping with stress.
• People do not become addicted to drugs
or mood-altering activities as such, but
Listen Carol just don’t get yourself into the kind of trouble rather to the satiation, arousal, or
I did when I was on maternity leave. One day when I was fantasy experiences that can be achieved
nursing Hilary, I turned on a soap opera just for fun. through them.
Within a week I was mainlining. I was doing four hours of Among the remedies which it has pleased
soaps a day. Then I really flipped out and started to mix Almighty God to give to man, none is so
soaps and game shows. Finally, I had to quit cold turkey. universal and so efficacious as opium.
It was awful! Do you know I still get occasional flashbacks —Thomas Sydenham (c. 1650)
from General Hospital?
Nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium:
Any activity that produces salient alterations in mood its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn
(which are always accompanied by changes in complexion.
neurotransmission) can lead to compulsion, loss of —Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English
control, and progressively disturbed functioning. Opium Eater (1821)
In France, a skinny man died of a big disease with a
The Opioid Epidemic little name By chance his girlfriend came across a
needle and soon she did the same.
From 2013 and 2014, there was an increase of —Lyrics from Prince’s “Sign ‘O’ The Times” (1987)
about 3.000 lethal opioid-related overdoses, and Signs of the Times
are probably significant of these overdoses are Several pills taken from Prince’s estate in Paisley
linked to fentanyl. Park after his death were counterfeit drugs that
actually contained fentanyl , a synthetic opioid 50
According to Courtwright (2001), the
times more powerful than heroin...many pills were
majority of opium/morphine addiction cases in the falsely labelled as “Watson 385”… that stamp is
19. century U.S. was due to doctors prescribing or used to identify pills containing a mix of
acetaminophen and hydrocodone.
recommending these substances.
2
