Tea at Trianon: A Sweeping — and Personal

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, April 10, 2022

A Sweeping — and Personal — History of Addiction

From Undark:

Fisher’s meticulous and meticulously researched new book, “The Urge: Our History of Addiction,” is deeply informed by his experience as both a self-described alcoholic and a specialist in addiction medicine. For years after his release from rehab, he was forced to pee in a cup in front of a urine monitor. As Fisher reflects on the surreal, and galling, situation, he begins to wonder about how he — or anyone else — gets better. “I knew that the addiction treatment system was broken, having experienced it firsthand, but the why was mystifying: Why was there a totally separate system for addiction treatment? Why do we treat addiction differently from any other mental disorder?”
“The Urge” ultimately unfolds as far more than an addiction memoir. Arriving at a time when the so-called opioid epidemic has become a defining crisis of our time, it presents both the personal history of someone reckoning with mind-altering substances and an argument for a reframing of the idea of addiction. “It is,” Fisher writes, “the story of an ancient malady that has ruined the lives of untold millions, including not only those of its sufferers but also the lives touching theirs, and yet it is also the story of a messy, complicated, and deeply controversial idea, one that has eluded definition for hundreds of years.”

Among the misconceptions, Fisher writes, is the strangely persistent belief that addiction can somehow be eradicated or fixed. “The primary goal should be not victory or cure,” Fisher writes, “but alleviating harm and helping people to live with and beyond their suffering — in other words, recovery.”

The book’s main text clocks in at just over 300 pages, and it condenses anecdotes and detail into engaging, tightly woven vignettes. In the first chapter, Fisher introduces one of his patients, a woman who resolves not to drink but then gets sick drinking vanilla extract from the corner store. Then, he introduces one of the earliest known references to addiction in the “Rig Veda,” a Sanskrit hymn about a gambler who struggles to quit playing, before moving on to Augustine (the early Christian philosopher), the author’s own magical first sip of beer, and the etymology of addiction.

Fisher places readers into evocative scenes, weaving historical snapshots with his own memories. You almost want to roll down the window and find some fresh air as he describes the experience of inhaling secondhand smoke in his parents’ car as they head to the Jersey shore. That scene follows a pithy account of punishing European tobacco users in the 1600s — an early example of an anti-drug scare that had xenophobic undertones and practically no connection to the actual medical harm. Scaring people straight didn’t stop addiction then — or now, for that matter. Indeed, Fisher notes, under the 17th-century Ottoman ruler Murad IV, the punishment of death didn’t stop soldiers from smuggling pipes in their sleeves to sneak a puff.

Fisher, now a practicing clinical psychiatrist and a professor at Columbia University, relies on a range of previous scholarship. He’s not interviewing researchers or sifting through archives to uncover some lost history. But, in retelling some of the more familiar stories involving drugs, including Thomas De Quincey (Romantic writer, and a requisite feature in practically any book on opium), Benjamin Rush (a founding father and among the first to characterize addiction as a disease), Alcoholics Anonymous, Narco (the sprawling prison hospital and treatment center in Kentucky), and Synanon (a cult-like group that laid the exploitative framework for drug rehabs), Fisher turns to sources both obvious and obscure. (Read more.)