I (Robin) have never shot up heroin. I don't know anybody who's a heroin addict (Boy Scout / sheltered life). But I've watched The wire many, many times (IMHO, the best television ever made). I watched (binge-watched) Breaking bad. I worked in a state mental hospital briefly after Big Steel went down in Pittsburgh, and I got laid off; we 'treated' addicts in withdrawal (they lost their 'civil rights'), and our training materials explained addiction and treatment to us. I read in the Pittsburgh press that 'Negroes' (that's what we said back then) had grown vast tracts of 'reefer' along the railroad tracks, and were dangerous addicts. They got busted. Breaking bad showed Jane teaching Jesse how to cook H, and shoot up (spoons, lighters, cotton balls...). Almost lovingly, she turns him on his right side, explaining that then he won't aspirate vomit when he's out, and die. Then Walter comes in, finds the sleeping addicts, and causes Jane to roll on her back. She aspirates vomit and dies in an absolutely horrifying scene — as ugly a picture of addiction as imaginable. Walter leaves her to die. All opiate drug information sites mention 'nausea and vomiting' as a possible side effect. On the other hand, when Vincent Vega (in Pulp fiction) shoots up, director Quentin Tarantino lovingly films his withdrawing the venous blood into the syringe like it's impressionistic art. And as Vincent drives off, high, he has a happy, calm grin on his face. Quentin makes addiction look—well—sort of good. |
| Pens in the shape of syringes, sold at the Family Dollar store. |
Did I get everything I know about addiction from representations (films, stories, ads, TV, novels, drug-ed. materials, posters, public-health pamphlets...)? Do we learn that shooting up is cool at the Family Dollar Store? Probably. Where else would we get it? Where did we get what we know about anything?
➡ In this project, we get to explore how 'addiction' (any kind) is 'constructed' or 'made up' through representations. ⬅
So... You might start with either:
- An addiction that interests you, and go see how it's 'represented'
- An intriguing, confusing, disturbing or otherwise interesting representation—a film, a video, a website, an anti-gambling poster, a discussion board, or whatever, that you want to figure out.
Your job is to show us how (this is an 'explaining how' project) the common-sense, everybody-knows, received-wisdom, public meaning of a condition is made up through the ways it's represented in words, images, sounds and so on.
All my examples above are current and from popular culture. But think historically and medical / professionally as well. Here (and in your Background Reports) use any specialized knowledge you have. Heroine, for example, was made as a 'cure' for morphine addiction; it was the 'hero drug' (hence the name). Yes, it cured morphine addiction (by creating heroine addiction), and Bayer (of Aspirin fame) marketed it over the counter as a cough suppressant, a way to make babies sleep.
We noted how Hazelden Betty Ford 'medicalized' alcoholism as an addiction with its source in genes and brain abnormalities. This, folks, is our old friend 'legitimation' at work. And once 'medicalized' into a condition, AA's concept is different.
If we remember, as Brendan argued, that 'addiction' as we know it is a recent and specific invention, then it makes sense to figure out how it came about, how it took the shape it has, who contributed (money and labor) to making it up, who profits by the way it's known (and who suffers). In short: it's a hybrid and we're unpacking its parts.
All my examples above are current and from popular culture. But think historically and medical / professionally as well. Here (and in your Background Reports) use any specialized knowledge you have. Heroine, for example, was made as a 'cure' for morphine addiction; it was the 'hero drug' (hence the name). Yes, it cured morphine addiction (by creating heroine addiction), and Bayer (of Aspirin fame) marketed it over the counter as a cough suppressant, a way to make babies sleep. We noted how Hazelden Betty Ford 'medicalized' alcoholism as an addiction with its source in genes and brain abnormalities. This, folks, is our old friend 'legitimation' at work. And once 'medicalized' into a condition, AA's concept is different.
If we remember, as Brendan argued, that 'addiction' as we know it is a recent and specific invention, then it makes sense to figure out how it came about, how it took the shape it has, who contributed (money and labor) to making it up, who profits by the way it's known (and who suffers). In short: it's a hybrid and we're unpacking its parts.
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