Steven Martin
NEW YORK TIMES ,BESTSELLER,A renowned authority on the secret world of opium recounts his descent into ruinous obsession with one of the worldâ€™s oldest and most seductive drugs, in this harrowing memoir of addiction and recovery., Â , A natural-born collector with a nose for exotic adventure, San Diegoâ€“born Steven Martin followed his bliss to Southeast Asia, where he found work as a freelance journalist. While researching an article about the vanishing culture of opium smoking, he was inspired to begin collecting rare nineteenth-century opium-smoking equipment. Over time, he amassed a valuable assortment of exquisite pipes, antique lamps, and other opium-related accessoriesâ€”and began putting it all to use by smoking an extremely potent form of the drug called ,chandu,. But what started out as recreational use grew into a thirty-pipe-a-day habit that consumed Martinâ€™s every waking hour, left him incapable of work, and exacted a frightful physical and financial toll. In passages that will send a chill up the spine of anyone who has ever lived in the shadow of substance abuse, Martin chronicles his efforts to control and then conquer his addictionâ€”from quitting cold turkey to taking â€œthe cureâ€ at a Buddhist monastery in the Thai countryside., Â , At once a powerful personal story and a fascinating historical survey, ,Opium Fiend, brims with anecdotes and lore surrounding the drug that some have called the methamphetamine of the nineteenth-century. It recalls the heyday of opium smoking in the United States and Europe and takes us inside the befogged opium dens of China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. The drugâ€™s beguiling effects are described in vivid detailâ€”as are the excruciating pains of withdrawalâ€”and there are intoxicating tales of pipes shared with an eclectic collection of opium aficionados, from Dutch dilettantes to hard-core addicts to world-weary foreign correspondents., Â , A compelling tale of one manâ€™s transformation from respected scholar to hapless drug slave, ,Opium Fiend, puts us under opiumâ€™s spell alongside its protagonist, allowing contemporary readers to experience anew the insidious allure of a diabolical vice that the world has all but forgotten.
Nonfiction,Autobiography,Memoir,Biography,History,Travel,Medical,Cultural,Asia,Psychology,Unfinished,Biography Memoir
Opium Fiend: A 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction