Cqynght 8 & a n t Management Pty M.

HkM Socdob~R m k (2010) X9(2):218-229.

'It blasted me into space': Intoxication

and an ethics of pleasure
GRALVNAZA~OOW
School of History, Heritage and Mi,
Deakin University, Burwood, VlC, Australia

ABSTRACT
O'Ualley and V f epoint out t b in the 21st century, pleasure is a w;arrapt&le morivef~ dwg and
alcohol use only when it is amIoed to the idea ofmoderasion. This presents a problem@r those researchers who wish rn t M e aboud those individuals who use drugs &libera&& rn induce i n e n . This
paper uses utrcomwdotral meapts to come rn an undersmding ofintoxicarion. It uses the s r n h ofinberk
d for me^ heroin add* pnMished artbob"BMphk, biographies and ewn s m + l
m n n t s to
mme i
o an undmdmrditg ofthe d ~ l of kdealing with in&sion
a d the dmB-usitg subject. It
also uses the m u w that M i c M Eiorrcault guue aboud his own use of drugs a d its relationship to an
ethics ofpleasure a d resistam. The a ' c l e uses theories ofrisk and e d g m d & u~tdmtandthe underlying meanings ofinb&tion
rn many drug usm.
-lt~~:

m5ology; intmimion; illicit b;

pleame; harm -on;

modedon

What do you do with people who want to have

a good time forever wen when they see their
his has been a novel h u t some people
own lives and those of their closest ones being
who were punished entirely too much for
'run over, maimed, desmyed'? The response of
w l ~ they
t did. They wanted to have a good
contemporary drug and alcohol policies such
time, bur they were like children playing in the
as harm minimisation is to say 'cry and do it a
streer; they wdd see one afcer another of them
little less dangerously', but I argue t h is
~ funda~
being killed - run over, maimed, destroyed mentally flawed, even when I agree it is probbut they continued to play anyhow. We really
ably the most logcal b g to say and do. How
all were very happy fbr a while, sitting around
can public policy compete with a person who
not toiling but just bulWlitting and playbelieves that sex is great (even in a threesome)
ing . . . If rhere was any 'sin' it was that these
but 'heroin was paradue'? (Davies 2006:72,i d c s
people wanted to keep on having a good time
in original) As a form of governance,harm miniforever
misation assumes a parti& stance towards the
(Dick 1991 :27&278). drug-usmg individual, that is, it mesa h i d h e r as
PhiU~pK. Dick was describmg IS hiads' and a k e person with the capacity for self-gmernhis own Me's interest in intoxication, euphoria ment (Dean 2002).Hawever t . 6 r m ofgoverand the attempt to get outside his own d.
He nance produces its own resistance, as I (drawing
also describes the real problem for the formula- on Foucault) point out, that undermines i~ very
tors of policies around illicit drugs and alcohol. ability to govern.

218

xS%

Volume 19, Issue 2, June20 10

'It blasted me into space': Intoxication and an ethics of pleasure

3C%

The central point of this article is ta use

Foucault's discussion of his own drug use to burrow down into the m e w of intoxication to
the individual who does not wish to be h or
her self.
What is the &course of the drug-usmg subject in the eady 21st century? It is a discourse
of governance.What produces the modern subject and citizen is their adherence to a discourse
of r a t i o d t y and moderation w i t h modern
governance. Valverde (2007:172) explains that
Foucault equated governmentaJity with sean*kf
- ' . . . the future oriented management of
risk'. Pleasure, excitement and intoxication thus
seem to be the antithesis of modern governance.
As Walton (2001:xvii) writes, 'it is in many ways
easier to be kmk t d z y about one's sexual habits
than it is to talk about what intoxicants one uses'.
As Comeney and Bunton (2003:163) also nok,
'pleasure, it appears, cream problems'.
Since the 18th century, pleasure, and the pleasure of intoxication have not been considered
'warrantable motives' for consumption for policy and lawmakers, according to O'Malley and
Valverde (20041,but we consume in this fashion
nonetheless.

but it was not possible to gaul an understan*

of these concepts without a biographcal excursion into their drug-using pasts, or their feehngs
and reasons for using drugs. Inevitably t h meant
~ ~
also trying to elicit descriptionsof their enjoyable
experiences whde using drugs, indudmg aslung
the question -'was it fun?'.Theinterviews were
transcribed and read thematically which enabled
me to pick out the narratives that concentraced
on fun and intoxication in the &rent forms
they were presented and with the various Ianguage used to describe the experiences.
Reading the social science and public health
literature about illicit drug use and intoxication,
it became clear that there seemed to be a general
silence about fun, but there was plenty of fun
to be had with drugs and alcohol in literature
and biography (Conveney and Bunton 2003').
These descriptions could not be ignored, not
least because they said someChulg fundamental
about the way that humans play with euphoria
and euphoria-producing chemicals. They were
also very readable versions of what my informan&were mykg to say but had fewer words at
their dlsposal to do so.Thus I turned to autobiographical and fictional accouna to present verbal
accouna that were easier for the layperson to
understand.
MEIWOWLOGY
Foucault (1996) also describes these experiThe data and initial impetus for this paper came
b m a series of long qualitative interviews con- ences, and in these autobiographical excursions,
ducted with eight people (five women and three he lnbcates haw the use of drugs, especially
men) between 1998 and 2005. The participants when used in tandem with wgressive sexual
had been long-term poly-drug users but had not behaviours, produces resistance. In an interview
used drugs or alcohol for a substantial period in 1971, he described haw his experience with
before being interviewed by myself. The par- drugs in California (specifically LSD and amyl
ticipants had been recruited via introductions nimate2) led him to the conclusion that the conat Narcotics Anonymous meetings and through sciousness produced by these drugs +t
lead
other contacts.The i n h e w s were done mainly to a 'genuine soualisation in the 20th century'
in the participants homes. The interviews were (Miller 1993:200).
First however, 1 brieily outline the maze of
principally about their feelings and understandmg of concepts such as autonomy and kedom, modern drugs and alcohol policy, that realm of

' See ah tbe sped ediuon on '

P h and Drugs' d t b e 1 - d J o d
*fo
Po&, Vd. 19,2008 for a g m m
&usion of this pint, including some papers which would dispute many of the points made in this article.
Amy1 nitrate (orpoppers) was a drug used to enhance 4experience.

Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010

xS%

self-governance, moderation,rationality and neoliberal h e d o m - that is harm minimisation.

drug using subject capable of rational decisionmaking, self-determination, self-regdation and

risk management' (Moore 20083355). Harm
WHY18 HARM MlNlMlSATlOM
minimisation is part of the policies of thu neoGENERAUY SILEM ON EUPHORIA?
liberal project of k e d o m , assessing risks and
Harm minimisation or harm reduction is a pol- minimising them3.
icy whlch has come to dominate many of the
Harm minimisation is also a form of pascouneies of the developed world with the noted toral power. Pastoral power promises salvation
exception of the United States ofAmerica, even for a society and for the &duals
within it.
though many ofthe programs which are touted as Whatever certain proponents of harm minimipart of harm minimisation exlst in many parts of sation may argue, the drug user is expected to
that country-The meaning or definition of harm confess and to promise to change, at least in the
minimisation is difficult to contain because of the future. Foucault (1982:215) wrote that pastoral
many &bates about it and what it concerns, but puwer in modern societies promised salvation,
Single (1995:289) describes it as 'a policy or pro- but not in the next world, in this one via,'health,
gram brected towards decreasmg adverse health, well-being . . . security, protection agaulsC accisocial and economic consequences of drug use'. dents'. The medical, health and welfare systems
Lenton and Midford (1996) understand this to took the place of churches in pruvidmg for the
mean policies and programs that reduce 'net' worldly souls of i a citizens. But in this exercise
harm overall and wh~chcan be p m e n to do this of power comes resistance4.
in scientific and bureaucratic terms. It is a pubPleasure and r a t i o d t y are linked in neolic health approach and ostensibly eschews legal liberal. late-modern society via the classic
approaches that c r m d u e and stigmaCise those felicity calculus - what can create the greatit targea. However, the important word here is est amount of happiness for the greatest
'harm'. It is not surprising that ifwe are speaking number of people at the least economic cost
about harms, we are not very hkey to describe (O'Malley and Valverde 2004). However, the
more troublesome an activity such as drug takfun and pleasure.
Public health is a 'rational' enterprise in ing becomes, the more difficult the outcome
whlch 'rational' individuals are educated to for the felicity calculus.At what point does the
understand their civic duty to mean self-gw- pleasure outweigh the pain for the individual,
ernment through expert bscourses (Bunton or for the society?And what happens when the
2001; Rose 1993). Inbviduals are educated in pain threshold is differently set for individuthe risks of particular behaviours (in this case, als than for society? In many ways the formula
ficit drugs) and are expected to be prudent becomes so difficult to attain that it needs to
and manage individual risks via knowledge be cast in diffwent language, the language of
gained through expert processes. 'Harm reduc- chemistry rather than enjoyment. Intoxication
tion policy . . . constructs a particular form of measures such as ethanol intake for drunk
Indeed, Foucault (19%:372) ~rplainsthar his ~rperiencPsin Sweden whicb was suppad to be a much freer &ety than
France in tbe 19509, &t
him thar a 'cetrain kind of f i d o m may ha% not d
y the rgme effects, but as many restrictive &a as a d i d y muiaive k e t y ' . He mogiised this eprimce as important in his law intellectual developments.
'Resismnce really always relies on tbe situation agajnstwhich it srmggles' (Foucault 19%:387) and in saying this Foucault
was using SIM as the prdcace of mismnce,an intense -erne
that relied on in&%
bugs as the mediation. In
intetviews, FMlmult claimed that through SIM p&,
parts of W
e
s were brought into play thar cmted different and
novel
of
and thus p d u d new s t n q i c , but fluid datiolls. It was in this con- that F o d t
praid drugs ( M i 1993:263).

220

xS%

Volume 19, Issue 2,June20 10

'It blasted me into space': Intoxication and an ethics of pleasure

driving are substituted for measures of pleasure,
public good or virtue for euphoria (O'Malley
and Vdverde 2004). According to O'Malley
andvalverde (2004) pleasure can only exlst as a
warrantable motive when it is tightly attached
to the notion of moderation.
The idea of moderation is not solely an
invention of modernity but can be maced to
the ancient Greek notion of 'care of the self
or 'concern with self' (Foucault 1988:19). Care
of the self is idended with a n ascetic sensibility, but it is more than that. It is also a concern
with the community based on reason.According
to Foucault (1988) the ancients believed that if
everyone could behave in a reasonable and rational manner, than the whole community would
benefit. Freedom and moderation are seen to
walk in lockstep with each other.
However, concepts such as moderation and
kedom are culturally and historically specific.
In the 'History of Sexuality'. Foucault (1990)
maced the way that the management of pleasure was mansformed in the historical movement b m Greek antiquity to early Christian
asceticism. During the Enlightenment, pleasure
became transformed again (or 'heady sanitised')
b m a bodily and sensual experience to a social
virtue (Conveney and Bunton 2003: 162).
The modern public health enterprise, with
its reliance on statistics valorised the normal
bstribution, or bell curve. Normal came to be
defined as the cenmal point on the curve and
produced the pathologcal or deviant at its two
extremes (though in the case of intehgence,one
extreme was h + l y desirable, even if considered
deviant).The d u e n c e of the bell curve began
in the 18th century and was cemented in the
19th by the work of public health experts, s d
activists and Eugenicists. As Davis (1995:49)
notes, 'the very term that permeates our contemporary life - the normal - is a configuration
that arises in a particular historical moment. It is
part of a notion of progress, of industrdisation,
and of ideological consolidation of the puwer of
the bourgeoisie'. In this particular moment, and

3C%

for the same reasons, was also born the modern

notion of moderation.
In the late 20th and early 21st century, N h l a s
Rose contends that modern subjects are:

obliged to be 'free', to wnsuue their existence

as the outcome of choices that they make
among a plurality of alternatives . . . Family
I&, parenting,even work i d a r e no longer to
be constraints upon M o m and autonomy;
they are to be essential elements in the path to
self-fulfillment. ..The modern self is impelled
to make life meaningful through the search
for happiness and self-realizationin his or her
individual biography
(Rose 1998:7&79. Emphasis in o r i g d ) .

Paradoxically, 6 r those who 'choose' to use

consciousness-changing drugs the choice must
be 6 r moderation. But haw is moderation to
be understood in the experience of intoxication?
Can it be understood as such? Walton (2001)
asks a seemingly obvlous question - why are
we obsessed with moderation? How is a society to determine what moderation means with
regard to mind-altering substances?Why are we
so obsessed with working out how much we can
drmk before we are officially drunk? Even If a
society can decide on what moderation means
in regards to imbibmg intoxicants for fun 'why
is moderation seen as such a self-recornmendmg
virtue?' (Walton 200 1:205).
Rose (1998) g m s one answer to Walcon's
question re*
moderation and intoxication.
He argues it is the rise of the 'psy' sciences with
their self-regardulg citizens, and a society based
on rational calculation of risk that demand it. But,
counters Walton, human brigs bemg human
demand a break h m rational calculation, thus the
need for i n k a t i o n itself. More dwn sex, intoxication allows humans to see a Merent reah%
play it out for at least a short whde and hop-,
allow a return to the dady,rational grmd without too much pain or illness.Walton points to a
very real conundrum in late-modern human society and the very complex relationship between

Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010

xS%

phyuologml eGcts (mostly,but not exclusively

euphoric) and social responsibhty (mostly not).
At its heart is a fundamental i n s t i n d hiatus
between physical safety and the lure of menml euphoria How can it be that the latter can
repeatedly override ow biological prograrnming to protect the former?
(Walton 2001:211)

oneself, of losing oneself by intoxication,rather

than sex.

IRRATIONAUTY
AND BMOXICATION

Intoxication as described by Foucault could be

considered as the antihsis of reason or moderation. He told an interviewer in 1967 that drugs
could mean a person entered a 'state of "mnreason9'inwhich the experience ofmadness is outside
Lenson (1997) directly relates the sensual the distinctionbetween the normal and the pathopleasures ofthe body with the condemnation of lwcal' (quoted in Miller 1993248).For centuries,
drug users.
i n e a t i o n h a s beenlaudedby poets and writers (at
the same time as others have lauded m~deration)~.
Drug users have been scapepated not only
about
It rarely,however, appears in academic
because their chemical practices are purport&cit drugs and their users.At times the experiedly antisocial but also because they have been
ence does break through the dry descriptions and
lumped in with the sexually promiscuous and
explanations, but h s can only come throu$ the
the intentionally obese as proponenus of the
use of h c t personal experience.
body as a locus of pleasure
A crack-cocaine user in East Harlem tells
(Lenson 1997:20).
Bourgois (1995:80) that:
But it is not only the wallawing of drug users
The only reason I get lugh is because I love
in sensual pleasures, it is the fear that 'drug use
it. The first blast is the best'est one. It's like a
is capable of remuving pleasure h m an e h c a l
Rufflepotato chip. You just can't have one. You
matrix' (Lenson 1997:182), that consequently
need more, 'cause it's good It's a brain thing.
undermines the morality of moderation.
It's thick. Once you take that first blast, then
Instead of Lenson's argument that drug
the whole mght is going to be a total adventure
use removes pleasure 6om this e h c a l matrix,
into madness.
Foucault argues that it is through drugs that we
can produce an 'ethics of pleasure'. He means
One woman I i n h e w e d told me that the
that rather than a mandate to act in a particular first time she tried heroin, 'it blasted me inm
moral way, e h c s refers to:
space', an experience she tried to replicate during 20 years of addiction, but rarely achieved.
the relationship you have to yourself when you
Nonetheless, the memory of this out-of-thisact . . . It would be one which would not be
world experience is what drove her during most
dominated by the problem of the deep truth of
of her wakulg hours. Another said it made her
the reality of our sex I&. The relationship that
'totally peaceful, because no one else &a. All
I think we need to have with ourselves when
my worries were gone, for as long as the hit
we have sac is an ethics of pleasure, of intensilasted'. Still another began sIllffing solventg as a
fication of pleasure (Foucault 1998:380).
13-year old and said 'I enjoyed it.When you're at
that
age it took away all reahy, it was very excitFor the drug user, the answer is the same; the
. . 1 enjoyed it immensely'.
ethics of pleasure is the attempt at not being ing, very exci-.
Indeed intoxhuon was tend to the art of the Ramantiff oftbe 19d1cennuy. kupper-classarciPts u d demdence
and debauchery to
them art, in d
h of the middl&
m m e n t toward sobriety and abstinence (see
Conveney and Bunwn 2003: 167; H+n
1
Chapter 4).

222

xS%

Volume 19, Issue 2,June20 10

'It blasted me into space': Intoxication and an ethics of pleasure

3C%

Foucault (1998:378) describes th~~

experience using subject becomes free to choose between
degrees of risk only insofar as they can rationally calculate those risks. This is a particular
hscourse of risk presenting the individual as
risk averse, ever calculating their risk in the
new modernity.
wine, of good wine, old and so on,may be enjoyIn hu 1976 lectures to the College De France,
able but it's not for me.A pleasure must be some- Foucault o u b e s how modern sovereign power
chmg incredibly intense. But I think I am not the 'sets out to govern risks - risks to the state itself
only one l
k that' (Foucault 1998:378). An old and risks to what was now conceived as a popusaying b m Alcoholics Anonymous goes some- lation' (Valverde 2007:163).The individual mies
chmg like 'the alcoholic believes that he is ter- to escape sovereign power by intoxication - at
m u d y unique3.WhdeFoucault admits here are least these individuals do.And risk thus becomes
others like him, he also believes that he is special. individualised and used as a rationale for indiDrug use can be seen as a form of resistance vidual action.
for the putacive self-regadmg indrvidual. It brings
But there are other discourses of risk which
in a passion not allowed the r&-averse.This is a may more accurately place the activities of h e
passion that all=
one to step outside the self intoxicated or euphoria-enhancing indwidual.
altogether. Foucault (1998:313) described passion These CLScourses are pomayed by Lupton and
as being'simply not oneself.To be oneselfno lon- Tulloch (2002) when descrdnng the activities
ger makes sense. One sees thulgs differendy'. One of individuals who voluntarily undertake physiof my interviewees described IS first experience cally risky activities. The discourse they describe
of i n t e a t i o n as 'Chis degree of Werence, chis that is most relevant to the discusion at hand is
degree of separateness h m normal experience, a a deliberate emotional engagement dmwmg 'on
release h m self - self forgetting'. Another said:
a neo-Romantic ideal of the borty/self allowed
to ditgelf beyond the strictures of culture
I think the state of anxiety is one of intense
and societf (Lupton and Tdoch 2002122).
preoccupation with self- 'what does this mean
Positioning or placing oneself beyond the stricto me?' W h m , when I was stoned, I didn't
cures of culture and society is not tolerable for
give a fuck what people thought of me.
a public health enterprise. It stands in c o n a t
In h s novel of a relationship dominated by to actuarial rmk because it implies a deliberate
heroin-addiction, 'Candy'. Davies (2006:3) flaunting of risk minimisation measures in favour
describes the experience as 'the lascivious under- of an engulhent of the self by emotions, a feeling
tow of light in which all rivers gather', a self that they describe as being 'swept away' - that passion
is no longer there. He conCinues 'nuwadays when desired by Foucault 'that escape(s) the Grms of
it works -which is begming to be not always - identity of a mditional moral subject' mobinson
what I get b m hammer (heroin) is a deep kind 2003:122).People oftenjustify placing hemselves
of comfort. An absence of &SI
and an absence in risky situations such as engagmg in unprotected
of that. Absence of everything that prickles and sex by bemg overcome by werwhehng emorankles'.
tions (Jones and C a n h M03), or as one of my
The self that is no longer there is the self interviewees put it,'it didn't matter what I said or
that is placed outside the realms of risk man- did before, I wanted to do chis and fuck the rest'.
Another way of understandmg what my
agement. or the rational sphere of public
health. Harm minimisation is part of actuarial interviewees were inddgmg in, is to use what
risk management (O'Malley 1999).The drug- Lyng (1990) refers to as 'edgework'. Edgework
in sunilar ways. He says '(drug) are the mebation
to those incredhly intense joys that I am lookulg
for and that I am not able to experience,to &rd
by mysew. And it is in this passage that moderation becomes unimportant. 'It's true that a glass of

Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010

xS%

is a term borrowed by Lyng h m the journalist and noted drug user, Hunter S. Thompson.
Lyng (1990) studied skybvers, a group of people
who voluntarily undertook a h+-risk activity.
Edgework is a way of understandmg'the problem
of negotiating the boundaries between chaos and
order (Lyng 1990:855)'. This involves activities
that undermine or threaten (by d1an in&vidual's physical or mental existence or sense of
order.% may or may not end in death. which is
a powbility but not the intended end. Indeed the
ultimate goal is to survive. not be.=
does need
to be remembered when considermg euphoriaInducing drug takulg, because it is often mistaken
as a desire for suicide, when it is more properly
a desire for annihilation of the self, not death. It
becomes that hiatus described by W a h n (2001)
earlier. It also places in question assumptions many
soual researchers have as to why underprivileged
or margmahed people take drugs. It also parallels
the activities described by Measham and Brain
(2005) of young people becomulg very drunk as
a &berate entertahnent experience.
Edgework always involves duahstic categories
such as steppmg b m order into &order. sanity
into insanity, or form into Grmlessness. One of
my interviewees described it as:

For some of the skybvers it also involved losing

a sense of self, whde for others it meant recovering an authentic self wh~chis only revealed in
spontaneous emotional outbursts that emerge
from the central experience of the edgework
itself.Thu was also alluded to by an interviewee:

I think what it (drug use) did for me was

to remwe to a fair degree my self4bsession. . . . My timidity, my chronic sort of shyness. I thought that was the real me. Then of
course I could just do what my feelings led me
to, because I wasn't s d of them. It was a
h e r me. (Emphasis added)

THERATIONAL

IN THE IRRATIONAL

h IS story Seed Habit, Sejavka (2002) describes

IS &end, Flanagan, who went to great lengths in
countryvictoria to find the perfect, cheap, intoxicacing substame that was not alcohol. Eventually
after many attempa indudmg w g various
plants and wen boiling dawn the hearts of lettuce
to a 'disgusting tarry black substame' (Sejavka
2002:19) wh~chhe could not bring hunself to
consume, Flanagan struck on poppy seeds.

If you're living in a world where there is white

noise and then one day the white noise stops,
it's an extraordinaryexperience. . .So the experience (was) of p i n g from something (anxiety
producing) . . . to keling completely relaxd,
wmpletely at peace.
Edgework is intended to create in participants a he+tened sense ofperception, a singular
focus, a bstortion of time (Lyng 1990).Marlowe
(1999) entitled the book about her own heminaddiction 'How to Stop Time'. Stoppmg or losmg time, in a time-obsessed society is c e n d to
many descriptions of the euphoria of narcotics.

This was a turning point for Flanagan, one of

those moments that reahp the trajectory of
a life. Though he did not know it yet, he had
found his p&fect drug Not many people really
liked poppy seeds - they were a drug of dwperation, a cheap
But for F h g a n - humble
vide &I answer. . .And the &habit a&ated. His eyes w perpetually blue places with
barely discernible pupils. He Mt no &unlm
ramped
dose - so he ram* his
he
dose - but at lea= he wasn't m h a h g aerosols or
smoking vegetable matter, at least he wasn't on
gear or anythmg else that you jacked up6
(Sejavka 2002:2&23).

his

Jacking up: administeringa drug inuwenously. Whar Sejavka is M i n g with Flanagan and his poppy s d s is a b i i
form dinverted harm minimimuon rau&tioa
Jacking up producps health hazards like HIV SQ doing anything ek
must be prefembk.

224

xS%

Volume 19, Issue 2, June20 10

'It blasted me into space': Intoxication and an ethics of pleasure

This is not to say that there is no rationality
in those who use opiates, indeed there is a very
purposell ratiodty in the intensive hunt for

the substance, and the way that the technologes

and techniques for their use are prepared. Many
people seem to be able to distmgwh between
the need for rational action as a means of obtainmg their drugs and s d l indulge in them as a
means of escaping chis self-same rationality. One
woman told me that:

I a d y imported drugs from overseas, not

fbr any reason other than I wanted to not pay
fbr my use in Australia and plus I wanted to
go back overseas, I thought at least chis way
I could pay my air fare back . . . I d half
the drugs. I sold the rest and went back overseas.. .It (heroin) was a different keling than
what I had been used to. (A) &rent keling
to alcohol and different to smoking. It made
me kel really relaxed It made me kel rebellious and decadent.
Users, particularly those who inject it, ofien
describe the preparation for the ingestion of
heroin in great detail. Burroughs writes about
it in detad in Junky as does Marlme (1999) in
How to Stop Time. In Naked Lunch Burroughs
(1959/1990:7) writes that 'junk is surrounded
by magc and taboos, curses and amulets'. Of
course, this obsession with the materials and
technologies of addiction to heroin is not specific to heroin. For example, Hodgson (1999)
describes the preparations necessary to smoke
opium in the 19th century. It was necessary to
be very purposeful and very rational so that
the substance could be prepared for srnolung
and enjoyment, induding employing those
who would cook it up and keep the pipes
going when the smoker was too far-gone to
do it himself. William Burroughs' book Junky
(Burroughs 1953/1977) is a very lucid account
of the methodicalway he spent much of his adult
life buying, s e h g and administering first morphine and then heroin. As a matter of fact, you

3C%

could read the whole book and not reahse he

was describing life chasing a euphoria-inducing
substance.
But the drug user must be made subject to
governance (as a policy of the state), even d
sometimes this power is exercised as coercion.As
Valverde (2007:170) notes, harm minimisation is
'a r a t i o d t y of governance that dculates swereignty with biopolitics and disupline'. This is
the topic of the next section.

IRRATIONAUTY
AND ADDICTION
Because I interviewed people who had been
addicts in my research (and who idended as
such), invariably their stories muved from fun to
the very serious business of addiction.Addiction
(or drug-dependence) is a very different form of
irrationality than the momentary irrationality of
the euphoric drug experience. In this section I
give some descriptions and narratives of t h type
of'irrationality'.
I will start with a story h m Honey, a woman
now in her early 50s who for a number of years
had a heroin habit and who has been drug 6-ee
for almost 20 years.

I went to score at Jerry and Sally's place, but

when I got there I came across this totally
weird scene. There was blood all over the flwr
mixed with broken glass. The two of them were
with
lying on their matcress naked, s&
blwd themselves and moaning. They said they
needed my help to score because it seemed they
ran out a few days before and had no money.
They started scouring the whole flat for any
dregs left over,checking out every spoon, every
filter, anydung. They would retreat to the mattress and then crawl out and try again. The
blwd came from literally crawling over broken glass from ashtrays and drinking glasses,
but they didn't notice. It was just dqumng,
here were people crawling over broken glass,
cLsgusting naked bdies s m d with blwd. I
thought it was disgusting at the time, but not
enough to stop me using (heroin).

Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010

xS%

When I was seventeen that was when I had my

first mste of heroin, it was like, this is what I
need, because it would numb me out, ~ h ~ s i cally, and emotionally I wouldn't fed any pain,
but I still had a sense of being there, not a
very good one, but I was still in some sort of
control, or I thought I was . . . That's where
I started working as a sex worker, that's when
I started smoking a lot of dope and using all
the pills and drinking a lot of alcohol. Stayed
there (in the &-light district) till about six or
seven years ago . . . When I was drinking, and
I would always drink to black out, I just found
I didn't like that sense of losing control, thac's
why I took slimming tablets . ..I would drink
alcohol and take speed (amphetamines) ac the
same time and I Mt I had some sort of sense
of control, it was like the lead light in my head
which would flash when I only drink I'd be
able to hold it back a bit with the speed and it
was like I would be able to remember a little
bit more about what I was doing.

This story reads as hyperbole but it is not. Nor

should it be seen as a type of obsessive behaviour
exclusive to heroin adbcts. Consider the dadp
weekly and monthly rituals and behaviour of
someone preparing for a triathlon competition,
or any competitive sport at all. Here it appears
grotesque because it involves heroin, blood and
nakedness.
Honey is describmg the irrationality of
adbction, not intoxication. Addiction. as Keane
(2002) and Valverde (1998) among others
remind us, is a discursive construction and can
be read is different ways, but. I contend. it is
also a concrete reality, however it may be read as
text. It was a concrete reahty for Jerry and Salty,
and for Honey giving them little choice over
their actions, forcing them to abase themselves
in ways that Honey, at least, found not just distasteful, but irrational, demeaning and disgustmg. It took a few more years of adbction before
she finally stopped. Jerry became a long-term
methadone patient dying of liver failure not that
many years ago, and Sally has disappeared fbm
the scene. Jerry began his use of heroin in the
1960s and used to boast that he was going to
be the William Burroughs of the Melbourne
scene, hoping to write like Burroughs and in
the process mnsforming himself into a heroin
icon, the longest-living junkie in Melbourne.
Neither happened, though he may well have
been the longest-living adbct in Melbourne.
Unfortunately for him, no one was keepmg
score. Sally cared for their two children and so
could not legitimately claim the exalted literary
aspirations of her male partner. Gender is important here because the narratives of pleasure are
gendered, as are all narratives. None of the literary drug autobiographies indude children, even
when they existed. because the male writers
ignore them.% is not possible for women.
A battle between being in, and out of, conm l seemed to be part ofthe dady Me for some.
In addiction it eventually seems to avertake the
euphoria narrative. For one woman. it played
itself out for more than 20 years.
228

xS%

With all of chis said, this woman s d l maintained that she began using drugs and drmkmg
alcohol because she enjoyed it.

I started using drugs because I wanted to use

drug. There was a stage where I went to live
with an aunt of mine, and I don't remember
what age it was, but they were heavy drinkers
and they were musicians. I used to drink a lot
of scotch with them and I dto love the feeling that I got from it, I felt okay and I really
liked the fkeling that I got. In the end though,
I forgot what that feeling was.
Other people I spoke to also described experiences of abasement and shame. In retrospect,
for them it was just a matter of addiction, being
enslaved to an illness and the drugs that produced it. The irrationali~yonly stopped when
they overcame their addiction. For this p u p of
people, a moderation of som entered their hes,
but not moderation in their drug use, instead
it was a Me of moderation without drug use.

Volume 19, Issue 2,June20 10

'It blasted me into space': Intoxication and an ethics of pleasure

Weinberg (2000:612) describes it as 'the imagery
of recovery as self-governed/drug life is not selfgoverned'.Thus, these former drug users became
the embobment of the movement of pleasure
h-om boddy debauchment to civic virtue.
These experiences of addiction are Important
for understanding why individuals feel the need
or desire to move away b m i n k c a t i o n themselves. I n h c a t i o n turns into somethulg else,
and the resistance to pastoral power seems to
&integrate in them. The people I interviewed
eventually accepted the ideology of adbction
as disease, and the self-surveillance and confessional requiremena of groups such as Narcotics
Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous.
However, this was not the case with Foucault.
He saw the i n h c a t e d self as a vehicle tuwards
an ethics of pleasure.
Much as Foucault resisted the idea of the moralising movement in ethm, he sdl considered the
use of drugs as an ethical pursuit, especially when
partnered with sexual practices. W e have to study
drugs.We have to experience drugs.We have to
do good drugs, wh~chcan produce very intense
pleasure . . . pleasure also must be a part of our
culture' (Foucault 1998:384). This was intended
to manstbrm the culture and the inbvidual's relationship to it, deterritoruhing drugs and desexuallsulg the body, dissolwng the 'One in oneself'
(Robinson 2003:132). T ~ Ibecomes
S
a transcendence through a form of what Robinson calls
a radical empiricism via the Ingestion of drugs,
the art of not being oneself. It is a game of n t h
played by oneself, but it comes up against institutional power that is just as immanent through the
governance of drug policy and the institutions
that carry it out. Modern governance is intended
to overcome the irrational drug taker,but it also
produces the resistance that prompts the desire
for the self that is not oneself.

CONCW~ION
It seems neither desirable nor realistic to suggest
that drug and alcohol policy move fbm considering scientific, dispassionate evidence as the

3C%

primary basis for decision-makulg, but as the

classical sociologist Durkheim recognised in the
19th century, all soclal actions have unintended,
as well as intended consequences.The intended
consequences of takmg public health policy
regadng &dt drug use away h m a morally
based (rather than a morally-invested) policy to
one more coolly rational and dehberate meant
that its ability to understand the experience of
euphoria and its consequences was lost. The
use of analytical tools such as Lyng's (1990)
concept of edgework, or the theories of riskt a k q behaviour put forward by Lupton and
Tulloch (2002) gives a sociolopt such as myself
a chance at understanbng certain aspects of the
experience of drug takmg, but I concede it is
not totilly satiActory. Nonetheless, it helps to
budd a picture of why harm rninimisation cannot satigfy its own desires, much less those of the
drug user/abuser/adbct it is q i n g to serve. In
particular, the ideological dependence of harm
rninimisation on &courses of risk management underestimates the very real risk-*
behavioun that underscore so much euphoric
or intoxicatmg drug takmg. The passion which
is described by many writers of the experience of the pleasures of drugs is also described
by Foucault (1996) as 'not being oneself', and
if one is not oneself how can one become the
self-governing individual inscribed into public
health discourses?
This paper has attempted to analyse two
conceptually separate stages in euphoric drug
taking - that of drug taking as fun, and that
of drug taking as addiction. Whde these can
be considered as conceptually distinct, in practice this is not dear. Plumridge and Chetwynd
(1999) dustrated how self-image and self-conception play a part in the way their interviewees considered their own using and pursuit
of pleasure. Those young men who considered
themselves as recreational users (as against 'junkies') saw themselves as heroic individuals, while
the self-avowed 'junkies' considered themselves
very differently.

Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010

xs%

Recreational users put personal characteristics

centre stage, prizing self will and self control
and making this the key difference between
themselves and junkies . . . In wntrasr, narratiyes of 'junkies' turned on notions of sensual
hedonism rather tban heroic individualism.
Theirs was not the will to contest convention
but to shrug it off as inhibition to pleasure

Euphoria presentr a problem to sociolog~~a,

politicians.Thrs is not a problem of the 21 st century,
indeed it has existed since alcohol was first fermented and the opium poppy was first boiled
down and smoked. Current moral panics surruunding young people and binge drmlcmg, or
'determined drunkenness' as Measham and Brain
(Plumridge and Chetwynd 1999:334). (2005) refer to it have moved the interest h m
one intoxicating substance to another, but the
The eight intemiewees in the study considontological problem remains. Foucault had little
ered themselves as addicts (junkies) but were
difficultyjustdymg intoxication as part of an
free of all drugs and alcohol when they spoke
e h c s of pleasure, but he was also dear that this
to me, and they all subscribed to a recovery
e h c s belonged to a small and elite portion of
ideology of abstinence. Thls was importamt in
the population, thus the pmblem remains.
framing their narratives of addiction. but it did
My use ofa diverse and novel methodology not silence their narratives of pleasure. They
drawing on theory, interview data, biographies
were very wdling to describe the pleasure they
and fiction offers imporcant 4 t s for sociologained b m intoxication. even if it were just
gists.Survey data may point to what people actuthat they were no longer the same self that
ally do and a close readmg of policy documents
inhabited their body without the drugs. They
may indicate the discourse surroundmg an issue,
did see their use of drugs as ultimately irrabut only a dose examination of mein all
tional and unsatisfying.They believed they had .
its forms can explain why people do the 'bizarre'
been enslaved to the drugs and alcohol and the
and keep on doing it.
dness they produced. The irrationality only
stopped when they overcame their addiction.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENES
For dus group of people a moderation of sorts
I would We to thank my interviewees for their
entered their lives. This was not the moderastories and their honesty. I would also like to
tion of the neo-liberal subject performing the
thank the anonymous reviewers 6 r their comfelicity calculus. f i s cannot happen with
ments whlch made for an i h t e l y better
addiction because as O'Malley and Valverde
Pap-.
(2004:37) note:
s o d theorists, public health experts and

Rdemnees

Liberal pleasure appears as intrinsically voli- Bourgois, P.(1995) In sea& of mpecf: Selling
tional, for one who has no control over desire
crack in El Barrio Cambridge University Press:
could not perform the d m l u s that rnakcs her
Cambrids.
free and rational. . .for to mention the pleasum Bunton, R. (2001)'Knowledge, embodiment and
of consumption would be m load the scales of
neo-libed drug policy' Confmpomty Drug
felicity in b u r of an unwanted outcome.
ProbZm 28221-243.
Bumughs,W.S. (1953/ 1977)Junky Penguin
The felicity calculus can only be a realBooks: Harmondsworth.
ity when individuals deny both euphoria and Bumughs,W.S. (1959/ 1990) Naked lunch Gmve
addiction. Unfortunat+, current public policies
Pms: NewYork.
related to drugs,whether health policy or crimi- Conveney,J.; and Bunton, R. (2003)'In p d t of
naljustice, cannot constitutionally overcome the
the study of pleasure: Implications for health
mearch and practice' H d d t 7(2): 161-179.
l w c of euphoria.
220

xS%

Volume 19, Issue 2, June20 10

'It blasted me into space': Intoxication and an ethics of pleasure

Davies, L. (2006) Candy Allen and Unwin: Cmws
Nest, NSW;
Davis, L.J. ( 1 995) Enfwdng nomaky: Disability, de4ness, and the bodyverso: London.
Dean, M. (2002) 'Liberal government and authoritarianism' Economy md Society 31(1):37-61.
Dick, P.K. (1991) A scanner darklyvintage Books:
NewYork.
Foucault, M. (1982) Afterword' in Dt.eyfus,H.L.
and Rabinow, I? (eds) Midtel Foucault: &pnd
strudumlism and h n t i u The university of
Chicago P m x Chicago.
Foucault, M. (1988) Technologies of the selJ A
seminar with Midtel Foucault Martin, L.H.,
Guttman, H. and Hutton, PH. (eds),University
of Massachusem Pms: Amherst.
hisroty d d @ V o l s .2 and
Foucault, M. (1990)
3 V i n w Books: NewYorkTrans. R. Hurlq.
Foucault, M. (19%) Foucault live: C o l h d
interviews, 1961- 1984 Lotringer, S. (ed.),
Semioeext(e):New York.
Hodgson, B. (1999) Opium:A porfmit ofa h l y
demon Greystone Books:Vancouver.
International Journal of Drug Policy (2008) Special
edition on plearure and dvugs 19(5):34%424.
Jones, R.H.; and Candlin, C.N. (2003)
Constructing risk acros timescales and trajectories: Gay men's stories of sexual encounters
Health, Rkk and Society 5 (2):199-213.
Keane, M. (2002) What's wrong with addiction?
Melbourne University Press: Melbourne.
Lenson, D. (1997) On drugs University of
Minnesota Press: Minneapolis.
Lenton, S. ;and Midford, R. (1996) 'Clarifying
"harm reduction"? Dvug and Alcohol Rwiew
15:411413.
Lupton, D.; and Tulloch,J. (2002) '"Life would
be pretty dull without risk":Voluntary risk
taking and itr pleasures' Hedth, Risk and Society
4(2):115124.
Lyng, S. (1990) 'Fdgework: A social psychological analysis of voluntary risk taking'A M c m
Journal of Sodology 95(4):85 1-886.
Marlowe,A. (1999) How to stop time: Heroinfiom A
to Z Basic Books: NewYork.
Measham, E; and Brain, K. (2005) "'Binge"
drinking,British alcohol policy and the new

3C%

culture of intoxication' Crime, Media, Culture

1(3):262-282.
Miller,J. ( 1993) The passion ofMiche1 FowuIt
Flamingo: London.
Moore, D. (2008)'Erasing pleasure h m public
discourse on illicit drug: On the creation and
repmduction of an absence' I n ~ ~ t i o ~ l J o u m a l
o f h g Policy 19(5):35>358.
O'Malley, I? (1999) 'Consuming risks: Harm
minimization and the Government of"drugusers"' in Smandych,R. (ed.) CovmabZe pluces:
&dings on governmentality and cvime control
Ashgate: Dartmouth.
O'Malley, I?; andWverde,M. (2004) 'Pleasure,
freedom and drugs:The uses of"p1easut.e" in
liberal governance of drug and alcohol consumption' Sodology 38(1):2%2.
Plumridge, E.; and Chetwynd,J. (1999) Idedty
and the social construction of risk Injecting
drug use Sodology ofHmlth and Rlnacr
21(3):20&227.
Robinson, K. (2003) 'The passion and the pleasure: Foucault's art of not being one& Tkeory,
Cultuve and Sm'ety 20(2):119-144.
Rose, N. (1993) 'Government, authority and
expertise in advanced liberalism' Economy and
Society 22285298.
Rose, N. (1998) Inventing ourselves:Psychology,
p o w and personhood Cambridge U n i d t y
Pms: Cambridge.
Sejavka, S. (2002) 'Seed habit' Memjin
61(2):1&24.
Smgle, E. (1995) 'Defining harm reduction' Dnrg
and Alcohol Rwieull4:287-290.
Val&,
M.(1998) Diseases ofthe urin: Alcohol
and the dilemmas offiedom U n i d t y Press:
Cambridge.
Val&,
M.(2007) 'Genealogies of Empean
states: Foucauldian reflections' Economy and
Society 36(1):15%178.
Walton, S. (2001) Out of it:A cultural history of
infwcication Hamish Hamilton: London.
Weinberg, D. (2000) "'Out ThereW:Theecology
of drug addiction in drug abuse aatment discourse' Social Problems 47(4):60M21.
W w d 90 Septetnber 2009

A q t e d 29 April 201 0

Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010

xS%

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.