I Don't Like The Drugs But The Drugs Like Me

Kacie Rahm
Thought Experiment #1

I Don't Like The Drugs But The Drugs Like Me


I have dealt with many interruptions in my life, some of them so frequently that I barely consider them interruptions anymore. The disrupting act of packing and traveling, whether temporarily or permanently, has become so common recently that I feel like I have never fully unpacked. The constant buzz of my cell phone in my pocket is so commonplace that I check the screen even when there is nothing new to see. Illnesses no longer require an absence from school or the attention of my parents. Yet there is one interruption that I have not been able to nonchalantly adjust to, however. That interruption is drugs. Drugs come in many forms, and the interruptions do as well.

The first interruption I can relate to drugs was to my family dynamic. As I mentioned in my blog, entitled Maybe You're Better Off This Way, “I have dealt with an older brother who struggles with an addiction to Crystal Meth. I have known this since before I truly understood what drugs were. I knew he was 'sick' and 'different.'” My brother's name is Jason, and he is an addict. He has been interrupting me for my entire life between collect calls from King County Jail and becoming the “other mother” to my three nephews. There was the countless interventions, family visit days at rehab, his relapse at my high school graduation, witnessing the Jerry Springer moments between him and his wife, and driving him to the birth of his third child because he was too wasted. Each time he seemed to be getting better I would believe him, and then the interruption of his failure would occur again.

In my blog I explored the thought that drugs might be parasites. I have approached the word metaphorically. To me, a parasite is something that enters a host and physically or mentally alters the behavior of the host. After realizing that the thought experiment would require challenging ideas and comparing notes with my peers, I decided to see what they had to say about the subject. On Plurk, I posed the question: “Do you think that drugs (or any other self-induced 'parasite') counts as a parasite at all?” I had not counted on receiving over two hundred responses, but felt the discomfort necessary to experiment with the thought. I saw that not only did people disagree with me, but more and more questions evolved from the original. I asked if something is voluntary, does it count as a parasite? The first response that caused me to rethink my original idea came from Jesse8162. He said, “It's not really completely voluntary once the original person is taken by addiction.”

Addiction and drug use are not synonymous terms. I find this to be true because I would say that most of my friends and family members fall into the category of “drug users.” My mother and sister love their wine, my father his beer. My friends partake in drinking, marijuana smoking, and cigarette smoking. However, I would never compare them or myself to “addicts.” Addiction, according to Dictionary.com, is defined as, “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.” The only time I ever remember someone close to me having severe trauma from the cessation of drug use is when my four month old nephew had to come down from the opiates his mother had passed through her breast milk. After realizing that the occasional drug use I condoned and accepted in my daily life had never seemed parasitic before, I altered my original thought. In response I wrote, “I think that's the way I'm leaning, like addiction is the true parasite, drugs are just a substance.”

Just as I felt conversation had halted, user betzi asserted, “It could be the biologist in me, but 'parasites' implies a living organism.” Because we had been discussing technology and language as parasites in class, I had not really explored the idea that only living organisms could be true parasites. Right as I realized what this idea would propose, betzi expanded on her point, “The parasites aren't the drugs but the people using them.” It was hard for me to really consider this idea, perhaps because I am biased. Having an addict so close to me, I found it nearly impossible to consider him a parasite. I felt angry that someone might even suggest this possibility. Who was this betzi, and how dare she call my brother a parasite? Instead of closing my laptop and ignoring further response, however, I decided to see it her way.

If I were to take the definition of parasite at face value, maybe I would think differently about my whole argument. Dictionary.com defines parasite as, “an organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment .” I feel that calling the addicted person a parasite would not be scientifically sound by this definition. The addicted person does not enter any kind of host and obtain it's nutriment. I think that it could be argued by the dictionary definition, drugs could very possibly be considered a parasite. Many drugs come from natural ingredients, i.e. tobacco, marijuana, heroin, opium, cocaine, hallucinogenic mushrooms and alcohol. Even chemical based drugs such as methamphetamine and prescription drugs are synthetic versions of natural drugs. If we consider these natural ingredients living organisms, which enter the body of the drug user and react according to their body chemistry, altering their behavior, then they are definitely a parasite.

User Jesse8162, who was very vocal in response to my Plurk inquiry, suggested that I read his blog. It was actually written as a response to my original blog about drugs as a parasite. Upon reading his post I found a similarity within our experiences with drug users. His blog reads, “When someone is strung out on drugs, it's almost as if they change identities from who they were before. The brother/sister/mother/father/husband/wife that was known before is no longer the person they once were.” The idea that drug use changes behavior is not beyond the average person's understanding. Any medical reference will tell you of the side effects to various drugs. However, when drug use and addiction is close to you, you understand that it does not only change the person's behavior, drugs change the person. In my own blog I wrote, “You could see it in his eyes, or rather see nothing in his eyes. He looked like any trace of his soul was gone,” in reference to my brother under the influence. In many of the books I have read about drug abuse, there is support to this idea. The book Crank by Ellen Hopkins tells the story of a sweet girl named Kristina who becomes addicted to meth and takes on a completely new personality. When she is high, she uses her “other” identity, like in this passage, “her tongue curled easily beneath my teeth, and her words melted between my lips. 'My friends call me Bree.'” This common idea within my research helped support my original notion that drugs are a parasite, especially because of the connections I made to Shivers.

In Shivers, the slug-like parasites change the behavior of the hosts to the point that one could barely refer to them as people. Besides appearance, they held almost none of their original selves. For example, their actions were lust-fueled and erratic, innocent little girls became fierce predators, and they seemed unable to express most emotions, besides crazed or blissful. The difference, however, is that the hosts of the shivers did not want to be infected. Most of the movie involves a character's attempts to escape the building uninfected once aware of the parasite. First time drug users make the conscious choice to partake in the drug use, with the exception of date rape drugs slipped into drinks. It is hard to be unaware that you are wrapping your lips around a pipe or snorting powder up your nose.

This is the part where I decide that if anything, addiction is the true parasite. The act of using drugs is voluntary. Once a drug user reaches the point of addiction, the point where they suffer extreme withdrawals without the drug, the point where they are using drugs to feel normal rather than “high,” that is when the parasite is in power. This is an involuntary situation, as nobody believes when they start using drugs that they will get addicted, and a lot of people never reach the point of addiction. I also feel like the drug user can not be the parasite, because then there is no host. Though I understand the argument that the drug user is the only living organism involved, I do not agree with it. As cephalopod responded to the Plurk inquiry, “Everything manmade, everything tangible, is natural.”

I went into this thought experiment with an energy and a vigor for the parasite that has interrupted the majority of my life. I barely touched on the subject in my blog, and once I posed the question to my peers, I realized that I am not the only person passionate about the subject. Some of the people most involved in the conversation were not even classmates. One might believe that the drug is the parasite, the user is the parasite, that the addiction is the parasite, or even none of the above. People advocated each option to me. In the end, I believe that the state of addiction is the parasite. It feeds off of the host, changing their priorities, involuntarily taking them over mind and body. I have watched the transformation in many people, and I can not in good conscience blame them entirely for their vices.



Works Cited
Gortner, Jesse. "A Very Real Parasite Problem." Web log comment. Story Time With Uncle Jesse. Jesse Gortner, 26 Jan. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .

Hopkins, Ellen. Crank. New York: Simon Pulse, 2004. Print.

Rahm, Kacie R. "Maybe You're Better Off This Way." Web log comment. Kacie Says. Kacie Rahm, 19 Jan. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .

Shivers. Dir. David Cronenberg. Perf. Lynn Lowry and Allan Kolman. CDFC, 1975. Videocassette.

SpaceyKacie, Jesse8162, Cephalopod, and Betzi. "SpaceyKacie asks..." Plurk. Kacie Rahm, 29 Jan. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .