Books about life on pharmaceuticals

August 24, 2018 6:24 AM

Hullo, looking for books with a first person or limited third person account of being addled while on opiates and adderall. Anything that is adderall-adjacent, like other amphetamines, are fine if they're not IV.

THANK YOU

posted by angrycat to Writing & Language (8 answers total)

Best answer: How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell comes to mind - though I admit I haven't read it, I've read enough of her other writing to know it would definitely fit your description.
posted by mosst at 6:26 AM on August 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

Best answer: More, Now, Again by Elizabeth Wurtzel begins with prescription amphetamine abuse (she then moves on to coke).
posted by terretu at 6:35 AM on August 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I am reading Jesmyn Ward's Sing Unburied Sing and parts of it are first person told by someone who has visions while she is on cocaine.
posted by jessamyn at 6:35 AM on August 24, 2018

Best answer: I first read David Sheff's book Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction and am now working my way through his son, Nic's, book about his own experiences - Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines.
posted by Merinda at 6:57 AM on August 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Seconding the Cat Marnell book. It is very good.
posted by wowenthusiast at 7:05 AM on August 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Do you mean opiates and Adderall, together--that is, speedballs? Or do you mean opiates or Adderall?
posted by praemunire at 8:38 AM on August 24, 2018

Best answer: An early classic of the genre is De Quincy's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. As it dates from 1821, it may not be what you're looking for. (The opium bits kick in in part two.)
posted by BWA at 12:26 PM on August 24, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks so much everybody!

Thanks especially for the reminder of Sing Unburied Sing--that rendering of the perspective of an altered state is really well done.

I did mean opiates and adderall together so yes, essentially speedballs.
posted by angrycat at 4:59 PM on August 24, 2018 [1 favorite]