Falling Into Addiction
3rd July 2023
ike a cup of coffee, the Guardian newspaper acts on me in the morning like a tonic, increasing my alertness after sleep. For example, I read the following this morning, shortly after I regained consciousness:
Matt Rowland Hill, 38, is the author of Original Sins, about growing up as the son of a baptist minister before falling into a decade-long addiction to heroin while studying at Oxford.
I have not read Mr Rowland Hill’s book, which I am perfectly prepared to believe is a very good one. But he did not fall into a decade-long addiction; he knowingly chose to become and remain addicted, for whatever reason he might have had. He jumped into it.
The author is not stupid or an ignoramus. It is impossible that he did not know that heroin was addictive before he first took it. One does not become addicted to it on a first dose: most heroin addicts, in fact, take it on and off for some time before they are physically addicted.