Althouse: "It's not only the high quality of drugs I had that I attribute my survival to."

October 22, 2010

"It's not only the high quality of drugs I had that I attribute my survival to."

"I was very meticulous about how much I took. I'd never put more in to get a little higher. That's where most people f**k up on drugs."

ADDED: To buy the book.

39 comments:

garage mahal said...: Interesting that people like Richards and Willie Nelson are still alive and making music, and the prescription drug addicted Michael Jackson and Anna Nicole Smith, aren't.; 10/22/10, 12:21 PM
Beth said...: Disney dilemma? Because until this book, no one knew Keith Richards is a wild man?; 10/22/10, 12:22 PM
Ann Althouse said...: @Beth But this doesn't show him as the wild man. This shows him as someone who was able to use drugs in a controlled and relatively healthy way and who is informing the world of that. You can be wild if you serve as a negative example. Here, he's not saying, I made mistakes and I'm paying now. He's saying I've lived a fabulous life, deliberately, in control, and I'm still here and able to remember it all.; 10/22/10, 12:26 PM
Ann Althouse said...: We didn't know that before.; 10/22/10, 12:27 PM
Sprezzatura said...: "in a controlled and relatively healthy way"

like using 'bullshit' in a post, but then only going so far as 'f**k.'; 10/22/10, 12:30 PM
Anonymous said...: I guess it says something about Keiths character that he is so self indulgent, with unlimited funds and all of the temptations of a global star, to be still alive at his age.

A tiny shred of Richards held back where say, Keith Moon didn't.; 10/22/10, 12:30 PM
Pastafarian said...: This self-control surprises me; isn't he the guy that would smoke more than one cigarette at a time while performing?

Or am I confusing him with some other Jimmy Paige wannabe?; 10/22/10, 12:30 PM
Dave in Tucson said...: We didn't know that before.

Oh, come on Althouse. A rock star admitting to (ab)using drugs is pretty much of a dog-bits-man story, isn't it?

I mean, would you be terribly shocked if Keith Richards also admitted to having a lot of short-term sex partners? (I haven't read the book, so maybe he did?); 10/22/10, 12:45 PM
Phil 314 said...: interesting that people like Richards and Willie Nelson are still alive

How quickly we forget Janis Joplin, jimmy Hendrix, Keith Moon, John Beluschi.....; 10/22/10, 1:29 PM
Lucien said...: This must be stopped!!

Letting people say such things might shake our faith in the holy WAR ON DRUGS!!!

Think of the children!!!!; 10/22/10, 1:41 PM
XWL said...: The War on Drugs is largely a war on poorer drug users.

Richards has been able to fund his habit through his fame and skill, and wealth has shielded him, for the most part, from fears of prosecution.

Disney's dilemma isn't that they hired a known drug abuser to play a popular character's father, their dilemma is that this known drug abuser is utterly unapologetic about his life choices.

Stupid to worry about it now, I seriously doubt anybody who might have been inclined to see the 4th Pirates flick would skip it just because Keith Richards has a cameo in it.

(can't imagine it's any more than a cameo, cause I doubt the man can act, or remember more than a line or two of dialogue at a time); 10/22/10, 1:44 PM
Anonymous said...: "interesting that people like Richards and Willie Nelson are still alive

How quickly we forget Janis Joplin, jimmy Hendrix, Keith Moon, John Beluschi..."

Yes. There are probably 1000 20-somethings out there reading this and thinking they can handle meth if only they stick to the 'quality' stuff.; 10/22/10, 2:51 PM
Beth said...: Ah yes. He's an OLD, prudently wild man. Can't have that.; 10/22/10, 2:51 PM
Phil 314 said...: Yes. There are probably 1000 20-somethings out there reading this and thinking they can handle meth if only they stick to the 'quality' stuff.

And come to think of it, it is made with a commonly prescribed ingredient. Well, then yes, it must be good for you.; 10/22/10, 3:05 PM
jr565 said...: C3 wrote:
Yes. There are probably 1000 20-somethings out there reading this and thinking they can handle meth if only they stick to the 'quality' stuff.

I wonder what version of rat poison in meth is the most pure.; 10/22/10, 3:30 PM
traditionalguy said...: The romance and glamour of the Stones is once more being used here to seduce the young. I expect that he is in denial and only remembers the few lucid intervals when that formulae worked for him. Even then it is like going over Niagara falls in a barrel. His being the odd survivor is not the whole story.; 10/22/10, 3:59 PM
Sixty Bricks said...: ...as if Johnny Depp hasn't had his share of drugs.; 10/22/10, 4:13 PM
ricpic said...: D.H. Lawrence, writing about E. A. Poe, said (I paraphrase) "Someone had to do it, someone had to go to the end of the night." Which could just as well be said of The Rolling Stones. But "fabulous?" No.; 10/22/10, 4:14 PM
jr565 said...: Garage Mahal:
Interesting that people like Richards and Willie Nelson are still alive and making music, and the prescription drug addicted Michael Jackson and Anna Nicole Smith, aren't.

Interesting also that Keith's pal Brian Jones isn't.; 10/22/10, 4:22 PM
John Burgess said...: Funny things about those opiates. It seems that a regular supply doesn't necessarily disqualify one from living a more-or-less normal life. My wife's grandmother (!) was a heroine addict, starting back when heroine was a legal drug. Her doctors prescribed it to her when the drug was listed. She functioned up until her death in her 80s, with a demanding social life as the wife of a very senior military officer.

Anyone care to take a guess how many doctors are addicted? And practicing without any more than the normal number of errors?

@jr565: My doctor gave me rat poison. So did the hospital. Warfarin, to be exact. It's still a common ingredient in OTC rat poisons.; 10/22/10, 4:46 PM
Mick said...: Keef is god.; 10/22/10, 5:48 PM
Revenant said...: The romance and glamour of the Stones is once more being used here to seduce the young.

I'm pretty sure "the young" aren't being "seduced" by the "glamour" of a bunch of wrinkly old men their grandparents listen to.; 10/22/10, 5:51 PM
JAL said...: Like Beth said.

*Keith Richards* for cryin' out loud.

Who is surprised?

I am not saying he is / was wild as much as who *didn't* do drugs in that generation?

Did the Disney muckety-mucks vote for Clinton and Obama??

(Full disclosure: I was one of the tiny minority. That' why I know this is ridiculous. There weren't too many of us who not only did not inhale, we didn't even light up. Just about every other person I knew did. Of course the second hand weed at the Joan Baez concerts in Monterey and Newport might count ;-)....]); 10/22/10, 6:12 PM
William said...: There are more old doctors than old drug addicts.....There's a lot of collateral damage with addiction. I wonder if his children and ex wives consider his habit so harmless.; 10/22/10, 6:13 PM
Geoff Matthews said...: It aint only drugs that Richards has snorted:

"Richards later confirmed in an interview with Mojo magazine that he had, in fact, snorted his father's ashes – with no cocaine mixed in – before burying them under an oak tree: "I said I'd chopped him up like cocaine, not with. I opened his box up and ... out comes a bit of dad on the dining room table. I'm going, 'I can't use a brush and dustpan for this.'"

I'm going to tender the theory that Keith Richards is an immortal, and can only die by having his head removed.; 10/22/10, 6:30 PM
ndspinelli said...: Ok. We get it prof...you're Rolling Stones, not the Beatles. How about some pictures of fat guys in shorts, it's a little less boring. Keith Richards was a ham n'egger guitarist. Maybe that's your attraction; 10/22/10, 6:44 PM
kjbe said...: William, that's exactly what I was thinking.; 10/22/10, 7:49 PM
Eric said...: There's a lot of collateral damage with addiction. I wonder if his children and ex wives consider his habit so harmless.

Lots of "squares" have ex wives and estranged children as well. Besides which, it's not like his addictions would have been a big surprise to any woman... well, on the planet.

If what he says is true, I'm impressed. He's probably right about what's responsible for your average OD.; 10/22/10, 8:15 PM
Rt1Rebel said...: It's not so amazing that a hedonist makes it through life, although a disproportionate among us don't. Some of us don't publish our memoirs. Some of us just fade away.; 10/22/10, 10:33 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Pffft. It's not even a pop-up book.; 10/23/10, 12:09 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: In other news, I now see that Ringo Starr has joined a foreign military.; 10/23/10, 12:13 AM
bagoh20 said...: Keith expresses the secret of successful drug use - moderation. The same prescription to success for all things. If one considers drugs without the prejudice born of a lifetime of caricature in our culture it becomes exactly the same as anything dangerous and powerful. Guns, food, sex, alcohol, adrenalin, adventure. His advice fits them all. It's simply called wisdom in my book. Tasting life, not wasting life.; 10/23/10, 12:39 AM
Anonymous said...: If many drugs that are currently illegal could be decriminalized or legalized, society could quickly develop the social norms that, basically, Keith Richards prudently practiced so well.

Nobody wants to be around a dude who is so coked up that his brain is rattled, or so addled with heroin that he is shitting himself. Social norms are a strong, strong way to enforce a golden mean about everything, and many of the people who have problems with drugs would find themselves conforming to those norms if only they could be established.

By the way, the first dolt who confuses a law against drug use or a legal norm with a social norm in arguing with me owes me $10 and a tab of acid. Owsley if preferred. Thank you.; 10/23/10, 1:25 AM
Largo said...: @chip: [re Ringo]: Good eye!
@bagoh20: Well said.
@machos: Ditto.; 10/23/10, 1:48 AM
jr565 said...: Rt1Rebel wrote:
It's not so amazing that a hedonist makes it through life, although a disproportionate among us don't. Some of us don't publish our memoirs. Some of us just fade away.

In fact, no one makes it through life ultimtaely. But it's said that only the good die young, and it could be true in certain cases. But everyone has also met good people who live to 100. Similarly living a life of vice usually kills you, but there are people who smoke 5 packs a day who live to a ripe old age and never even get cancer, and then there are people like Chris Reeve's wife who never smoked a day in her life and gets lung cancer.
There are rock stars who live the drug life and die (Sid Vicious, Hendrix, Joplin etc) then there are the clean rock stars who die. Then there are the rocks stars who live the drug life who surprisingly live. and then there are the cleans ones who also live.
It's a crapshoot. Still, Richards is one lucky sob for getting this far considering how much drugs he's taken (or perhaps the amount is overstated).
Gram Parsons tried to hang out with him and died in a couple of years of an od. But maybe it's how you can handle alcohol and drugs. If he could take drugs and wasn't influenced by their addictive properties (and thus could take it in moderation) and could control his urges, unlike so many drug users, then perhaps that is what saved him.
You have to know how to control your liquor and drugs, as they say.
For my own life, when I was a youngster I had a problem drinking but not a drinking problem. When I drank I drank to get wasted (as I was hanging out with friends who were so similarly inclinded) and on a few occasions got so drunk that I passed out. But I never needed to drink outside of the context of drinking with friends. So could go months, years even without touching drink, and nowadays have an occasional wine or beer. Whereas,my cousin had a drinking problem. He would always be drinking, he couldnt' stop. Hed' get in constant trouble drinking and ended up killed in a car accident (most likely drinking at the time, though this wasn't confirmed).
Two different ways of dealing with drugs.

Keith, for all the talk of him being a wild man sounds more like the dabbler who definitely partakes but can control his impulses and thus it never becomes a problem. Some others are not so careful.; 10/23/10, 11:17 AM
jr565 said...: Seven Machos wrote:
f many drugs that are currently illegal could be decriminalized or legalized, society could quickly develop the social norms that, basically, Keith Richards prudently practiced so well.

Nobody wants to be around a dude who is so coked up that his brain is rattled, or so addled with heroin that he is shitting himself. Social norms are a strong, strong way to enforce a golden mean about everything, and many of the people who have problems with drugs would find themselves conforming to those norms if only they could be established.

That isn't really accurate though. Social norms do not control ones appetites. And even though alcohol is legal we still have plenty of people destroying their lives on alcohol or getting so drunk they die from alcohol poisoning. And how do you set a norm for chrystal meth for example?
Also, for many people drugs are for all intents and purposes decriminalized. They know a guy who hooks them up. or they have a handler who buys stuff for them. They are then left to themselves to deal with their appetites. No social norm will save an addict from his appetites.
It's not the illegality that creates the drug addict, its the drugs. Whether they were legal or illegal simply becomes whether they are easier or harder to purchase.; 10/23/10, 11:22 AM
jr565 said...: Also, the social norms are already known by the drug addicts. "Don't take the brown acid, man'. Here's how you shoot smack. Don't share needles. etc. Don't mix x with y.
The junkies know all (or many) of the proper rules and etiquette for how to deal with drugs. The problem is that drugs control your mind and body chemistry. So you are not a rational person once under the influence.

Nobody wants to be around a dude who is so coked up that his brain is rattled, or so addled with heroin that he is shitting himself.
There's a fine line between a responbsible coke addict and one who's so coked up that his brain is rattled. One because the coke head who's brain isn't as rattled still has his brain rattled. How do you say it's ok ot get this high, but not THIS high as if there were a marker that could actually be guaged by anyone. Would we limit the doses that people are allowed to take? What if that doesn't get them high enough? What if one person takes one dose and is mellow and another person takes the same dose and is a brain addled cokehead. Or one heroine addict gets high and passes out in the corner, and the other passes out in the corner and also shits himself. The first unconcscious guy is cool even though he's unconscious in a corner, but the guy who shit himself crossed a line?
What if the line were. Don't take heroin and you won't be unconcsious in the corner. And any heroin above zero is against the social norm?
Otherwise you're left with drug addicts who will take substances which will alter their minds in some more profound ways than others who may be fine or who may shit themselves or die, or become schizophrenics or whatever.; 10/23/10, 11:34 AM
William said...: Ponder Brian Jones. He has missed out on the last forty years of Kobe beef, super models, private jets to Caribbean vacations, and all the other perks and privileges of life as a Rolling Stone. Some lives are blessed beyobnd measure. Why would you risk an early death by trying to heighten the pleasure of an ecstatic life? The gods should fuck up this greedy bastard.; 10/23/10, 7:22 PM
Blair said...: Brian Jones did not die from drugs!!! He was murdered by his gardener in the swimming pool.; 10/23/10, 11:03 PM