Motivation, Motivation, Motivation

One of the issues with first person accounts of drug use is authenticity of memory. Of course, the accuracy of any memoir-writer’s recollections can always be called into question, but with drug use accounts there is always one, and often two key factors with regard to memory.

Firstly, put quite simply, it’s the drugs themselves. By definition, we’re talking psychoactive substances here, and, obviously, their key characteristic is to alter the mind’s perceptions (although they vary from drug to drug and person to person in effect). So, anyone writing in this genre has an instant hurdle to leap in terms of establishing the credibility of their story (cf. the James Frey incident for both example and caveat).

Secondly, there is the question of motivation to write. Of course, we can ask why anyone, writing on any subject would choose to put themselves in the first person firing line, but for drug use accounts, it’s an issue that the reader must ask in order to understand what’s happening and why.

There are four obvious motivations (which are not necessarily mutually exclusive): ego / exhibitionism, an existing or intended writing career, education / caveat to others, and catharsis / confession. I’ve listed them in what I see as ascending order of frequency based on the accounts I’ve read so far.

With regard to writing careers, the two writers in the genre with the highest profiles – Elizabeth Wurtzel and James Frey – have both been quite open about their writing ambitions and the effects of writing their memoirs on their careers. Wurtzel is a journalist and Frey spent time as a film screenwriter.  Writing about their drug use has brought a higher profile, with mixed blessings, but, arguably, working in freelance writing careers poses less (or perhaps just different) drug-associated stigma than working in an office or a bank – and certainly than working in a public office, such as teacher, doctor, or social worker.

Frey and Wurtzel are not the only writers or budding writers in the pack. Kate Holden shared some of her early drafts with fellow students on her university writing course and Rhea Coombs collaborated with journalist Diane Taylor on My name is Angel. And that’s just the start of the list.

However, no-one would be cynical enough to suggest that anyone goes out and acquires a problem drug habit just to kick-start their writing career or give them something new to say. Elizabeth Wurtzel discusses her reasons for writing Prozac Nation in an afterword  in the 1994 edition – it grew out of an article on depression for Mademoiselle; it was a way of drawing attention to the prevalence of depression and its effects; and, quite simply, it was something that was in her:

I had tried to write other books about very different topics … but it just kept creeping up, over and over again, like a palimpsest, a text hidden beneath whatever I was working on that refused to remain submerged. Finally … I gave in to the obsessive hold … and decided to just write a whole book, all by itself, about that very subject [depression] and nothing else. Get it over and be done with it. (p.314-315).

In fact, each of the authors of the accounts I’ve read talk, at some point, of the need to get their experience out of their system … and there is a wealth of psychology and psychiatry texts that testify to the power of telling one’s story. Narration is the basis of the ‘talking therapies’ and, in the addictions field, the mainstay of Alcoholics Anonymous, Hazelden and Narcotics Anonymous (Note, however: not the only routes to successful treatement).

Education and prevention is a thorny subject with regard to first person drug use accounts. It’s a complicated debate, with, at its core, the question Can one person learn from the experiences of another?

The affirmative is the basis of many education and prevention texts – testimony from current and former users of the effects of drug use. It would be simplistic and unfair to suggest that only negative effects are described – good quality material presents a rounded picture and leaves it for the audience to make up their own minds. Similarly it would be wrong to suggest that only first person accounts are used – scientific evidence on drug effects is also presented in well-researched Ed & Prev sources.

However, it would be fair to say that the jury is still out on the effectiveness of first person accounts of drug use as an education and prevention tool – for every person who finds it a relief to know someone else is / has been in the same situation, there will be someone else who despairs at the same knowledge. For every kid who is put off smoking by reading about someone else suffering from smoking-related cancer, there will be another who thinks “that will never happen to me.” The reasons for non-drug use or ceasing or cutting down on drug use are every bit as complex as the reasons for using in the first place.

And, of course, when it comes to the educational aspect of first person drug accounts, we do well to remember that the publisher’s interest is always there in the background. Are they publishing because the ‘misery memoir’ sells well, because they have a belief in the 12-step route (cf. Hazelden’s The harder they fall, which shares the experiences of famous former users) or because they think it will do people good to read a cautionary tale? Again, this will vary, and often as not show a mixed motivation.

One point that drug education specialists make is that detailed imagery of drug use can bring drug use to the forefront of the mind and have a suggestive or behavioural enforcement effect. This is problematic for first person drug accounts, whose dramatic arc tends to build from drug use initiation through non-problematic use, to problematic use, impact on the rest of life, decline, further decline, rock bottom to treatment and recovery. Even from this simplified plot synopsis, it’s clear that the bulk of any first person narrative on drugs will tend to be about drug engagement. By the time we reach recovery, it’s the end of the story, quite literally.

And, what is there to say about recovery that a mainstream reader would want to hear – with the exception of Frey’s My friend Leonard, recovery equates to a return from the A-typical to the typical; from the drug culture to “mainstream” culture (“mainstream” in quotations marks because, some would argue that as they are everywhere, drugs are the mainstream).

Indeed, Tom Sykes’ What did I do last night spreads across 236 pages on alcohol use and 44 on sobriety in the edition I read – I make that around one sixth of the novel on sobriety. Despite bearing the epigram “To descend into hell is easy | But to return – what work, what a labour it is! (Virgil),” the proportion in Holden’s In my skin is similarly slewed - 251 pages on heroin use and sex work versus 34 on her recovery journey. That’s around 89% on the ‘easy descent’ and 11% on the ‘labour to return’. I could go on.

In short, it’s difficult to see how it could be any other way – in the world of fiction, crime novels spend chapter after chapter on the crimes and a short section at the end revealing whodunnit; the great romances build from initial meeting through misunderstanding or impediment to briefly-celebrated nuptuals; while fairy tales dispense with any detail beyond “they lived happily ever after”, however long or turbulent the tale.

How compatible is a prevention message, or a message of any kind, with an authentic account of something in the past? If our memories themselves are not clouded by an agenda, then our narration of them surely must be, and that is moot when it comes to first person narratives of any kind. We might view this type of motivation for writing a first-hand drug account as an example of Plato’s Cave: having seen the truth, the freed man returns to the cave to free his former cell-mates. Or we might view it in a less positive light – what is “truth”, after all?

What is clear is that the person that the narrator was when they had problematic substance use, or even when they were using recreationally, is unlikely to have been swayed by the prevention message: as Julian Madigan admits in The agony of ecstasy, “Nobody can give up drugs unless they really want to. All the scaremongering about the dangers to health will not make someone give up drugs” (p.206).

In essence, the “ego” of the narrator has changed and evolved. This is true of all the writers of this kind of account – they are writing about a way of life and state of mind they have left behind. They all have mixed motivations, and, as with so many things in life, “success” is all about the balance. In my reading of this genre so far, I would observe that the books that are successful, in terms of reaching the widest audience are those whose writers are able to say (or to create the illusion of saying) This is my story, and the fact that it’s mine is motivation enough.

Bibliography

Coombs, Rhea with Taylor, Diane (2007) My name is Angel. Virgin.

Frey, James (2003) A million little pieces. John Murray.

Frey, James (2006) My friend Leonard. John Murray.

Gordon, Olivia (2004) The agony of ecstasy. Continuum.

Holden, Kate (2007) In my skin. Canongate.

Madigan, Julian (1996). The agony of ecsasy. Poolbeg.

Sykes, Tom (2007). What did I do last night?: a drunkard’s tale. Ebury.

Wurtzel, Elizabeth (2003) More, now, again. Virago.

Wurtzel, Elizabeth (1996) Prozac nation: young & depressed in America: a memoir. Quartet.