Across the Atlantic in Tbilisi a very different drug sucks the life of addicts: here, desomorphine, better known as Krokodil, has taken hold. ibid.
There are 700,000 heroin users in the US – double those in 2005. ibid.
81% of first-time heroin users previously abused prescription pills. ibid.
Thailand … For some, an elicit playground … An addiction epidemic: a little Meth pill called Yaba. Causes madness and misery. The death penalty hangs over every dealer, but the gangs push on. Drugs Inc s7e19: Bangkok Ice
It’s one of the most addictive drugs in the world. Whatever you call it nearly 37 million Americans have used it at least once. Drugged s1e2: High on Cocaine, Netflix 2011
Its popularity has soared as its price has dropped. ibid.
The drug sends the network into overdrive. Cocaine triggers the massive release of Dopamine across the gaps. ibid.
More: that’s the coke-user’s problem. ibid.
A cocaine addict’s brain becomes de-sensitised. ibid.
They’re young and hopelessly addicted. A new generation of heroin junkies. Drugged s2e2: High on Heroin
A craving that never goes away. Each smoke brings a powerful high ... But heroin destroys users. ibid.
2,000 Americans die from heroin overdose each year. ibid.
Heroin withdrawal impacts the whole body. ibid.
A new generation of heroin addicts – young, middle class. ibid.
Over 125,000 high school students in America use heroin every month. ibid.
Loved ones are abused and abandoned. ibid.
The majority of fatal overdoses involve mixing more than one drug. ibid.
An addict is vulnerable to lung diseases such as influenza, pneumonia and tuberculosis. ibid.
Suboxone is twenty times more powerful than morphine. ibid.
Crystal Meth and alcohol: the old face of addiction and the new. Over twenty million Americans are hooked. Drugged s2e3: High on Meth
A drug that’s increasingly become a problem across the world. ibid.
Crystal Meth costs around $120 per gram. ibid.
Crystal Meth increases libido and sexual pleasure. ibid.
Over time Meth users need the drug more and more frequently to feel OK. ibid.
45,000 alcoholics die from withdrawal each year. ibid.
This insomnia isn’t unusual for Meth addicts: it’s a chronic side-effects. ibid.
Crystal Meth addicts have a high risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. ibid.
In the US five million women are alcoholics. ibid.
Alcohol is the most common drug a person turns to when experiencing trauma. ibid.
18 million Americans are alcoholics … The most abused drug in the United States. Drugged s2e4: High on Alcohol
The first impact of alcohol is rapid. ibid.
The children of alcoholics are four times as likely to become alcoholics themselves. ibid.
The threat of death hangs over every alcoholic … The lack of alcohol has its own hazardous effect. ibid.
Chronic alcohol abuse damages the digestive system making it extremely painful to eat. ibid.
I had not taken a bath in a year nor changed my clothes or removed them except to stick a needle every hour in the fibrous grey wooden flesh of heroin addiction. I did absolutely nothing. William S Burroughs
The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don’t wake up one morning and decide to be a drug addict. It takes at least three months’ shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don’t really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict. William S Burroughs
Is marijuana addictive? Yes, in the sense that most of the really pleasant things in life are worth endlessly repeating. Richard Neville
About one person in twenty who takes the drug for the first time becomes addicted in the first year. And about a fifth of users become addicted in their own lifetime. Dr John Marsden
We’re addicts, Elizabeth. You and I. The Richard Burton Diaries, BBC 2013
In this country, don’t forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There’s no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues 1956
All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation. W H Auden, A Certain World, 1970
The draw of the supernatural proved addictive to readers of fiction. Faulks on Fiction 4/4: The Villains, BBC 2011
Nobody chooses to become an addict ... Addiction is a disease. Dr John Halpern, psychiatrist Harvard University
Addiction isn’t about substance – you aren’t addicted to the substance, you are addicted to the alteration of mood that the substance brings. Susan Cheever
What fascinates me about addiction and obsessive behaviour is that people would choose an altered state of consciousness that’s toxic and ostensibly destroys most aspects of your normal life, because for a brief moment you feel OK. Moby
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism. C G Jung
Since Argentina’s 1991 economic crash its streets have been flooded with Paco, a highly addictive inexpensive narcotic derived from cocaine. Deadliest Drugs, Manuel Contreras, short film ‘Argentina’s New Crack’
Jonny was addicted to Paco. He now lives in a squat in La Boca where he tries to look after his friends suffering from addiction. ibid.
Paco is popular in the poorest neighbourhoods. Groups of mothers banded together to fight the spread of Paco. ibid.
Paco addiction kills at least two people a week in La Boca. ibid.
The idea that certain foods can be addictive is highly controversial. Jacques Peretti, The Men Who Made Us Fat I, BBC 2012
It’s 1749. London is in the grip of addiction. Gin. It’s dirt cheap. And it’s turning the capital into a nest of vice and destruction. Henry Hitchings, Birth of the British Novel, BBC 2011
Up to half a million people in the UK estimated to be problem gamblers. And that number is rising. Alexis Conran, Gambling, Addiction and Me: The Real Hustler, BBC 2012
How does the occasional flutter turn into a daily fix? ibid.
Why are we leaving the door open to people who have got that problem? ibid.
These days you can get your fix in perfect isolation. ibid.
The urge to gamble can be with you all your life. ibid.
It wasn’t the winning that thrilled him but the near misses. ibid.
You’ll always be an addict or an addict in recovery. ibid.
Gambling addiction is a disease. ibid.
Daxing Bootcamp for Internet Addicts, suburb of Beijing. China is the first country to declare internet addiction as a clinical disorder. Claiming it is the number one public health threat to its teenage population. Storyville: Web Junkies – China's Addicted Teens, caption, BBC 2014
The Chinese government has built more than 400 rehabilitation camps for treating internet addiction disorder. The treatment usually lasts three months and claims a 70% success rate. ibid.
‘We call it electronic heroin.’ ibid. professor
That guy wasn’t me – that guy was an addict. Ray Donovan s3e1: The Kalamazzo, bloke from brother to Day, Showtime 2013