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A Brief History of Freud's Love Affair with Cocaine

29 points by pmoriarty 5y ago

tedjdziuba 5y ago
Stimulant use is one of those things that everyone knows, but nobody talks about. Silicon Valley, like the German army in WWII, runs on amphetamine.
mam3 5y ago
In any electro party in any western european, ~ 25% people at least regularly take either c, d, l or k... most of us pretty reasonably. Meanwhile an insane proportion of engineer are downright alcoolics... "Drugs" is not a thing. Only addiction is, and in a few years, a few of them will be legalised for (rare) medicinal purposes. Especially MDMA. Stay safe (harm reduction first) but dont be scared to experiment at all.
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  But how else can you sleep at night knowing about that one cron job or whatever… ;)
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "In any electro party in any western european, ~ 25% people at least regularly take either c, d, l or k... most of us pretty reasonably." c = cocaine d = dmt? heroin? l = lsd? k = ketamine? What about MDMA (aka ecstasy or molly -- though often what users get under those names is actually not MDMA but other drugs, leading to fatalities) ? And why even abbreviate the names of these substances?
  - mam3 5y ago
    D is mdma/ecstasy. Its not that often mixed with other stuff ... super rare in europe. Btw never do the big 3: heroin crack and meth
underseacables 5y ago
One of my favorite Sigmund Freud quotes, From a letter to his fiancé: Woe to you, my Princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward, you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn't eat enough, or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.
okareaman 5y ago
See also: William James was experimenting with nitrous oxide in 1882 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/05/the-nitrous-oxide-philosopher/376581/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/05/the-nit... When I was a lad, the common wisdom was that cocaine was not addictive. This was also later said about nitrous oxide. I found out to my great ruin that both can be highly addictive to certain people. Sounds to me like Freud wasn't an addict.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "Sounds to me like Freud wasn't an addict." He definitely was. From some other articles: Freud "was using cocaine quite a bit in 1895 on himself, to the point he was having chest pain. He was depressed. And he also -- his nose was so congested, he had to have a surgeon open it up with a knife so he could breathe, lots of signs that you might want to lay off the stuff."[1] "At no point in his letters does Freud consider the possibility that cocaine may produce adverse effects, or indeed any effects apart from those he values. This is clearly illustrated in another letter: "… I was suffering from migraine, the third attack this week, by the way, although I am otherwise in excellent health. I took some cocaine, watched the migraine vanish at once, went on writing my paper as well as a letter to Professor Mendel, but I was so wound up that I had to go on working and writing and couldn't get to sleep before four in the morning." It does not appear from this letter that Freud was aware of the connection between his use of cocaine and his being wound up and unable to sleep."[2] "Freud, for a few years, became such a regular consumer that his nose was red and wet. To put an end to the bad habit of drinking, he tried to keep busy as long as possible: he got up at six in the morning, saw twelve patients, read and wrote until the middle of the night. Freud managed to rehabilitate himself and completely abandoned his addiction."[3] [1] - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/cocaine-how-miracle-drug-nearly-destroyed-sigmund-freud-william-halsted https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/cocaine-how-miracle-drug-n... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/22/archives/freuds-disaster-with-cocaine.html https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/22/archives/freuds-disaster-... [3] - https://psychologysays.net/psychology/sigmund-freud-and-his-cocaine-addiction/ https://psychologysays.net/psychology/sigmund-freud-and-his-...
  - op00to 5y ago

29 points by pmoriarty 5y ago

Stimulant use is one of those things that everyone knows, but nobody talks about. Silicon Valley, like the German army in WWII, runs on amphetamine.

mam3 5y ago

In any electro party in any western european, ~ 25% people at least regularly take either c, d, l or k... most of us pretty reasonably. Meanwhile an insane proportion of engineer are downright alcoolics... "Drugs" is not a thing. Only addiction is, and in a few years, a few of them will be legalised for (rare) medicinal purposes. Especially MDMA. Stay safe (harm reduction first) but dont be scared to experiment at all.

cyberpunk 5y ago
But how else can you sleep at night knowing about that one cron job or whatever… ;)
pmoriarty 5y ago
"In any electro party in any western european, ~ 25% people at least regularly take either c, d, l or k... most of us pretty reasonably." c = cocaine d = dmt? heroin? l = lsd? k = ketamine? What about MDMA (aka ecstasy or molly -- though often what users get under those names is actually not MDMA but other drugs, leading to fatalities) ? And why even abbreviate the names of these substances?
- mam3 5y ago
  D is mdma/ecstasy. Its not that often mixed with other stuff ... super rare in europe. Btw never do the big 3: heroin crack and meth

underseacables 5y ago

One of my favorite Sigmund Freud quotes, From a letter to his fiancé: Woe to you, my Princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward, you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn't eat enough, or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.

okareaman 5y ago

See also: William James was experimenting with nitrous oxide in 1882 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/05/the-nitrous-oxide-philosopher/376581/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/05/the-nit... When I was a lad, the common wisdom was that cocaine was not addictive. This was also later said about nitrous oxide. I found out to my great ruin that both can be highly addictive to certain people. Sounds to me like Freud wasn't an addict.

pmoriarty 5y ago
"Sounds to me like Freud wasn't an addict." He definitely was. From some other articles: Freud "was using cocaine quite a bit in 1895 on himself, to the point he was having chest pain. He was depressed. And he also -- his nose was so congested, he had to have a surgeon open it up with a knife so he could breathe, lots of signs that you might want to lay off the stuff."[1] "At no point in his letters does Freud consider the possibility that cocaine may produce adverse effects, or indeed any effects apart from those he values. This is clearly illustrated in another letter: "… I was suffering from migraine, the third attack this week, by the way, although I am otherwise in excellent health. I took some cocaine, watched the migraine vanish at once, went on writing my paper as well as a letter to Professor Mendel, but I was so wound up that I had to go on working and writing and couldn't get to sleep before four in the morning." It does not appear from this letter that Freud was aware of the connection between his use of cocaine and his being wound up and unable to sleep."[2] "Freud, for a few years, became such a regular consumer that his nose was red and wet. To put an end to the bad habit of drinking, he tried to keep busy as long as possible: he got up at six in the morning, saw twelve patients, read and wrote until the middle of the night. Freud managed to rehabilitate himself and completely abandoned his addiction."[3] [1] - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/cocaine-how-miracle-drug-nearly-destroyed-sigmund-freud-william-halsted https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/cocaine-how-miracle-drug-n... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/22/archives/freuds-disaster-with-cocaine.html https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/22/archives/freuds-disaster-... [3] - https://psychologysays.net/psychology/sigmund-freud-and-his-cocaine-addiction/ https://psychologysays.net/psychology/sigmund-freud-and-his-...
- op00to 5y ago