[F]eeling a little dopesick is part of the point of doing heroin… [T]o some degree, pain, shame, and degradation are part of the appeal. These are the feelings – not the high, not the euphoria – that actually crack a user loose from the ‘smothering chokehold of love and normalcy.’
The last phrase is Anthony Bourdain’s complaint about his childhood.
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Recall psychoanalyst Adam Phillips:
These are parts of ourselves – that don’t want to live, that hate our children, that want ourselves to fail. [T]here is something strange about humans: they are recalcitrant to what is supposed to be their project.