Evan Dando, renowned idiot, encourages the youth of the world to shoot up heroin

The BBQ Pit
41

Thanks, Zenster, for that gritty expose. I think you’re on to something here. Let’s think about the process of cooking dinner:

  1. Scrape together some money:

Beg on the street, sell your body, borrow, cheat or take money from your friends (however many are left alive or even willing to trust you), pawn or sell your possessions, steal something and sell it.

  1. Cop your fix:

Transport yourself to what may be a very dangerous neighborhood filled with people who are ready to relieve you of whatever you may possess. Having arrived safely at the store, you then associate with types such as cashiers who are willing to shortchange you, just so long as they have a few extra bucks in their pocket to buy smokes after work. Secure whatever morsels you can afford without being trampled or crushed by a shopping cart. Make some, if any, rudimentary determination as to your score’s nutritional value (if your hunger addled senses even permit such a degree of circumspection) before exposing your internal organs to it.

  1. Obtain some utensils:

Purchase or trade for a pot or pan that is adequately free of rust, baked-on grease, caked-on grease, and loose Teflon. Somehow ensure that you own some kind of machine or rag for washing your dishes, as well as a garbage receptacle and a contract for the garbage to be hauled away, in order to avoid adding the stench of old food to the squalor of your dingy apartment or shack.

  1. Prepare to eat:

Make it back to your dingy apartment or shack where you have minimal security, in order to perform the rest of your eating ritual. Maintain sufficient concentration on the task at hand to avoid burning down your shabby excuse for a home. This assumes a willingness to refrain from answering the phone, watching TV, or attending to children. Make sure to clean the dishes and any other implements used to avoid salmonella, botulism, and E. coli that frequently find their way into improperly stored meat.

  1. Actually eat:

Locate a hole in your face which you can reach without someone else’s assistance. Make sure the hole is not already full of food. Remember to wash your hands before eating so dermal bacteria are not forced through your esophagus and into your stomach. Take care not to cut or poke yourself with the very sharp knives and forks required for this task. Secure your knives so no one else will use them unsupervised and injure themselves.

  1. Sit back and enjoy the rush:

Regard the typical squalor you live in due to extreme poverty and reflect upon how rich your life experience is made by the golden glow of this fabulous meal.

See, everything looks hopeless if you use the right adjectives! Sure, not everyone lives that way, whether they use heroin or cook dinner, but you knew that, right? Who cares, this is fun!

Next week: “Hey, Mr. Pro-life Protestor, those pictures of abortions sure are nasty. Why don’t you take a look at these pictures of heart surgery and Caesarian section?”

42

So, you guys are saying that… heroin is bad? Fascinating. It’s certainly a viewpoint I’ve never heard before. How come this information isn’t more readily available to the public?

43

Hmm. If Jackmanii’s statistics are to be trusted (and why not? I’m a trusting sort) … one-quarter of the people who’ve tried heroin are addicts … and heroin addiction, however you slice it, is not a lifestyle to emulate.

Of the remaining three-quarters, how many, I wonder, are former addicts? How many are experimental users who tried it once and said “never again”? Take those groups away, and all you have left are the “responsible” heroin users - people who can take the stuff and not have it take over their lives. How large is that group? I don’t know, but I’d guess that it’s not very large at all.

However “beautiful” the drug-taking experience may be, commenting on that without advertising the down side is irresponsible. IMHO.

44

Zenster- for Christ’s sake, man. I’ve never done anything harder than pot, and I certainly think the risks associated with heroin outweigh any benefits, but most people who use heroin do not fit your profile. Every single person I know who has used heroin (which is surprisingly more common than I had thought - at least around my friends) tried it a few times for the experience. They (luckily) never got hooked or ODed, and are now professional, productive members of society. Your drug stereotype may apply to some, but it’s a gross generalization and simply perpetuates ignorance. If you truly are interested in fighting drugs, than you must realize that many, if not most, drug users are casual users who do not end up addicts on the street doing tricks to score a hit. That image is 80s-era propaganda bullshit.

I am not saying drugs are not dangerous. I am just saying that Average Joe Drug User looks more like Average Joe than the bum on the street you describe.

45

My my, it’s like a thousand doctors are practising with their little rubber hammers here, what with all the knees jerking.

Here are a number of statements I believe to be true:

  1. Not everyone who tries heroin gets addicted (as Jackmanii’s stats show).

  2. Not all addicts are thieves.

  3. However, it is a worryingly addictive drug, and that addiction can certainly contribute to the ruin of many societies, contributing to crime, child neglect, disease, unrealised potential. I live in an area with a high rate of heroin addiction, and I can attest to this.

  4. There is a long history of the contribution of opiates to art: e.g. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan (and thus Olivia Newton John’s Xanadu); Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; America’s Horse with No Name; Lou Reed’s Perfect Day; the movie Trainspotting.

  5. The effects of heroin on the non-addicted user could quite possibly be described as “beautiful”. I’ve never tried it, but I did once have a large shot of morphine in my ass when in hospital, and I can tell you that, despite my twisted intestine, it was indeed the most beautiful feeling I’ve ever experienced. The psychotropic effects of heroin are reputed to be similar, but better, than morphine.

  6. It is difficult for me to comprehend the act of shooting up itself as “beautiful”.

  7. What Dando said is nowhere near as bad as things the Gallagher brothers from Oasis have said on TV in the UK, which does not appear to have had a marked effect on increased heroin abuse.

  8. That said, Evan Dando should realise that the words he says may make an impact on some impressionable people, and as such he should have been more circumspect. The same could be applied to Rolling Stone, which printed his words.

46

Having once spent some time inside the warm loving fog of morphene, I can say without a doubt that I’m all ready a heroin addict, without even going there. I know, deep in my reptile brain, that if I ever get a taste, I’ll never want to live without it.

So, I avoid it. I know that if I ever tried it, I would die. Soon.

There is no downside while you’re high. It really is that good.

47

The funniest thing I’ve read in ages, thank you.

48

Jesus. Recovered (as much as you can be) crystal meth addict checking in to say that Zenster, Jackmanii and Peyton’s Servant are acting like a bunch of reactionary idiots. How can you be so freaking upset at a guy for saying that his drug of choice was an exceptionally pleasurable experience? Did he say that it wasn’t self-destructive, that it didn’t ruin his life, kill his friends, etc? No.

I would be lying to myself and to you if I said that I didn’t have some BEAUTIFUL fucking experiences on crank, and I would also be lying to myself and to you if I said that I could manage to have those experiences and an acceptable version of my life. I chose life, as did Evan Dando. Does that mean we can’t tell you the truth about what we’ve been through?

Why is it that in this thread drugs have to be defended by the people they’ve hurt the most, against this self-righteous howling from the (apparently) less experienced side. Maybe because to be an addict you have to know how good it can be, but to be a recovering addict you have to know better than anyone how bad it can be. I have no shame in admitting that there are lots of times that I miss drugs. I miss the rush, I miss the ritual, I miss dancing all night and feeling absolutely beautiful and superhuman. I don’t miss the next morning, crying in the fetal position in my shower, then doing more speed to pretend that I hadn’t been out all night. There is nothing wrong with that. All of you can chill the fuck out.

LC

49

Oh, and a touch more. Reading his quote, I realized more exactly what he was saying. There’s even the implied statement that it’s not something that a person can survive doing regularly, he’s just saying that in the end he wouldn’t have wanted to go his whole life without ever feeling that.

I took ecstasy once. Once. When I did, I spent one night as fulfilled, happy, and in love as my brain can possibly be. The physical effects were fabulous as well, but nothing on the mental and emotional side. No matter what I achieve in life, no matter who I love, I’ll never be able to get back there. But you know what? In exchange for the one night it gave me of pleasure, ecstasy left me feeling so depressed and alone in a completely colorless world for over a week. It was so awful, that by the time it was over I didn’t even care about the one amazing night, and I’ve never had the desire to do it again.

Was it overall an awful experience? Yes. Would I ever take it again? No. But the experience I had WAS beautiful, and I’m very glad that I had the chance to see the world that way, even if it’s not worth the trade. That’s what Dando’s saying, and it’s a perfectly valid point. Back off.

LC

50

Drugs are a touchy subject.
I don’t know them personally because I don’t do them. I know their effect because they are destroying somebody I love, right now.
Like a couple of people mentionned above, yes they feel good, great, or people wouldn’t do them in the first place. I understand that better now, after reading everybody’s thoughts and opinions.
I can’t help not liking the fact that somebody says drugs are beautiful. Because I just don’t want to hear it… But I understand.

51

I was going to post something about my drug use and experiences but it’s already been said sooo much better.

Great posts Lucki Chaarms

52

One does one’s best. Olivia - that evil smack-pushing ho.

53

OK, recovering addict checking in.

We have seen in literature many instances of something beautiful luring a character to his destruction. Some plants and animals lure their prey to them with something beautiful. Many of us have known beautiful women who put us through hell. It’s not that difficult a concept.

Yes, it was beautiful. The whole process of getting loaded was beautiful. The high, the euphoria, was just fucking beautiful. It was so beautiful that for a while I was able to ignore the damage it was doing to me. I was able to deny the pain it caused for people who loved me. It was fucking beautiful, and I pray that I never fucking do it again.

Just because something is dangerous, destructive, or even evil, doesn’t make ugly. If it were ugly, it would have no allure.

It’s OK to talk about the beauty of it. In meetings we talk about it all the time, as a prelude to talking about the destruction our addiction caused. And in the begining we have to talk about it to see that the beauty and the destruction go hand in hand.

Here’s the thing. When I was new in the program and someone couldn’t describe that beauty, I wouldn’t have been able to believe them about the destruction. I would have known that they weren’t like me, and couldn’t help me because they were never where I was. I would have known they were lying.

Recognizing it’s beauty isn’t bad. Only closing your eyes to the destruction is. Calling it ugly just lets me know you were never there. And that’s OK. It’s good that you weren’t.

THat’s my opinion anyway.

54

So I think the OPs problem with the quote was that he said it was beautiful without all the explanation and qualification that some posters here have given.

Which, he might very well have done, but short sound bytes make better scandal, obviously.

55

From his comments inRolling Stone, Evan may not get it yet.

56

Paytron’s Servant, I’m having trouble finding the quote you had in your OP. Could you provide a link? I couldn’t find anything an Dando at the Q site.

57

Two words. Keith Richards

58

Welcome aboard(s), brian jones.

As to my own comments.

Sure, there are many casual heroin users who have had an entirely different experience than the one I posted. I’d wager a fair sum that many of the hard core users do go through something pretty much the same as I described.

Have any of you people been around junkies? I have and I’ve seen the treachery that they can bring to this world in pursuit of their next fix. I’ve also seen relatively well off children utterly ruin their lives with a fascination for this supposedly alluring drug.

Please note that I am not lumping all drugs together with heroin. I just find the strange mythos and absolutely revolting culture of intravenous self-injection to be one of the most destructive I’ve ever seen. I hope you will notice that I do not say, ‘self-destructive.’ The damage done by heroin addiction reaches far beyond the individual user.

The solution? Do what Britain and several other countries have done. Make the substance clinically available to proven addicts. Eliminate a large sector of the criminal element from the drug’s cycle of misery. Have counseling readily available to those seeking a way out of their Hell. I do my best to be compassionate. Please note from my post the gigantic efforts a junkie must make in order to secure a fix. Don’t think that such information comes from reading anti-drug literature. Any drug that has you jumping through that many hoops for a single get-high session is not worth the hassle. I don’t care if it feels better than sex (something I’ve often heard). Heroin is certainly not life-giving (far from it) and it breeds a lot of misery.

It is more than just irresponsible for someone of notoriety to proclaim such a self-degrading habit to be a “beautiful process.” My initial post was meant to remove most (if not all) of that glamor from any perception of the drug. The magazines were also wrong in printing such drivel without providing some sort of perspective. I refuse to be politically correct and decry any print being devoted to the discussion of drugs and drug use. Such censorship only adds an element of mystique to such a topic. Evan Dando is a needle-dicked asshole for publicly adding to heroin’s aura of allure and mystery.

59

I hear what your saying.

But as I said, I cannot find the actual article that Payton quoted. Dando, and the magazine may have offered that perspective. Maybe not.

I think jarbabyj said it best:

I will reserve judgement for the moment, untill I see the artcle.

60

Yes, lots, but that was a good while ago. They’re all either cleaned up, in prison, or dead. Not all of the dead ones were junkies, either; a couple were just kids screwing around.