Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz - Narcotics: Nicotine, Alcohol, Cocaine, Peyote, Morphine, Ether

Stanisaw Ignacy Witkiewicz

NARCOTICS

Nicotine, Alcohol, Cocaine, Peyote, Morphine, Ether + Appendices

Translated from the Czech by Soren A. Gauger

Twisted Spoon Press

Prague

Contents

Copyright 2018 Twisted Spoon Press

English translation & Translator's Note 2018 Soren A. Gauger

This edition 2018 Twisted Spoon Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form, save for the purposes of review, without the written permission of the Publisher.

"What an odd motley of things have been thrown together to form this book."

Henryk Sienkiewicz, With Fire and Sword

Given that my free-form creativity has amounted to no more than whistling Dixie, I realized my writing experiments were of no use to the nation and society, and thus I have decided to share my views on narcotics with the general public. I begin with the most commonplace tobacco and conclude with perhaps the most bizarre peyote (for which I reserve a special place). This is my modest contribution to help the forces of good battle humanitys most diabolical foes, outside of war, poverty, and disease. As the intent of this work is to lay bare bitter truths, it might end up being received in the same humorous or negative vein as my aesthetics, philosophy, works for the stage, essential portraits, old compositions, etc. a free-form product. I hereby declare that I am writing in total seriousness, and that I finally seek to produce something useful. Yet there is no way of getting through to idiots and lowlifes, as I have learned over the course of my dreary career. Its utterly futile to tell someone, You're stupid, go learn a thing or two, maybe you'll wise up, because a stupid man is also an arrogant man, so even if he could learn to wise up, it still wouldnt break the vicious circle. Its wasted breath to tell a scumbag: It's not nice to be such a swine. Why don't you smarten up, get your act together? We fail to comprehend that the majority of scumbags are consciously scummy they are aware of it and would not wish to be any different, as long as theyre able to conceal their scumminess. and he had a point.

I was once a fighting man I noted that art was dying out, and now this is happening before our eyes. And so it no longer matters if art criticism, as I conceive it (formal criticism), will continue or how. When it comes to literature, not as art, theres still something to say, and I may still offer a few words on the subject. At present I am a fairly mild-mannered middle-aged fellow who no longer dreams of wild, extravagant escapades I dream only of putting an end to this life, which I have not regretted, despite all its catastrophes and failures. Que sera, sera . I would only point out that this little opus is highly personal, and thus posthumous, as it were. It contains no megalomania, nor would I want to perturb those who would prefer to think about other matters far more pleasant than me. But in detailing my private experiences there was no avoiding myself. I will thus provide some instructive personal truths in a digestible form.

This is nothing, however, compared to the monstrous rumors circulating about me. Even in a society such as ours, so fond of gossip and slander, I believe I have been singled out. Despite my complete absence of megalomania, which I most sincerely stress, I would suggest that few Poles can boast the wealth of inanities and lies that have been and continue to be spread about me. This is not the place to examine the causes, but the general dismissiveness I encounter often comes from those who are hardly qualified to fathom me intellectually. And because I ignore public opinion, actions that would barely raise an eyebrow if done by others such as drinking three vodkas in a row (!) in some bar arouse disproportionate indignation when they pertain to me. But never mind all that.

And so, today (February 6, 1930) I am beginning to write this book on S, that is, while smoking. Tomorrow, as usual, I shall quit smoking this time for good, I believe, or at least for a very long time. I will write the chapter on nicotine in a sorry state of withdrawal of course, I might very well begin smoking again in the middle of writing. And I will not miss the opportunity to share this fact with my potential readers. So many times this has happened! Ive been struggling with nicotine for twenty-eight years, and despite frequent spells of abstinence (up to several weeks at a time), I have never managed to kick the habit entirely. I may fail now as well, despite having begun the present work. The moment is drawing near, however, in which I will have to quit or abandon all my higher aspirations. More details to come. I believe this form of descriptor NS , a total inability to focus. These are only confessions for the time being everything will be described blow-by-blow later. I began writing this preface out of misery, as the nicotine poisoning left me too crippled to work on anything more rewarding. I wanted to begin this little opus once and for all, to justify my own existence to myself. Is this not the root of all creativity?

Getting back to public opinion: I have been and remain a chronic smoker, struggling heroically with this dreadful habit for twenty-eight years. In certain periods I could have been considered a hard drinker, insofar as this is what you might call a person who gets sloshed an average of once a week (its a relative term) and then abstains for a month or more. I am a man who has had a single five-day binge in his life (owing to a stage premiere a particularly extenuating circumstance) and three three-day binges at most, but who has never downed a vodka with his morning shave. And I have never been a cocaine addict on this I insist, though many perverse cretins will only see my denial as proof for and not against.

One more thing: It might be imagined that I am writing this book as a form of self-promotion. On the contrary, some of this books contents will only sully my reputation. Its main aim is to save future generations from the two most monstrous stupfiants , tobacco and alcohol, which are all the more dangerous in that they are legal, while the damage they wreak is insufficiently known. The higher grade white narcotics are taken by the elite of humanity this is the aristocracy of narcotism and thus are not so sinister as the far more dangerous gray, everyday, democratic intoxicants that everyone is free to consume with impunity.

My method is purely psychological. My intent is to draw attention to the mental repercussions of these poisons, whose effects any novice can observe germinating long before he becomes consumed entirely. I am not about to break some (hens) eggs before your eyes and toss them into pure alcohol to show how the whites coagulate in contact with the "transparent fluid" (as I recall Prince Giedroy could never equal prolonged, continuous periods of total abstention but it still has some effect. Ninety percent of habitual smokers must continually up their intake, thereby committing spiritual suicide in installments, imperceptibly, and unaware of it themselves, depriving every experience of its color and luster while destroying that most valuable thing of all the intellect for a minuscule pleasure. For does a compulsive smoker feel any kind of pleasure? Only a negative one, satisfying a revolting and unnatural need. Such is the case, apparently, with all drugs if you allow yourself to reach an ample level of addiction.

If you show a sixteen-year-old the liver of a forty-year-old alcoholic, bloated and rotten, will he stop drinking at the sight? No he is too distant from his forties, it is too unthinkable this I know from personal experience. One often says, Ah, if I live a few years more or less it's ganz Wurst und Pomade which makes it all the more hazardous for the public at large. In most cases, only degenerates, those especially predisposed, and the generally useless can commit themselves fully to a cocaine or morphine habit. Tobacco asphyxiates and alcohol can slowly burn out the best brains. There are those who will say, I smoke and drink, but it doesn't harm me, I feel fine, and of course this is true for a while. A heap of minor psychophysical ailments accumulate and then suddenly erupt in the form of a very concrete mental or physical disease. Just imagine, oh wretch, how wonderful you would feel if you had completely abstained, since your organism is strong enough to function tolerably well even when it is forever being poisoned. How would you feel if you had never tried any of it? This you will never know. There is no way to gauge or estimate the damage. Those who have quit and started again know a bit about it. What I would not give to get back those twenty-eight years of (irregular) smoking. Today it hurts me a hundred times more than it did when I was eighteen, and it is also one hundred times more difficult to quit this revolting habit than it was "in the good old days." And what true alcoholics or cocaine addicts among whom I cannot be counted, despite the sincerest wishes of my "nemeses" must live through, I shudder to think.