Literature with addiction themes?

[Drokens]

I'm about to take a couple week trip and was looking to take a book with the theme of drug addiction. Any reccomendations?

[Buh4Bee]

Confessions of an Opium Eater- Thomas De Quincey (1821)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter S. Thompson

[mona amon]

Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh.

I read this for the New Authors challenge, and thought it was wonderful.

[cafolini]

If you want to get one step beyond psychology and into the scientific world of psychiatry as early as 1821, I also recommend Confessions of an Opium Eater- Thomas De Quincey (1821)

[Climacus]

Does it have to be drug addiction? I can think of a few on addiction generally - gambling especially.

[Buh4Bee]

What can you recommend?

[cafolini]

Climacus. The terror of Show Boat, in Atlantic City.

[Climacus]

Well, nineteenth-century Russian literature in general comes to mind. Is there a Russian novel from the 1800s that doesn't involve gambling. :wink5: How about Dostoevsky's The Gambler.

[PeterL]

Most of the writings of William S. Burroughs is about addiction.

[Sancho]

The Man with the Golden Arm, by Nelson Algren

[chrisvia]

Infinite Jest.

[Des Essientes]

Jean Cocteau's Opium: The Diary of a Cure. There is a passage in it, which if I remember it correctly, states that kicking opium made him better able to undestand labor unrest, violent revolutions, and wars because they were occurring within his own body. The book also contains illustration by the author that searingly evoke the agony he was going through.