Dreamland

So there are even times when I think I’m right—that perhaps heroin is the most important force for positive change in our country today.

Heroin is, I believe, the final expression of values we have fostered for thirty-five years. It turns every addict into narcissistic, self-absorbed, solitary hyper-consumers. A life that finds opiates turns away from family and community and devotes itself entirely to self-gratification by buying and consuming one product—the drug that makes being alone not just all right, but preferable.

“America bought into Charles Dickens’s Scrooge; they couldn’t get past making the money. But it is about taking care of the family of Bob Cratchit. It is taking care of Tiny Tim that matters, that actually brings joy into your life. We forgot that. We were quite content to have our workers throw a piece of coal on the fire to stay warm. America did that. Charles Dickens gave us the warning, told us, ‘Don’t go down this road.’ Think of the chains on Scrooge’s business partner who died lonely, miserable; then you see him as a ghost with chains all around him. That kind of reminds you of what Portsmouth’s been forever—a ghost town with chains all over it.”

I tell pain patients, ‘Forget all that; the treatment is you. Take charge of your life and be healthy and do what you love and love what you do.’”

Parents shielded their kids from complications and hardships, and praised them for minor accomplishments—all as they had less time for their kids.
“You only develop self-esteem one way, and that’s through accomplishment,” Hughes said. “You have a lot of kids who have everything and look good, but they don’t have any self-esteem.

But man’s decay has always begun as soon as he has it all, and is free of friction, pain, and the deprivation that temper his behavior.