Feel free to ignore me. I just, vomited most of this out in a comment last night, after I saw someone saying: “I loves me some relapsed Sherlock ;* )!”
In canon, Sherlock uses cocaine and morphine, both legal, buy from a pharmacist (it shifted to prescription only in 1926), as tools to sharpen or quiet his brain. “I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment.” Sign of the Four
When he says in The Sign of Four: “For me, there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” that should tell the reader that he has the Work and will focus on the work. He doesn’t need recognition or a bride.
Modern readers, however, (and possibly even ACD himself, considering how Watson whines about it) bring decades of Just say no bullshit and propaganda to that quote, (and possibly Shezza) completely missing the fact that if he really wanted/meant to get lost, be a miserable pathetic mess, he would have gone for the morphine.
Not that morphine/heroin use makes you a miserable pathetic mess. Look at Keith Richards, he’s got that shit under control. Same as Holmes did, and same as Sherlock did as Shezza.
If you have any perspective giving experience with opiates, you would know the scene in His Last Vow, with Shezza curled up pouting in his chair and then quickly shoving Mycroft into a door jam, was not the body response of a super high out of control junkie, that was the body response of a man doing just enough of a drug he’s already familiar with to convince CAM he has blackmail material.
I suppose it’s understandable, given Molly’s reaction, (standing in there for Watson’s carping in Sign of the Four, etc.) that watchers fell for it too. But really, it’s our anti-drug culture that made Sherlock a junkie. He isn’t, never has been.
The opening scene of His Last Vow, that is straight out of The Man With the Twisted Lip. Watson finds Holmes in an opium den for a case (HLV never says what drug it is, but really, smack den not crack house). ACD had Watson go off on the evils of opium/the dens, because it was a cultural issue at the time. Cultural. Read that racial. Same as the motivations behind criminalizing most drugs.
Perspective, if anyone is still reading, not everyone who drinks booze is an alcoholic. Same with drugs (prescription, over the counter, and illegal). Despite what the media feeds you, the fact is, using doesn’t make you an addict. Your brain/(lack of) self control does.
Supposing that Sherlock is a former drug user. Possibly even a former addict (because it is possible for your body to become addicted to a drug but you don’t necessarily become a junkie over it). That’s actually my biggest sticking point. Because IF you have ever been physically addicted, IF you have ever gone through withdrawal, you know how absolute shit that is and will do anything not to go through that again.
For example: Physically addicted to a [recreationally used/probably illegal] opiate derivative in uni, break your leg or have a bulging lumbar disk or something and have to be on a[perfectly legal prescribed by your doctor] opiate derivative for pain management. You are going to skip doses, skip entire days even, to save yourself having to go through withdrawal again.
This is where “relapsed Sherlock” bugs the ever loving fuck out of me. IF you accept that this man is brilliant, IF you accept that this man values his mind over pretty much anything, AND you can wrap your head around the spectrum of addiction, non-addicts, use, and sobriety, you would understand that for Sherlock, there is nothing to relapse to.
Obviously, I am very sensitive to how Sherlock’s drug use is portrayed on screen (and Watson’s reaction to it in the stories, to be honest). It’s fine to find unwashed ginger scruffy Shezza hot, but purposefully breaking a major strength of your character because you don’t understand history and how addiction works? That shit I don’t understand.
Don’t mind me, I’m just screaming into the wind.
As a hard-core alcoholic/addict in recovery, I need to say—right on, snogs. I’ve often had problems with depictions of Sherlock as an addict, precisely because as you say, not all users are addicts. Addiction’s not just a condition everyone falls into if they use long enough. Addiction is a disease to which some of us are biologically prone. As I wrote in an earlier post:
“I’ve learned in fandom how negative it can be to say how people ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ write something, or even to advise general principles on writing, but I’ve been seeing some depictions of Sherlock as addict that trouble me, because they feel inaccurate or misleading.” That post also links some good notes by mid0nz on canonically addicted Sherlock.
I think we do well to remember to that as snogs says, our culture has some narratives of addiction that are way more popular than true. What we get is a fall-from-grace and conversion story based on the Christian tradition. I prefer to think of Sherlock using drugs as “technologies of consciousness,” tools for self-regulation or for particular kinds of thought. Many, many people can use drugs this way safely; it’s only when the tools become shackles that you’re in trouble. The fuck of it is, you may not know ahead of time whether you’re addiction-prone. It takes care, self-knowledge, and the willingness to get help to keep yourself free.
I do have a couple of important reservations about this post, though. While it’s true that anyone who uses long enough may develop a physical dependency and need to taper to avoid withdrawal, the brain chemistry of true addicts doesn’t recover as easily. So to clarify, a true addict will not “do anything not to go through that again.” Most addicts relapse more than once on the way to recovery; relapse is actually part of the recovery process. (Terence Gorski‘s work is invaluable here.)
Second, “using doesn’t make you an addict. Your brain/(lack of) self control does.” Yes, brain chemistry is the key, because addiction is a disease. But because addiction is a disease, we should never speak of it in terms of “self-control.” Recovery is not about willpower, and to use such terms makes it a moral issue, and recovery is not a moral issue. It’s an issue of treatment and an exercise of recovery skills, not moral fiber.
That said, I don’t actually have a problem with fics that make Sherlock an addict, as long as the writer does their research.
