The Survival of the Coolest: An Addiction Memoir - Softcover
William Pryor, a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, was a heroin and then alcohol addict for twelve years in the sixties and seventies. He brushed death several times, but, against overwhelming odds, survived, and, in 1975, was one of the first patients at the first American-style addiction treatment centre in Europe.
He grew up in Cambridge in the stifling bosom of privilege; was sent to Eton, which he loathed, and rapidly descended into full-blown addiction as he traveled through Parisian garrets, Greek tavernas and Indian ashrams - and even Trinity College Cambridge. He became part of the sixties avant garde counterculture as a dadaist beat poet in the company of members of Pink Floyd. His experiences - and subsequent transformation to non-addiction - have given him a unique insight into the world of hard drugs and addiction, and his clarity of vision as to the way forward for all those involved in the fall out of the War on Drugs will be invaluable both to the victims and to those engaged in attempting to help them.
William presents a compelling argument as to why dugs should be decriminalized. He also gives a powerful analysis of the pervasive mythology of Alcoholics Anonymous and how it traps people in the idea that addiction is an illness.
He grew up in Cambridge in the stifling bosom of privilege; was sent to Eton, which he loathed, and rapidly descended into full-blown addiction as he traveled through Parisian garrets, Greek tavernas and Indian ashrams - and even Trinity College Cambridge. He became part of the sixties avant garde counterculture as a dadaist beat poet in the company of members of Pink Floyd. His experiences - and subsequent transformation to non-addiction - have given him a unique insight into the world of hard drugs and addiction, and his clarity of vision as to the way forward for all those involved in the fall out of the War on Drugs will be invaluable both to the victims and to those engaged in attempting to help them.
William presents a compelling argument as to why dugs should be decriminalized. He also gives a powerful analysis of the pervasive mythology of Alcoholics Anonymous and how it traps people in the idea that addiction is an illness.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
WILLIAM PRYOR has been a serial entrepreneur, co-founding Airlift Book Company, founding The Green Catalogue and pioneering music distribution on the Internet. He grew up in Cambridge very aware of being a member of the Darwin family. He is the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin and the grandson of Gwen Raverat.
Review:
"more enjoyable and more profound than the standard my-drug-hell confessional" -- Mike Jay, author of Artificial Paradises and Emperors of Dreams
Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why a War on Drugs and Just Say No can never work -- Dr. Dorothy Rowe, author of Beyond Fear
Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why a War on Drugs and Just Say No can never work -- Dr. Dorothy Rowe, author of Beyond Fear
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherClear Books
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 1904555136
- ISBN 13 9781904555131
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages236
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The Survival of the Coolest: A Great-grandson of Charles Darwin's Death Defying Journey into the Interior of Heroin Addiction in the 60s and Back Out . Grandson's Sixties as a Counterculturist
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