Addiction In Drop City

Scientists named Bruce Alexander, Robert Coambs, and Patricia Hathaway began testing rats to see if the drug were really the cause of addiction or if addiction resulted from cultural cause. Emma a sixty-three year old dean was diagnosed with a spine problem so she got surgery to her spine. Since she had that procedure done she became dependent on Opium. Opium was used to cure many things and even to quiet babies. Although Opium helped cure people, the people had to continue taking opium because after a while of not taking opium they began to shake uncontrollably. Bruce Alexander believes that no drug is really addictive because of the Ontario household survey and cases from the Vietnam War. Alexander admits to using acid and says he no longer fears mortality ever since he used LSD. Later, Alexander decided to study the nature of love …show more content…
When the characters are upset or in a bad situation they immediately turn to alcohol and cigarettes like when Sess thinks about sexual scenarios between Pamela and Howard and he begins to drink in order to forget (100). The situations of the characters in Drop City are related to Alexanders belief that, “Difficult circumstances lead to addiction” (175). The characters in Drop City do not seem like they are addicted it seems more like they just look for a way being happy. After Pamela and Sess are married they still have some issues. Pamella finds Sess with foil and plastic (117). It seems like Sess is about to do drugs but Pamela tells him that he won’t ever need anything like that again because now she is his wife (117). Also during the Wedding Pris is smoking and drinking Vodka and Pamela recognizes why Pris is doing that. In Rat Park according to psychologists, endorphins also called opiates help a person feel better in bad situations and in Drop City, the sentence, “Her brain was flooded with endorphins” (Boyle 118) indicates that Pamela is finally as happy as she wanted to