Criticult.Com

Most of us at one time or another have used drugs. Whether it's alcohol, nicotine, pot, or even just aspirin we have sought out chemicals to change the way our body feels. Like most people my age I have dabbled in illegal drugs from time to time. Nothing too heavy, I don't need all of my fingers to count the number of times I have smoked pot, but I HAVE sought to alter my consciousness with drugs beyond the standard alcohol. I was never a big fan of pot so I didn't feel the need to go any deeper in the experimentation of drugs. But I've never really been OPPOSED to it either. Once you make a choice to try one I think it opens up the possibility that one day you could see yourself trying others.

Hell, I'm sipping on a particularly delicious bloody mary while I write this and fighting the strong impulse to get the cigarettes out of the freezer and fire one up. Having "quit" smoking a couple of years ago I do nevertheless slip from time to time. Now instead of throwing the smokes away after a night of hard partying I put them in the freezer where they stay mostly fresh and I don't waste another $5 the next time the urge strikes to flirt with lung cancer. My addiction to cigarettes is nothing to do with physical and everything to do with mental. I can go weeks without a cigarette but the moment I get in a particular frame of mind, or get more than 2 or 3 drinks in to a night of drinking, a near overwhelming clanging refrain begins ringing in my head :WE NEED SMOKES. Sometimes I can ignore it, sometimes I don't bother. It's irritating but I've mostly made my peace with it and just try not to fall into the REALLY bad old habits.

I spent a few weeks in the winter of 2002 when I was a functioning alcoholic. My girlfriend had just moved out of state, I was laid off from an extremely lucrative contract position, and I was having a serious case of "I need to make a fucking change." I was going through a bottle of vodka a day, not to mention the beer chasers, and it all culminated in one brutal night of misjudgement and a final burnout of an admittedly seriously dysfunctional relationship. And it was the wake up call that I needed to stop acting like a fucking idiot.

The point is, I know what it is like to rely on drugs to get through the pain of life.

Which brings me, in an admittedly long winded way, to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. What starts as an incredibly funny (to me) escapade through the desert and Las Vegas with our main characters Raoul Duke (or Hunter S. Thompson) and his attorney stoned out of their skulls on all manner of drugs, ends up an indictment of the drug culture for being just as empty a response to the madness of the world as living clean and playing by the rules.

I have done no research on this book beyond simply reading it so I don't know how much of it is true and how much is made up. This is my first Hunter S. Thompson book and I really have little knowledge of the man beyond knowing what books he wrote and the Terry Gilliam film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I intend to read up on him after completing this review but I wanted to get my thoughts down without being unnecessarily influenced one way or another by the "truth".

The book doesn't have a plot so much as a random series of events that are being filtered through a seriously burned out mind. Over several days Raoul Duke and his attorney attempt to cover a motorcycle race in the desert outside of Las Vegas called the Mint 400 and following that infiltrate the National District Attorney's Convention, all while ostensibly trying to find the "American Dream". The pair slash and burn their way through Vegas, trashing hotel rooms, terrifying the locals, destroying their rental cars, and ingesting enough drugs to put down a platoon of Marines. Through it all the pair are absolutely riled with conspiracy theories and paranoia that everyone is coming after them for their shenanigans.

By describing an extreme look at the consequences of drug use, Thompson forces you to look at your own foray into the world of drugs and altered consciousness. What starts as funny becomes depraved and shocking, but how many of us haven't had a night in our past where the wheels came off and we just rode a drunk or a high until its' devastating conclusion? There is plenty of time the next day for regret, but when you are in the moment and in the grip of a serious binge the consequences seem far away and impossible to recognize.

Reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was cathartic for me to revisit my own experiences with out of control behavior and be thankful that I have left that time in my life behind. Whether it was his intention or not, Thompson made me remember why one of my favorite platitudes is "There but for the grace of God go I."

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC