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Why Louis Theroux is Clueless about Addiction and Alcoholism

like almost every other would-be Drug War reformer on the planet

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

April 9, 2022



When Louis Theroux saw a young alcohol addict outside a London hospital, he mused: 'What struck me was the sense of impotence I felt about how to help him. I only hoped he could find his way back to happiness and sobriety.'

Update: May 05, 2025

Louis fails to realize that it is the Drug War which renders us impotent in treating alcoholism because it outlaws all the psychoactive medicine that might be of real help to the alcoholic. That impotence is reinforced by our Christian Science focus on sobriety as a goal, thanks to which the patient is only considered 'cured' if they are using no psychoactive medicine whatsoever (with the possible hypocritical exception of dependence-causing Big Pharma tranquilizers). If we thus counsel the addict both to foreswear medical godsends and to strive to achieve a state of completely drug-free sobriety, it's little wonder that we feel impotent when it comes to truly helping them. We might as well just tell the alcoholic, 'Let go and let God,' and then move on to the next alcoholic who is waiting for our 'help.'

The sane alternative to this Christian Science prescription for alcoholics and other addicts is to treat them with strategically chosen psychoactive medicines with the goal, not of making them sober (i.e. drug-free) citizens but rather of helping them to wisely use precisely those substances that allow them to succeed in life rather than to fail. That should be the goal in treatment, after all, not to turn the addict into a good Christian Scientist who dogmatically eschews the use of all psychoactive medicine whatsoever. To enforce the latter goal is to ignore the needs of the addict and to turn their experience into a morality tale, instead, a narrative that follows the usual drug-warrior narrative: a person is entrapped by evil substances, turns to God (or a higher power) , and finally realizes that he or she can do all that they need to do in life by becoming completely sober. Most Americans would be shocked by such Christian Science advice when it comes to physical disease, yet we feel justified in enforcing those same Christians Science principles by law when the goal of treatment is to expand or improve one's mental outlook.

Author's Follow-up: April 3, 2023



Besides popularizing MDMA 1 , Alexander Shulgin has synthesized hundreds of drugs that could cheer up the alcoholics and help them screw their heads on straight, especially when employed therapeutically with the help of a pharmacologically savvy shaman 2 or empath. It is really a crime that all substances of this kind are illegal -- it means that curing alcoholism is illegal. In the age of a Drug War, we do not want to help alcoholics, we want to make them 'sober' as that term is hypocritically defined by western society. We want the alcoholic to go through hell so that we can turn their plight into a morality play, whose moral is that we should all turn to the Christian god for help, the god whom we conveniently disguise as a 'higher power,' of course.




Author's Follow-up: January 20, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




Imagine that we had been taught from childhood that operating on a human being is wrong. Then we walk down the street as an adult and encounter a guy with a broken leg. We would think to ourselves: 'Oh, dear! I wish I could think of some way to help that guy -- but the problem of broken legs just seems to be completely insoluble!'

That would be idiotic -- but no more idiotic than looking at a drunkard on the street and saying, 'Oh, if only there was a way to help him!'

Of course there's a way to help him -- one that no one has ever really pursued. That is to use common sense and select drugs that can get his mind off of his obsession with liquor and give him new alternatives and new ways of thinking. But we have been brainwashed since childhood to think that drugs are bad and so this does not even occur to us.

The fact is, we don't want to help such people. We would rather they remain drunkards than to have them using opium peaceably at home. We would rather they remain drunkards than letting them use ecstasy-providing non-addictive entheogens synthesized by Alexander Shulgin. We would rather they remain drunkards than letting them get insights and a new improved attitude from LSD.

We don't WANT to help such people. In the age of the Drug War, substance demonization comes first, THEN people.

Of course, in a sane world, we would not have to do anything for such people, because they would be empowered to act for themselves. Imagine, people being free to care for themselves! The concept must send chills up the spines of Drug Warriors and healthcare mavens alike.



Author's Follow-up:

May 05, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




Let's get specific. Suppose that we allowed alcoholics to use the sorts of drugs that inspired the following user reports in "Pihkal" by Alexander Shulgin3:

"I acknowledged a rapture in the very act of breathing."

"I experienced the desire to laugh hysterically at what I could only describe as the completely ridiculous state of the entire world."

"Excellent feelings, tremendous opening of insight and understanding, a real awakening."

"I feel that it is one of the most profound and deep learning experiences I have had."


It is blazingly obvious that drugs of this kind can be of help for any troubled mind -- or for any sanguine mind, for that matter.

And yet what do we do when we see a drunkard on the street? We wring our hands and wish that there was something that we could do about it? Well, there is something we can do about it. We can decry drug prohibition and insist that Americans start using psychoactive substances for the benefit of humankind

We could also place the so called "irreclaimable" drunkard on a regimen of nightly opium smoking -- but that would be only if we value the drunkard's health more than we do our commitment to demonizing drugs. We live in a world in which 1 in 4 American women are dependent on Big Pharma 4 5 drugs for life. In such a world, there is no reason whatsoever why daily opium 6 smoking should be frowned upon, especially when our outlawing of such drugs created the American Mafia and destroyed the rule of law in Latin America.

The fact that we ignore all these options shows that Americans do not REALLY want to end alcoholism or drug addiction. Why not? Because they have a prior commitment to the Drug War ideology of substance demonization.













Notes for essay entitled Why Louis Theroux is Clueless about Addiction and Alcoholism: like almost every other would-be Drug War reformer on the planet:

1: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
2: Replacing Psychiatry with Pharmacologically Savvy Shamanism DWP (up)
3: Shulgin, Alexander T, and Ann Shulgin. 2019. Pihkal : A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley, Ca: Transform Press. (up)
4: Seife, Charles. 2012. “Is Drug Research Trustworthy?” Scientific American 307 (6): 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1212-56. (up)
5: LaMattina, John. n.d. “Why Is Biopharma Paying 75% of the FDA’s Drug Division Budget?” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2022/09/22/why-is-biopharma-paying-75-of-the-fdas-drug-division-budget/. (up)
6: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Americans love to blame drugs for all their problems. Young people were not dying in the streets when opiates were legal. The prohibition mindset is the problem, not drugs.

"Now, now, Sherlock, that coca preparation is not helping you a jot. Why can't you get 'high on sunshine,' like good old Watson here?" To which Sherlock replies: "But my good fellow, then I would no longer BE Sherlock Holmes."

If daily drug use and dependency are okay, then there's no logical or scientific reason why I can't smoke a nightly opium pipe.

How would we even KNOW that outlawed drugs have no positive uses? We first have to incorporate them in a sane, empathic and creative way to find that out, and the drug war makes such a sensible approach absolutely impossible.

Drug prohibition represents the biggest power grab by government in human history. It is the state control of pain relief and mental states.

The idea that "drugs" have no medical benefits is not science, it is philosophy, and bad philosophy at that. It is based on the idea that benefits must be molecularly demonstratable and not created from mere knock-on psychological effects of drug use, time-honored tho' they be.

Morphine can provide a vivid appreciation of mother nature in properly disposed minds. That should be seen as a benefit. Instead, dogma tells us that we must hate morphine for any use.

A generally educated person meets new ideas with curiosity and fascination. An illiberally educated person meets new ideas with fear. --James B. Stockade.

America won't be grown up until we start blaming drug misuse on people and/or policies rather than on drugs.

If opium and cocaine were re-legalized, hospital buildings would no longer be the secular cathedrals of our time. Some of that wealth would actually go to healthy people.


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






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