Historical Heroes Who Were Drug-Addicts

Have you heard of “Stoicism”? They tell you it is a philosophy about austere reserve and self-control. Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor, is the great example. He trained himself not to be angry, not to want applause, not to be bothered by the stupid details of human existence. That is what they say. What they do not say is that Marcus Aurelius was an opium addict. But guess what? The more you look, the heroes of history can start to look like a lot of addicts creating systems that mirrored their addictions. https://medium.com/belover/all-your-heroes-were-on-drugs-b1eafd9adf50 I grew up in a drug-free world. We were real religious, and after a cup of coffee in the morning, the line was drawn. My own drug of choice in life, sadly, would be caffeine—a powerful drug, as Jack Kerouac liked to point out. One day I realized how much of my thought processes and writing were efforts to reproduce caffeine. The alertness. The pressure. The slightly agitated watching of the world. I began to realize: I was not merely using caffeine to write. I had taught myself to write like caffeine. PG's drup of choice is/was/shall always be ALCOHOL .... Becareful of it. PG