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February 24, 2014 6:44 pm  #161


Re: Drugs: Do you believe Sherlock?

SherlocklivesinOH wrote:

Interestingly, in canon, the drugs provide a point for conflict between Holmes and Watson - they are the one thing Watson really takes a stand about, with Holmes (well, that and the health effects of overwork), even though the harmfulness of cocaine was not well-recognized in that era. Watson is afraid Holmes will ruin his mental prowess...but I don't think we ever that happen...unless we want to infer it from some of the odder cases or ones where he's not doing as well. Watson's attitude is clearly motivated by friendship if not love, and it's implied Holmes less prone to both drug use and depression in later stories. Johnlockers like to say this is because he's happily married.

The Seven Percent Solution makes it more of an addiction - and deals with taking him to Freud to cure him. He goes over the edge when Watson gets married and he's left alone.

Well, Watson′s attitude to Sherlock′s drug abuse mirrored ACD′s own. Cocaine was perfectly legal in ACD′s time yet ACD never approved of drugs. I red somewhere that he actually thought of his own father when he wrote Sherlock like that. ACD′s father was a talented artist (like Sherlock is a talented detective) who killed himself prematurely with the drug of his choice (alcohol). After that experience, ACD recognised the charm of drugs as a severe danger for bohemian and gifted  people who get bored easily.


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I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window there. Was there ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, Doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?

 

February 24, 2014 6:55 pm  #162


Re: Drugs: Do you believe Sherlock?

nakahara wrote:

SherlocklivesinOH wrote:

Interestingly, in canon, the drugs provide a point for conflict between Holmes and Watson - they are the one thing Watson really takes a stand about, with Holmes (well, that and the health effects of overwork), even though the harmfulness of cocaine was not well-recognized in that era. Watson is afraid Holmes will ruin his mental prowess...but I don't think we ever that happen...unless we want to infer it from some of the odder cases or ones where he's not doing as well. Watson's attitude is clearly motivated by friendship if not love, and it's implied Holmes less prone to both drug use and depression in later stories. Johnlockers like to say this is because he's happily married.

The Seven Percent Solution makes it more of an addiction - and deals with taking him to Freud to cure him. He goes over the edge when Watson gets married and he's left alone.

Well, Watson′s attitude to Sherlock′s drug abuse mirrored ACD′s own. Cocaine was perfectly legal in ACD′s time yet ACD never approved of drugs. I red somewhere that he actually thought of his own father when he wrote Sherlock like that. ACD′s father was a talented artist (like Sherlock is a talented detective) who killed himself prematurely with the drug of his choice (alcohol). After that experience, ACD recognised the charm of drugs as a severe danger for bohemian and gifted  people who get bored easily.

That's a very interesting insight. I think, also-- a lot of artists, musicians, writers,etc,.. a lot of them get into drugs as a way of creating a buffer between themselves and the world. They tend to be particuarily sensitive, and the world has never been kind to artists. I think there's an idea that people do it out of boredom, when really it's about being over-stimulated or conversley, understimulated to the point of depression. 
 

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (February 24, 2014 6:57 pm)

 

February 24, 2014 7:16 pm  #163


Re: Drugs: Do you believe Sherlock?

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

nakahara wrote:

SherlocklivesinOH wrote:

Interestingly, in canon, the drugs provide a point for conflict between Holmes and Watson - they are the one thing Watson really takes a stand about, with Holmes (well, that and the health effects of overwork), even though the harmfulness of cocaine was not well-recognized in that era. Watson is afraid Holmes will ruin his mental prowess...but I don't think we ever that happen...unless we want to infer it from some of the odder cases or ones where he's not doing as well. Watson's attitude is clearly motivated by friendship if not love, and it's implied Holmes less prone to both drug use and depression in later stories. Johnlockers like to say this is because he's happily married.

The Seven Percent Solution makes it more of an addiction - and deals with taking him to Freud to cure him. He goes over the edge when Watson gets married and he's left alone.

Well, Watson′s attitude to Sherlock′s drug abuse mirrored ACD′s own. Cocaine was perfectly legal in ACD′s time yet ACD never approved of drugs. I red somewhere that he actually thought of his own father when he wrote Sherlock like that. ACD′s father was a talented artist (like Sherlock is a talented detective) who killed himself prematurely with the drug of his choice (alcohol). After that experience, ACD recognised the charm of drugs as a severe danger for bohemian and gifted  people who get bored easily.

That's a very interesting insight. I think, also-- a lot of artists, musicians, writers,etc,.. a lot of them get into drugs as a way of creating a buffer between themselves and the world. They tend to be particuarily sensitive, and the world has never been kind to artists. I think there's an idea that people do it out of boredom, when really it's about being over-stimulated or conversley, understimulated to the point of depression. 
 

 
That′s exactly why Sherlock does cocaine in canon.
Cocaine removes that overstimulation of senses you speak about and enables you to concentrate in an easier manner, but it doesn′t cloud your mind like morphine, opium or heroine would.
And 7% is a very low dose – you probably wouldn′t become addicted just from that amount of drug in your system.


-----------------------------------

I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window there. Was there ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, Doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?

 

February 24, 2014 7:55 pm  #164


Re: Drugs: Do you believe Sherlock?

Some quote from „The Sign of Four“:
 
"Which is it to-day," I asked, "morphine or cocaine?"
He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened.
"It is cocaine," he said, "a seven-percent solution. Would you care to try it?"
"No, indeed," I answered brusquely. "My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it."
He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said. "I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment."
"But consider!" I said earnestly. "Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process which involves increased tissue-change and may at least leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to another but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to some extent answerable."
He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his fingertips together, and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who has a relish for conversation.
"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world."


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I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window there. Was there ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, Doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?

 

November 4, 2014 8:39 pm  #165


Re: Drugs: Do you believe Sherlock?

I'm trying to find suitable for threads for all the interesting little snippets from the commentary.   Anyway, if there was any doubt left, the commentary confirms that ...

Mark: ... we had to say whether he was genuinely taking drugs again, or whether he was faking, but actually in the end it was, he IS, but he is totally in control of it for a reason.

 

November 4, 2014 8:41 pm  #166


Re: Drugs: Do you believe Sherlock?

I'd already worked that out and yes, I always believe Sherlock.


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November 4, 2014 8:55 pm  #167


Re: Drugs: Do you believe Sherlock?

Yes, it's maybe a bit too obvious to even post, but I think the idea is that when you first see him, your'e not sure (and John certainly isn't).  But later he makes it clear it was for the case (and doesn't have a problem with drugs afterwards). 

 

November 4, 2014 8:58 pm  #168


Re: Drugs: Do you believe Sherlock?

I just knew it was straight from Canon.


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http://professorfangirl.tumblr.com/post/105838327464/heres-an-outtake-of-mark-gatiss-on-the
 

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