BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Addict

**Posted by Davina** March 5, 2012 10:41 pm

How did the taxi driver know that Sherlock had been an addict?

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** March 6, 2012 1:31 am

I can't remember what he said to him now...? But presumably he would have been given the information by Moriarty.

**Posted by kazza474** March 6, 2012 2:36 am

He says "I bet you get bored. A man like you, so clever. But what's the point of being clever if you can't prove it? Still the addict, but this .. this is what you're addicted to. You'll do anything, anything at all to stop being bored" All the time he talks, Sherlock looks at the pill and starts bringing it to his mouth.

He says he is an addict, but not what kind.
He's addicted to not being bored.

There are many kinds of addicts.

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** March 6, 2012 1:14 pm

He's addicted to the thrill of the chase.

**Posted by Davina** March 6, 2012 1:50 pm

I assumed that Moriarty had told him as well, so he already knows a lot about him?

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** March 6, 2012 2:00 pm

He has eyes and ears everywhere!

**Posted by Davina** March 6, 2012 6:44 pm

Link to infiiltration of the police!? Seems likely, especially with the assassin there watching Lestrade in The Fall.

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** March 6, 2012 9:14 pm

Yeah, he already has corrupt police working for him...that's how he did the Pentonville thing.

**Posted by Davina** March 6, 2012 9:46 pm

So how deep does the infiiltration go?

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** March 7, 2012 7:59 pm

I think he must have people near to the very top who are corrupted, or easily blackmailed into working for him.

**Posted by Davina** March 7, 2012 10:09 pm

That's what I am thinking too!

**Posted by veecee** August 17, 2012 2:58 am

Back to the original topic -

Remember how Shelock tells John to shut up and then gives him a look when John is telingl Lestrade that he can search the whole apartment (flat) and not find anything? I thought it was obvious that there was something to find. I suppose Sherlock might have some illegal substance around for scientific analysis, but I don't think that was it. Also, what were Mrs. Hudson and John searching for in Scandal when Sherlock said he hoped they hadn't upset his sock index?

**Posted by kazza474** August 17, 2012 4:27 am

That topic is discussed more thoroughly HERE

**Posted by AStudyInPurple** August 29, 2012 1:00 am

Maybe he's addicted to more than the thrill of the chase...

**Posted by besleybean** October 5, 2012 7:03 pm

He has certainly been a drug user, addiction? I don't know.

**Posted by Sam** October 5, 2012 7:51 pm

In the pilot, when the cabbie stabs Sherlock's arm with the needle, what he says to him here makes it sound like he was definitely addicted to some sort of drugs in the past. He is now addicted to his work and the thrills it brings. It's scary there is a corrupt person working in the police force. Wonder if they will still be there in Season 3.

**Posted by SusiGo** October 5, 2012 7:58 pm

Isn't it also in ASiP when the cabbie says: Still the addict?

**Posted by Sam** October 5, 2012 9:06 pm

^ People could take that two ways though as seen in this thread. He could be saying "still addicted to solving crimes/not being bored?" or "still addicted to something though not drugs anymore?"

I truly think Sherlock was addicted to drugs but is now addicted to his work. Could be wrong though.

**Posted by The Doctor** October 6, 2012 11:16 am

In the original canon Sherlock did more than experimenting with drugs, he had become an addict:

"Watson knew better. In The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter� (published in 1904 and dated to December 1896 (14) in Holmes’s time) Watson tells how he gradually weaned him from the drug mania but relates that “I was well aware that the fiend was not dead but sleeping; and I have known that the sleep was a light one and the waking near in periods of idleness� . Again, this reflects current models of addiction, which document low probability of complete abstinence over the long term. "

Sherlock continued to successfully manage the addiction though as far as I remember, eventually abstaining from taking his beloved 7% solution.

**Posted by butterfly grl** July 9, 2013 6:22 pm

The fact that Lestrad knew Sherlock for 5 years, and knew to look in the flat for drugs indicates (to me) that Sherlock was known to have been a junkie - others have theorized that Lestrad is a bit of a father figure, and was at least in a small way involved in getting Sherlock clean.
Notice how careful Sherlock was to say that HE was clean. Lestrad knew to ask if the flat was.

Could be he used the drugs to either numb him to the overwhelming data that the real world throws at him all the time, or to help him pin point his focus on a mystery. Depends on which drug he chose.

(The bits in Hound were hilarious - saying he needed something 7% stronger (the dose of cocaine he used in cannon) and looking in the slipper for his cigarettes - where he stashed his cocaine in ACD.)