Sigmund Freud and his cocaine addiction

A historical and biographical review of Sigmund Freud's relationship with cocaine use.

Cocaine became a common drug of abuse in the 1970s, especially in the nightlife scene.

However, long before it was a well-known drug in the nightlife world, the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud was already a frequent user.

Sigmund Freud and cocaine

Whenever he attended a party, he dressed up in his best clothes and snorted a few grams "to free his tongue", as he wrote to his fiancée in a letter sent in 1886. However, what at first seemed an innocuous habit, eventually became an addiction that disturbed the mood and judgment of the Austrian genius.

Cocaine: from South America to Vienna

Freud wrote about his experiences with cocaine in an essay he entitled Über cocabut until recently these accounts had been concealed. This twelve-year period during which the psychoanalyst used cocaine was brilliantly summarized in the book An Anatomy of Addiction ("An Anatomy of Addiction"), by Howard Markela professor at the University of Michigan. This essay narrates Sigmund Freud's relationship with cocaine. Freud gradually increased his consumption because he believed that cocaine was something like an elixir of life. Although the narrative thread of Markel's work is the history of the drug, the author reviews in depth the origins of cocaine, which was widely used in Europe and the United States, and which many decades later was declared illegal.

Thus, we learn that the explorers of South America The first European and American explorers of the early 19th century were the ones who took the coca leaves that caused such a furor among the tribes and native population, who were in the habit of chewing them, back to their countries of origin. The European and American explorers wanted to discover what were those magical properties that provided immunity against tiredness and hunger to the natives. Chemical experts from many parts of the world inspected and examined the plant until, in 1860, they succeeded in detecting and isolating the cocaine alkaloidresponsible for the stimulation of the nervous system that apparently conferred these benefits.

Could cocaine be therapeutic?

At that time, Freud decided to devote his efforts to the study of the therapeutic uses of cocaine. therapeutic uses of cocaineHe was determined to increase his prestige among the Viennese scientific community. Earlier experiments had shown, wrongly, that cocaine could cure addiction to morphine (widely used at that time in a homemade way to relieve pain). With this theoretical basis, Freud began to treat a patient suffering from chronic Pain with the stimulant. Later, it was he himself who decided to try cocaine. Freud realized that it was remarkably effectiveness in preventing anxiety and increasing libido.. Soon Freud's sympathy with cocaine was total, and he used to prescribe it to family and friends as a habit, to "turn bad days into good days, and good days into better days".

Freud was convinced that his experiments with cocaine would bring about a revolution in the world of mental health and that this would catapult him to fame. "Whatever the reason - to relieve a headache, abdominal pain, sinusitis or a nostalgic mood - Freud used cocaine to alleviate the discomfort," reveals Markel. No one was aware of the risks involved with the white powder. Anyone could buy cocaine in pharmacies without any kind of control or prescription, and the dealers profited from the sale of the white powder.And traders profited from the boom in the substance to make it an essential component of countless ointments, juices, cigarettes and even food products, such as some margarines.

Coca-Cola, Vino Mariani and other uses of cocaine

It is true that, before the emergence of the big drug lords and cartels, the Italian-French chemist Angelo Mariani, a French-Italian chemist, was the first to develop cocaine. Angelo Mariani made an enormous fortune thanks to a mixture of coca leaf extracts and Bordeaux wine. The Mariani Wineas it was baptized, had a tremendous impact to the point of being, for many years, the drink of choice of great personalities such as Jules Verne, Thomas Edison, Alexandre Dumas and Pope Leo XIII. Jules Verne, Thomas Edison, Alexandre Dumas and Pope Leo XIII..

Its ability to "invigorate the body and mind", as was proclaimed in the press advertisements of the time, attracted the curiosity of John Syth Pemberton, an American war veteran addicted to morphine. Pemberton, who lived in Atlantapatented a tonic similar to Mariani's, which he called Wine Coke French. This product evolved from an alcoholic to a non-alcoholic beverage after the Prohibition in the state of Georgiaand was renamed Coca-Cola.

Awareness of the dangers of the drug

It would be many years before science understood the catastrophic consequences of drug abuse. the catastrophic consequences of cocaine abuse. consequences of cocaine abuse. Freud stopped taking it in 1896, at the age of 40. He began to experience tachycardia and noticed how his intellectual performance declined considerably.. Cocaine's own alkaloid was the cause of his friend's untimely death, and may have caused the death of several of his patients. Freud, for some years, became such a regular user that his nose was often red and wet. To break the bad habit of consumption, he tried to keep busy as long as possible: he got up at six in the morning, consulted twelve patients, and read and wrote until well after midnight.

Freud managed to rehabilitate himself and completely kicked his addiction. However, William Halstedwho was one of the pioneers of modern surgery, was never able to get rid of cocaine use.. After studying Freud's texts on the substance, he decided to investigate whether he could use it as a local anesthetic, thus replacing ether and chloroform. With this aim in mind, he acted as a guinea pig himself, but within a few weeks the first effects began to bloom. Unable to concentrate during consultations, he stopped attending Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he had just been appointed chief of surgery. On one occasion, Halsted had to leave the operating room in the middle of surgery because the effects of cocaine would not even allow him to hold the surgical instruments. He finally agreed to be admitted to a phrenopathic hospital, but he never recovered from the psychological consequences caused by the drug, and he also developed a dependence on morphine.

At the beginning of the 20th century, cocaine alkaloid addicts were many, and most of them managed to stay in the shadows thanks to its supposedly invigorating properties. "It was not easy to lead a double life, being a reputed physician in the public sphere and simultaneously a cocaine user, a drug addict," Markel explains. The Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle was one of these prominent addicts, and although he never revealed his relationship with cocaine, he left traces of his habit in many of his works. Sherlock HolmesDoyle's most emblematic character, who was considered his alter ego, had a habit of injecting a cocaine preparation when he did not have intriguing cases to investigate. His intrepid friend Dr. Watsonwas concerned about Sherlock's use, and tried to persuade him to stop injecting cocaine.

Cocaine: social stigma and abandonment of use

As time went by, the drug was stigmatized and governments increased control over its distribution and consumption. Decades after the rise of Freud's work, the psychoanalyst had to face countless criticisms for the habit he acquired when he was just taking his first steps as a researcher and therapist. The controversy over the extent of the influence of white powder on Freud's work can never be resolved, but most researchers agree that his most brilliant period came after he left his most brilliant period came after he stopped taking it..

Freud himself acknowledged in the last years of his life, perhaps as a way of exculpating his past, "my research on cocaine was a distraction that kept me anxious to conclude."

More curiosities about Sigmund Freud's life

The Austrian psychoanalyst had an intense and curious life. You can check it out by reading the following article:

• "10 curiosities about Sigmund Freud".