In addition to being a compelling indictment of the “addiction bureaucracy,” Theodore Dalrymple’s Romancing Opiates is probably the most wryly funny book-length discussion of heroin addiction you’ll read all week. Here’s a characteristic digression:
Cold turkey is so called because of the piloerection—the gooseflesh—that is a sign of withdrawal from opiates, and “I’m turkeying” is a common way for addicts to describe their condition. In England they also say, mixing their avian metaphors, that they’re “clucking” or “doing their cluck.” Strictly speaking they should be gobbling, or doing their gobble.
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