Baker Street Irregulars discussion

I personally feel a a little to emotionally attached to these books, as I do with most books. Whenever I read about him "rolling back his sleeve" it makes me upset for a lack of better words.
We are introduced to this addiction in the sign of four, the book begins with the addiction and also ends with it. To say that the addiction fuels Holmes' work to me is an understatement, I believe without it...he would not even be the same person.

Holmes addiction didn't drive his work. He use to shoot up when he was bored and/or lacked Meaningful work. Early on as a kid
reading the stories I wasn't sophisticated enough to understand the references.

Later on when I understood what was going on I found the addiction to be a bit of his whole Personality...but I found his intense smoking to be more of a bothersome subject.

I find myself in agreement with Papanate. Holmes addictions did not drive/fuel his work. They are indicators of his type A personality, though. I have to admit, I never saw that aspect before. Sir Arthur was certainly astute to have included those points in a high strung character like Holmes.

As for what I think of Holmes use of cocaine, it never really bothered me. Partly because I knew he was a character in a book and partly because I could see the good in the character. One thing I do have to ask, though, is whether Holmes actually was addicted. He only used the drug when he had no case. When he was working he felt no need for artificial stimulants. I'm no expert but it seems to me that he never developed a physical need for cocaine.

I agree that addiction isn't descriptive of Holmes occasional usage.

And as was the culture of that time - a whole cornucopia of pharma
was available through the local 'Chemist' shop. And Doyle started
some of Holmes adventures in local opium dens. Within that context
Holmes use of cocaine doesn't seem too much of an aberration.

In the TV movie "A Case of Evil" (I believe it was called "Sherlock" in the UK), the plot revolves around the opium trade. An underlying element in the film is the belief that opium, as a social necessity (for the relief it gave to many returning war veterans) would eventually be legal, while tobacco was a noxious drug that would ultimately be banned by the government.
In Holmes' day, cocaine was legal, as were alcohol and nicotine; he was a user of all three. Cocaine seems to have been the only one he eventually gave up.

As a physician, Conan Doyle saw the ravages of drug abuse in the 19th century: opium, morphine, cocaine, ether (plus his father had some very serious alcohol issues). I think Holmes' cocaine use is a way of showing his flaws and making him a more complex character. It's also interesting to note that Watson may caution Holmes about doing drugs but is never really able to stop him (which demonstrates Holmes' domination of their relationship).
In the new TV series, Elementary, the writes use addiction as the reason Watson comes into Holmes' life; an interesting idea but, but as a recovering addict, Holmes seems a bit more bland as a character compared to the original.

Bringing this up again because I saw a review for a book called "The Five" - it is a nonfiction book about the five main victims of Jack the Ripper. Got the book, it was really interesting but one point that comes across is the plague of alcohol addiction among the London poor and the women, One of the victims was an alcoholic, tried to quit, eventually went to some kind of treatment center and did okay until her husband kissed her goodbye - he had taken a dose of whisky for a cough or something and just the taste of alcohol on his lips was enough to cause a relapse, they split up, she winds up in Whitechapel and is killed.
Because it's legal to drink, we don't think a lot about the serious negative impact alcoholism had on some societies.

All of Sherlock's intricate peronality traits and odd activities only add to his overall character. In particular, I find his addiction to drugs quite interesting. He is a man of such great intellect that he himself can not always manage it. His need for mental stimulation overpowers his discipline. I also believe that this is important for the further development of Watson and Holmes relationship. Watson wants him to stop because he cares for him. Overall, I don't believe it is good or bad, just interesting in the development of characters.

I wonder exactly how strong a seven-per-cent solution was?

Timothy wrote: "I wonder exactly how strong a seven-per-cent solution was?"

There's only one way to find out...

7% would kill you and me 10% would kill a horse!

Of all Holmes addictions, I think smoking was probably the worst. He took drugs once I'm a while, when he was bored, it seems that he drank socially but not to excess, but he smoked all the time. Makes me wonder how he kept in the best of training, which Watson says at one point, with his lungs taking such a hit.

Barbara wrote: "Of all Holmes addictions, I think smoking was probably the worst. He took drugs once I'm a while, when he was bored, it seems that he drank socially but not to excess, but he smoked all the time. M..."

Pipe smoking doesnt have quite the same level of inhalation as cigarettes do. I wouldn't be surprised if he lit it and just held it in his mouth.

Holmes indulges in four forms of tobacco - cigarettes, cigars, pipes and snuff. (Mycroft also used snuff.) Of the four, cigarettes account for the largest consumption. Apparently, his tobacco addiction started when he was quite young. When Stamford introduces Watson as a potential roommate, Holmes says that he's got his eye on a suite at Baker Street and the next thing he says is, "You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?"

Yeah - I have been watching some of the episodes from the Granada series and it seems there are a lot of scenes where Holmes is smoking cigarettes. I read somewhere it was because the actor was a heavy smoker and wanted it written in as much as possible.

holmes smoked cigarettes cigars pipes etc.

Going over STUD in another Holmes group and there's that line about Holmes possibly giving a friend a pinch of a vegetable alkaloid just to see its effects, but that he'd probably do the same to himself. Also his arm is mottled with the effects of dabbling in poisons.
So I wondered, what drugs might Holmes take just to see what the effects were - would he take LSD or fentanyl?

one story in the cannon watson and holmes experience a drug like lsd

Patrick wrote: "one story in the cannon watson and holmes experience a drug like lsd"

From The Devil's Foot, when Holmes burns the toxic "devil's foot root" to see its effects as an inhalant.
"A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. A freezing horror took possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising, that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream, and was vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself. At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that cloud of despair, and had a glimpse of Holmes's face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror - the very look which I had seen upon the features of the dead."

thank you!

Cocaine isn't an addiction, per se, in Holmes's case. Ultimately he's addicted, as we all are, to the rush and flow of our own neurotransmitters. Whether we realize it or not, we are all chemical computers, and whatever makes these chemicals surge is what gets us off, be it love, or sex, or skydiving, or worship, or art, or murder, or simply our own grossly-turgid egos. Whatever it happens to be, we all live for it. For Holmes, it was the thrill of the hunt, penetrating mystery, and the glory of his conquering intellect. In absence of an engaging case, he was forced to fall back on cocaine. But make no mistake, it was not an addiction.

Conan Doyle's matter-of-fact treatment of this subject anticipates the science of neurochemistry by seventy odd years. He bluntly (speaking as Holmes, of course) equates the artificially-induced high of cocaine with the thrill Holmes receives when the Game is Afoot. There is also the aforementioned Adventure of the Devil's Foot, where an unknown alkaloid (presumably) from Africa was used to madden and kill. Conan Doyle could not have known the the exact processes involved (indeed, in this age we have hardly scratched the surface), but he was obviously well aware of the mechanistic nature of the human mind.

You know, just last night I was watching an episode in this series called "The Dark Side of the 90s" and it was about Robert Downey, Jr - who is a more recent Sherlock Holmes - I knew that he had been addicted to drugs in the past and had even done prison time but I had no idea of the extent of his addiction. It was pretty frightening. Also didn't know that after he got sober he had a hard time getting back into acting because no company would insure any movie he was in. Finally, it was Mel Gibson who personally put up the insurance bond for Downey - not in a Sherlock Holmes movie, in an earlier one - and this allowed Downey to revive his career....which led to his role as Sherlock Holmes (like Downy but not a fan of those movies.)