Poppies: Odyssey of an Opium Eater

Eric Detzer was a drug rehab counselor, and a former drug addict, who became addicted to opium poppy tea. Living in Bellingham, WA, he would raid little old ladies' gardens at night, cutting the poppy pods from their gardens, and grinding the pods up in a blender to make a power opium cocktail as strong as any street bag of heroin.

Detzer's story is sad and fascinating. The parts where he tries to make a connection between his addiction and that of his distant-relative, Vlad The Impaler (the real-life, blood-drinking-from-human-skull-cups basis for Dracula) are a little weak, but fortunately he focuses on his desperate search for more poppies as his life unravels around him.

Poppies was written in 1988. I don't believe Detzer has written anything else, which is a shame. He's an excellent writer.

From the back cover:

Eric Detzer was the other kind of junkie. His clothes were clean, his arms clear of needle marks. He held a responsible, interesting job. His wife and two children could depend on him for love and support. And for eighteen years Eric Detzer's mind and body could not function without regular doses of opiates, the same opiates in the heroin mainlined by street junkies.

From his early days, sharing needles with hookers in San Francisco tenements, to his midnight forays stealing poppy plants from old ladies' gardens in rural Washington, Detzer's picture of drug addiction conveys both the absurd and the frightening facets of the disease.

The ravages of withdrawal during the poppy's off-season, the euphoria induced by Detzer's special narcotic tea, the impossible Jekyll and Hyde act of an addict's daily life are discribed without sel-pity or sermons.

Poppies is not for the squeamish. You will be immersed in the nightmare of Detzer's addiction and exhausted by his battle to regain sanity and self-respect. Above all, you will discover an exciting narrative voice that entertains with outrageous humor while telling an extraordinary story.

Eric Detzer is a psychiatric social worker who has publshed numerous articles in his field. He lives and works in Washington.

$10 on Amazon.com