Pete Doherty, Alchemy of the blood, love, tabloids,violence and the Moss of Isle

by Monique Laurent, PhD

 

It must feel like something out of Arthur Rimbaud's "Season in Hell" for a sensitive and talented British musician like Peter Doherty, whose personal disclosure of his Public Relations with the press, seems to have gotten out of control.

His "approach avoidant" and "histrionic" behavior may be the reason for his self-medication and habitual narcotic abuse. It may also shed some light on his apparent insatiable appetite for self- destruction and lack of self-fulfillment.  Some bottomless holes cannot be filled no matter how much   sex, drugs, or rock and roll one throws into it.

He (or his PR company) are obviously feeding this never ending frenzy by throwing bones to the press on a daily basis which is then thrown back in his face like a dog returning to its own vomit.

Tabloid A to Z

A.  Peter Doherty who has repeatedly claimed to be in love with the fashion model Kate Moss was arrested for allegedly assaulting a friend who refused to give him money to purchase heroin.

B.  Doherty and his rock star friends had given a British newspaper, The Daily Mirror, an exclusive insight into his relationship with Kate; claiming that the couple are planning to get married.

C.  He also claimed that he will refrain from using heroin and plans to go into a rehabilitation center.

D.  The ex-Libertines singer, 25, was held in custody after a  British documentary filmmaker, Max Carlish claimed that he had been physically assaulted at a hotel in Central London.  Mr. Carlish, 38, went to the hospital with two black eyes and a broken nose.  He said, "I was in a hotel with Pete and everything was going fine until he started demanding excessive amounts of money.  He wanted thousands and I knew he was going to go out and spend it on heroin. He was desperate for a fix.  I said no and he went berserk, punching me. There was nothing I could do.  He was going mad.  I'm blind without my glasses but he pulled them off and smashed them on the floor and trampled on them.  Despite the drugs, he's quite a big bloke. His eyes were wild.  It was terrifying.  "He beat me and he wouldn't stop. My face is a mess. He stole all the money I had and my mobile phone."

E.  Mr. Carlish then called  the police and went to University College Hospital. He had made a documentary about Doherty, which included photographs of him injecting heroin.  Doherty has recently told friends of his anger at photographs of him taken "ages ago" resurfacing .  He told the Mirror, "I am happy.  Who wouldn't be.  It's all in my hands. I want to make it work.  The drugs have got to stop or I'll lose her.  I owe it to her.  We are soul mates."

F.  It has also been reported in British tabloids that -LIBERTINE-  Doherty and friend Peter Wolfe had a drugs and drink marathon recently that ended with them rolling around naked on a blood-soaked floor, carving each other's initials on their bodies with knives.  Both were spending £1,050 a week on cocaine, heroin and hashish. Doherty said, "We are kindred spirits; new romantics and poets. But our drug-taking spiraled out of control."   Wolfe, a song-writing partner, added, "We became helpless addicts. Either the drugs stop or we do, fatally. We know that."  Doherty told friends, "I have so much to live for - my loved ones and my music. I can make people feel better by what I do.  I will do the rehabilitation.  Wolfman and I took up drugs to get off the drink.  But it has all gone wrong.  People will always take drugs and it's easy to blame junkies.  But we realize we have a responsibility to music followers who might be influenced by us."

G.  Doherty will soon travel to Bath, England to record a debut album with his new group Babyshambles..

H.  DOHERTY divulged how he and Kate "got serious" after her 31st birthday party at her Cotswold mansion.  She had previously told friends "I'm after his bum" after seeing one of his impromptu gigs two months ago.  It has also been reported that a wild fling followed, culminating in an all-night sex session at a party last month.  Now Doherty has told the Mirror, "It is a beautiful thing.  I am a different person after meeting Kate. 

I.  In a further chat with friends, he added: "I am smitten.  But she has been pursuing me relentlessly.  She is very demanding.  Always wanting my attention.  It is interfering with the band.  Music is the most important thing.  But I am in love with her, totally.  She is really sweet.  We are soul mates."  Kate did not expect me to stop or quit drugs immediately.  She loves me and wants me to get out of this mess once and for all."

J.  After his initial week-long rehabilitation in Ealing, West London, he and Kate are planning to spend up to six months together in St. Petersburg, until he has beaten his drug nightmare. The couple are discussing having children.  Kate already has a two-year-old daughter Lila Grace, by ex-partner Jefferson Hack.  Doherty has an 18-month-old son.  She realizes his drug craving is too strong to give up without expert help.  But his addiction is causing trouble between them.  Doherty said, "It's a difficult time at the moment, we've had a bit of a row. It's the usual shit, she wasn't happy about newspaper pictures of me looking wrecked.  I'm worried I've fucked it up as usual."

K.  DOHERTY was shocked by newspaper photos of him looking wrecked as he left a gig.  He kicked a newspaper across the floor and said, "I hate it, just like everyone hates seeing pictures of themselves, especially when they are off their heads.  I don't look like that, do I?" It's photo-shock, I'm sure.

L.  "I have been gutted reading about "Kate and the crack head" but I know it's true. My family have been hassling me too.  "But people who love my music understand me. I write stuff on my website and feel very close to them."

M.   EMACIATED Doherty will be sedated for three days at the start of his rehabilitation program.  He is committed to beating his devastating addiction to ensure his future with Kate. It promises to be a daunting task.  In the early hours of one morning, he was "'chasing the dragon" in a crack den in East London.

N.  After a curtailed set in a nearby pub, Doherty, dressed head to toe in black and with a huge spliff stuck in his trilby hat, clambered into a car and disappeared for an all-night drugs session.  Doherty, whose three previous visits to rehab centers have failed, will embark on his latest attempt to kick his habit in Ealing, West London, with pal Peter Wolfe  The treatment will involve having a chemical device planted in their bodies, which coats any remaining heroin in the system and suffocates its effect.

O.  Later, as Doherty and Kate Moss head to St Petersburg, Wolfe and his girlfriend Gemma - 21-year-old daughter of Star Wars director George - will make for Biarritz in France.

P.  PETE Doherty touched on his pain at rarely seeing 18-month-old son Estile, by ex-girlfriend Lisa Moorish.  He said, "I did see my kid last week.  I do see him sometimes, but not that often, I must admit.  It is hard.  I'm between places at the moment, I always seem to be between places. I haven't had a real home for years. I suppose I'm homeless really."

Q.  But he told a friend that he and Kate had already discussed having children. "It can happen. We both have a young child from previous relationships. It might even make us last.  Lisa Moorish also has a child with Liam Gallagher.

R.  DOHERTY is so in awe of friend Peter Wolfe that he named his new band Babyshambles after him. Wolfe's mum called him Shambles and friends looked on Doherty as Wolfe's baby. Wolfe, 36, who co-wrote Doherty's 2004 top 10 hit "For Lovers", said, "Pete and I grew so close due to our love of music.  I had been virtually living as a tramp but Pete saw through that and wasn't bothered. We were libertines. The same animals.  We began to write together and think together and his love and support helped me through my marriage break-up."

S.   Wolfe, who has had a book of poetry published, was on the books of Gillingham FC in the early 1980s with current Birmingham manager Steve Bruce.  Doherty played football at County Standard.  The two became friends after meeting in the Filthy McNasties pub in Islington, North London, in 2002.  They were soon living together and Doherty landed his first record deal.  Wolfe, known as Wolfman in the music industry, said Doherty was a hybrid of erotic author Marquis de Sade, tennis legend John McEnroe and hapless TV comic Frank Spencer.

T.  Wolfe said of Doherty's relationship, "Kate is besotted. She adores him. We all do. Pete is a lovable character. When Kate is with him she is natural, childlike. Her accent is the lost girl from Croydon."

U.  "He doesn't treat her as a celebrity.  Pete has done that for her.  It's as if she's under his spell.  She says she has never met anyone like him."

V.  Wolfe added: "People find it so easy to write Pete off.  He is a successful musician and is going out with the most beautiful girl in the world."

W,X,Y & Z.  "It reminds me of the story of George Best when he was dating Miss World, and someone asked, George, where did it all go wrong."

The answer to the question, "where did it all go wrong" is like a mind bending question for a philosophy exam which asks, "Is this a question?"

The answer to that is, "If that is a question, then this is the answer." Monique Laurent, PhD

 

 

 George Best "Man United Jesus Christ"

TRUE LIBERTINE

Second Delirium (Arthur Rimbaud)

 

The worn out ideas of old-fashioned poetry played an important part in my alchemy of the word.

I got used to elementary hallucination: I could very precisely see a mosque instead of a factory, a drum corps of angels, horse carts on the highways of the sky, a drawing room at the bottom of a lake; monsters and mysteries.

 

A vaudeville's title filled me with awe.  And so I explained my magical sophistries by turning words into visions!

 

At last I began to consider my mind's disorder a sacred thing. 

I lay about idle, consumed by an oppressive fever: I envied he bliss of animals - caterpillars, who portray the innocence of a second childhood; moles, the slumber of virginity!

 

My mind turned sour.  I said farewell to the world in poems something like ballards:

 

And in desolate, moss grown isles they raise their precious panels

where the city will paint a hollow sky

My turn now.  The story of one of my insanities.

 

For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes -- and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable.

 

What I like were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets,

carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints, old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children's books, old operas, silly old songs, the naïve rhythms of country rimes.

 

I dreamed of Crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of, republics without histories, religious wars stamped out, revolutions in

orals, movements of races and continents: I used to believe in every kind of magic.

 

I invented colors for the vowels! A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green.  I made rules for the form and movement of every consonant, and I boasted of inventing, with rhythms from within me, a kind of poetry that all the senses, sooner or later, would recognize.  And I alone would be its translator.

 

I began it as an investigation.  I turned silences and nights into words.  What was utterable, I wrote down.  I made the whirling world stand still.

 

Far from flocks, from birds and country girls,

What did I drink within that leafy screen

Surrounded by tender hazelnut trees

In the warm green mist of afternoon?

What could I drink from this young Oise

-Toungeless trees, flowerless grass, dark skies-

Drink from these yellow gourds, far from the hut

I loved?  Some golden draught that made me sweat.

I would have made a doubtful sign for an inn.

Later, toward evening, the sky filled with clouds...

Water from the woods runs out on virgin sands,

And heavenly winds cast ice thick on the ponds;

Then I saw gold, and wept, but could not drink.

At four in the morning, in summertime

Love's drowsiness still lasts...

The bushes blow away the odor

Of the night's feast.

Beyond the bright Hesperides,

Within the western workshop of the Sun,

Carpenters scramble - in shirtsleeves -

Work is begun.

For these charming dabblers in the arts

Who labor for a King in Babylon,

Venus! Leave for a moment

Lovers' haloed hearts...

O Queen of Shepherds!

Carry the purest eau-de-vie

To these workmen while they rest

And take their bath at noonday, in the sea.

A Song From the Highest Tower

Let it come, let it come,

The season we can love!

I have waited so long

That at length I forget,

And leave unto heaven

My fear and regret;

A sick thirst

Darkens my veins.

Let it come, let it come,

The season we can love!

So green the field

To oblivion falls,

Overgrown, flowering,

With incense and weeds.

And the cruel noise

Bitter-Sweet Harvest: Babies and a nation in shambles and

Afghanistan's New War
IRIN Web Special on the threat of opium to Afghanistan and the region.

Addiction: Drug abuse in Kabul City and beyond

Heroin addict shooting up Credit: UNODC

Afghanistan is trying to pick up the pieces after more than two decades of violent and socially destabilizing civil war. Already one of the poorest countries in the world, the years of war have compounded the challenges facing modernization of a primarily agrarian society with feudalistic and traditionalist social relations.

The civil war caused extreme hardship for millions of Afghans who also suffered the highest population displacement of a country in recent years. With traditional coping mechanisms damaged and many families losing the male breadwinner, levels of destitution have risen, compounded by the return of millions of refugees from Iran and Pakistan. The post-conflict reconstruction period has yet to offer tangible opportunities for most Afghans who struggle to survive.

However, outside the towns, amidst the struggling reconstruction and recovery efforts, the opium economy is booming. Afghanistan is by far the world's leading supplier of opiates, with more than 1.7 million farmers estimated to be involved in opium production. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the years of war and social disintegration have left the population "extremely vulnerable to a range of mental health problems, particularly chronic depression, anxiety, insomnia and post-traumatic stress disorder. In such a context the availability of cheap opium, heroin and other pharmaceuticals is causing a rapid rise in drug dependency in Afghanistan as well as neighboring countries".

In its Community Drug Profile report of July 2003, the UNODC goes on to say: "Kabul has a serious drug problem with tens of thousands of drug users requiring assistance with the social, financial and health-related problems resulting from their drug use that effects not only themselves, but their families and the community they live in".

Kabul city had 1, 781,000 inhabitants, according to the 1999-2000 census, although this has increased significantly since the fall of the Taliban and as Kabul has become a relative hub of fast economic growth in a chronically poor country. The influx of refugees from Iran and Pakistan has also added to this recent increase. In early 2003 the UNODC estimated, using a methodology of key informants, that the lowest estimate of drug users in the city was approximately 63,000. The same study showed that hashish was the top drug used, with opium, heroin, pharmaceuticals and alcohol following.

The head of the Counter-Narcotics Directorate in Kabul, Mirwais Yasini, told IRIN that the number of opium addicts in Kabul alone was more than 30,000. A senior representative of Nejat, the non-governmental organization running rehabilitation centres and community outreach facilities in the city, suggested there were between 30-60,000 addicts, but cautioned against trying to define the problem with data that was not reliable in a society where few will admit to using drugs, which are considered unclean and are forbidden by Islam.

In Kabul, where the medical services are primitive, massively overstretched and entirely unprepared for dealing with addicts, the Nejat centre offers a unique, residential treatment programme. Despite being funded by various international donors, the centre told IRIN it has only 10 beds for residential addicts on its rehabilitation programmes. The provision for rehabilitation of opium addicts is almost negligible in Kabul as well as in other cities. In Herat city, a local drug-related prison houses those addicted and convicted of trafficking crimes as well as addicts seeking assistance. Conditions are austere and there is no separation between those who voluntarily seek help and those serving part of their drug-related prison sentence in detoxification.

The problem of addiction exists in all layers of society. Both men and women are affected. Local residents and returning refugees from Iran and Pakistan use opium mainly to alleviate medical conditions such as tuberculosis, colds and asthma. It is also reported that young children receive opium as a painkiller. Some addicts recognize they are addicted and seek assistance; many others are thrown out by their families or communities, who regard drug addicts as morally degenerate.

A range of patterns of opium use is discussed in the UNODC survey. It says users often carry on using opium because they have developed an addiction, and the withdrawal pains are too challenging to endure. These withdrawal pains include insomnia, tuberculosis and heavy coughs. The opium user is often forced to bring an end to its use when resources are not enough to cover an addiction. With opium being more expensive in comparison to hashish and pharmaceutical drugs, it is not uncommon for the opium user to replace opium with more available and less expensive alternatives.

There are various ways to consume opium. In Kabul, the most common technique is to smoke it though a cigarette, a water pipe, or though a 'shekhi shang'. The latter method involves using a heated metal blade covered with opium. The resulting fumes are then inhaled through a tube. However, many users consume opium orally, or use it to make tea.

According to the report, it is difficult to estimate the quantity of the opium intake, as the users themselves measure it in terms of beans and peas. With a predicted average of two to three doses per day, at a cost of between Afg 20-50 (US $0.40-$0.60), opium users regularly have financial difficulties. Many resort to stealing and begging from family members and at bazaars. Withdrawal pains often prevent addicts from working, and thus unable to earn money. Often, drug addicts cause tensions, disagreements and fights within their family and the community they live in. In the family, a subject of crucial concern is often the household economy - money spent on drugs can drain already small purses

Two addicts 'chasing the dragon' in Kabul Credit: IRIN/Chris Horwood

One addict recounts in the report: "I spend my son's salary on opium so it affects our economy, and always my daughter-in-law fights with my son because of my opium use". Shunned by their neighborhoods, the opium users sense they are unwanted and have low levels of confidence.

As the use of intoxicants is forbidden ('haram') under statutory law, there is a risk of arrest and conviction. "Sufficient treatment and rehabilitation instead of custody is necessary in order to find a way out of the cruel cycle of drug addiction," advises the UNODC study.

With rising production, trafficking and spillovers into local markets, neighboring countries to Afghanistan are exposed to the spread of drug abuse. Iran is the country most at risk, with between 800,000 - 1.2 million abusers, followed by Pakistan with at least 700,000 addicts and Central Asian countries with more than 300,000 opium users. Central Asia now stands out as the region with the highest global rise in opiate use in recent years. Large harvests of poppy in Afghanistan, which are expected in 2004, are most likely to lead to a drop in opium prices and an increase in opium abuse in these countries.

Hand in hand with the proliferation of the use of opiates goes the threat of HIV/AIDS. The rapid rise of HIV/AIDS cases has been accelerated by the tendency of the users to inject their drug via shared needles. Forty of every 100,000 inhabitants in countries neighboring Afghanistan have HIV/AIDS, with Iran and Pakistan the most affected. The recent explosion of cases in Central Asian countries has been reported by the UNODC to be in direct proportion to the rise in opiates taken through intravenous methods       .

According to one UNODC report: "The drug-related problems experienced by many drug users are compounded by the general lack of accurate, practical and realistic information about drugs". The lack of awareness, openness and information concerning drugs in Afghanistan add to the severe predicament of drug users, as they often underestimate the character and the consequences of the drugs they use.

With opium production rising, and without the restrictions implemented by the Taliban on individual use, the number of addicts in Afghanistan is bound to rise. In neighboring countries through which opium travels en route to world markets, the rise in addiction, with the accompanying rise in cases of HIV/AIDS, is reaching alarming levels. While donors and government departments wrestle with the issues of eradicating the opium economy, people working with addicts hope that provision for those affected is not overlooked and can be significantly increased.

 Special thanks United Nations Office for  Humananitarian affairs