In his unpublished memoir, Dicking Around, the author and hardcore drug addict Philip K. Dick credited his literary output, in part, to benzodiazepine, more commonly known by its street name, benzos.
“The best fiction comes from a chemical reaction inside the synapses of a haywire mind,” Dick wrote. “If I say I am a benzos man, you will agree. Indeed, benzos are my source for furious inspiration, bordering on narcotic incapacitation. Once, I was so whacked out on benzos that I truly believed microscopic insects were swarming all around me, transmitting my precise location to an Orange County sheriff deputy, who at any moment, might haul my prolix ass to a local 7/11, hook up the Slurpee machine to my nose, and freeze my brain with a cherry and Piña colada concoction, preserving my dome so that it could later be presented, as a gift, to the charismatic mutant host of a popular Martian game show.”
Naturally, when I read that passage I was concerned, not just …
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