“In this country,” he says, “we’re unprecedentedly safe, comfortable, and well fed, with more and better venues for stimulation. And yet if you were asked, ‘Is this a happy or unhappy country?’ you’d check the ‘unhappy’ box. We’re living in an era of emotional poverty, which is something that serious drug addicts feel most keenly.”
The writer argues that “drug addiction is really a form of religion, albeit a bent one. An addict gives himself away to his substance utterly. He believes in it and trusts it, and his love for it is more important than his place in the community, his job, or his friends.”
- Details’ 1996 Profile of David Foster Wallace « Craig Fehrman