Eight Years in Cocaine Hell Quotes

“Eight Years in Cocaine Hell was published in 1902 and is viewed by historians as the first memoir of addiction to be written by a woman.”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction

“While patent medicines are largely responsible for the increase of these pernicious habits, reputable physicians are not by any means free from blame. Most of them are altogether too ready to prescribe them for the relief of pain, even when it is but a slight twinge, and the habit of flying to this temporary relief soon be comes confirmed and cannot be shaken off. It was indeed recently asserted in an eastern paper that a large number of physicians are victims themselves to the cocaine and morphine habit. A large percentage of the patients treated at The St. Luke Society are physicians in good standing.”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction

“Cocaine has only been used about twenty years and has made more wrecks and caused more havoc than all the other drugs combined, as it is the only drug that will soften the bones and eat the flesh. It is worse than leprosy and many thought I had leprosy, as the bones were coming out and I lost my teeth and part of my jaw bone while using it.”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction

“Cocaine gives an exhilarating feeling, brightens up the intellect for the time being, and makes one very fluent in conversation. I am informed that a great many of our speakers use cocaine before they step on the platform, and many of our best writers do their best work while under the influence of the drug. It is commonly reported that Edgar Allan Poe was an opium eater, and Dante’s Inferno was written while under its influence.”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction

“Before leaving the city I purchased $75 worth of cocaine. Had the whole police force been at my back I would not have left the city until I had my cocaine.”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction

“found her lying on the bed, turned over on her face, frothing at the mouth and in spasms. I sent for Doctor Rittenhouse. He came and said, ‘she has taken some deadly poison.’ He administered all the aid in his power, but thinking the case hopeless, made out a death certificate, so that I would not have any trouble, and she lay in this condition one week before she recognized me.”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction

“I always had a tender heart for the afflicted and especially those suffering in like manner, or the drug victims, of which there are over sixty thousand in Chicago—opium, morphine, laudanum, cocaine, chloral, hasheesh, etc. They are not alone in the slums, but you will find them in the palatial homes of our fair city, and the only institution that is holding out a helping hand is The St. Luke Society, where hundreds have been cured and both the slum and palace homes made happy.”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction

“These and other incidents only go to show that drug fiends have a sort of superhuman smartness in evading the detection of crime.”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction

“The victims of these drug and liquor habits need care and sympathy and should be gathered into such places as The St. Luke Society, of which I shall speak more further on, instead of sending them to the Bridewell, or jails where they are hardened and every good impulse is soon forgotten.”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction

“In 1894, while attending to some legal matters, my lawyer, who noticed that I was suffering from a severe cold, advised me to try Birney’s Catarrh Remedy. He gave me a bottle and that started me on my downward course. From a well-balanced Christian woman, I became a haggard and wretched physical and mental wreck.”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction

“Her book established a literary genre, and her case helped to outlaw cocaine.” Stuart Walton, Intoxicology”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction

“I never used any other drug but the clear cocaine and I believe that I am the only living person in the world to-day who ever took two hundred grains in twenty-four hours and survived.” Annie C. Meyers
The autobiographical Eight Years in Cocaine Hell (1902) recounts in shockingly straightforward style the transformation of Annie C. Meyers, affluent and well-connected Chicago widow, to junkie, thief, forger, inventor of the ‘Cocaine Dance’, and ultimately authoress of the first drug confessional written by a woman.”
― Annie C. Meyers, Eight Years in Cocaine Hell: The True Story of a Victorian Woman's Descent into Madness and Addiction