A Smack in the Head

As I was reading  “Relapse” in the novel Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, a quote by Mark really stuck out to me. When asked by Tommy why he does heroin he replied:

“It kinda makes things seem mair real tae us. Life’s boring and futile. We start oaf wi high hopes, then we bottle it. We realize that we’re aw gaunnae die, without really finding oot the big answers. We develop aw they long-winded ideas which jist interpet the reality ay oor lives in different weys, without really extending oor body ay worthwhile knowledge about the big things, the real things. Basically, we live a short, disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up oor lives wi shite, things like careers and relationships tae delude oorsels that it isnae aw totally pointless. Smack’s an honest drug, because it strips away these delusions. Wi smack, whin ye feel good, ye feel immortal. Whin ye feel really bad, it intensifies the shite that’s already there. It’s the only really honest drug.  It doesn’t alter yir consciousness. It just gies ye a hit and a sense ay well-being. Eftir that, ye see the misery ay the world as it is, and ye cannae anaesthetize yirsel against it. “ (90)

This quote establishes many honest things about the world of the junky, the most important being the loss of consciousness that an addict develops towards the ‘real’ world. He states that “life’s boring and futile” unaware that drugs have made him stagnant and disconnected within his own subculture of junkies who fight and complain over nothing. I’m uncertain what “big answers” he has truly confronted in the novel since he doesn’t seem to ponder any of his existence. The temporary state created by smack has left Mark in a state of the all-encompassing world as one that is miserable.   The emotions of smack to  “strip away delusions” or make him “feel immortal”  are purely dependant on whether or not the high is good. He contradicts himself by saying that if it’s a bad high then it “intensify the shite that’s already there” for he has already admitted that there is nothing there to begin with. In this way Mark’s perception of what is “honest” is in every way a lie, for he is lying to himself. The emotional state caused by being high is purely within his control. He refers to it almost like a medicine, with its ability to “anaesthetize” against life, yet he is unaware it only allows him to compensate for a lack of consciousness. This is a crucial moment in the novel, because unlike most other works of transgressive fiction we have read this semester the narrator is explicitly telling the reader he has no purpose for living. He, and the reader, are both fully aware of his lack of self worth and identity as he admits that he’s “never goat enough tae spare” and is lost in his “self-centered smack apathy.”