Trust Me, I'm Dr Ozzy (33 page)

So I can’t say I recommend it.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’ve been drinking heavily for a few years now, and find myself turning redder and redder. What can I do?

Jim, Devon

I looked like Rudolph the Alcoholic Reindeer by the end of my drinking days. They say blueberries can help. In my experience, though, not being off your nut 24 hours a day is a safer bet.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’m 72 years old and have been taking Temazepam for tinnitus for a number of years (without any side effects), but I’ve decided recently that I’d like to come off the medication. I was going to go “cold turkey,” but your comments about the trouble you had coming off sleeping pills have frightened the living daylights out of me!

What should I do?

Debbie, Lancaster

The most important thing to do is talk to whoever gave you the prescription. Temazepam is a very powerful drug, so don’t listen to the Prince of Darkness (or anyone else) until you’ve had a professional opinion. For what it’s worth, it took me a year and a half to get off the same stuff. You go through
hell
. The problem is that the drugs make you used to sleeping artificially, so the withdrawal is evil. You have to do it very,
very
slowly. At 72, if you ain’t having any side-effects, ask yourself if it’s really worth the trouble.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

Is it true that if you drink a pint of milk before going on the booze—to “line your stomach”—you can avoid a hangover?

Gareth, Durham

I used to have a similar hangover cure, but it involved putting booze in the milk. The fact is, everyone who drinks too much has these ridiculous old wives’ tales, but there’s only one medically proven way to avoid a hangover: don’t fucking drink in the first place. If you want to have a pint of milk
and
a hangover, fine, but don’t kid yourself into thinking a glass of semi-skimmed before a heavy night is gonna do any good. That’s bullshit.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

A friend of mine was hit by a car during his teens, and he’s never been quite the same since. We’ve both now developed a taste for high-strength weed, but I’ve now realised that it makes him crazy and delusional (he says he’s slept with Lady Gaga). He was put in care for a while, but as soon as he got out he went back to the dope. All my friends have tried telling him to stop, but it just makes him violent.

What should I do?

Anonymous

You can’t
make
anyone do anything—but you can say to your friend, “Look, I’m here if you ever want me help.” What I’ve realised is, there are some who can have one joint every so often and be perfectly happy with that, and there are some who can’t. For me, I started with weed, and ended up on heroin. A lot of people also make the mistake of thinking weed is harmless, but they should ask themselves the question: if you were gonna have open-heart surgery, and you had the choice between a doctor who’d just smoked a couple of joints, and a doctor who was clean, which one would you choose?

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

Here in Denmark, people believe you can get drunk by bathing your feet in tub of vodka, as the skin absorbs the booze in the same way as the lining of your stomach. Is this true?

Henrick, Copenhagen

Yes and no. I tried it once, but got bored after a few minutes and started drinking from the tub. The next morning, I wasn’t sure if it was my feet or my mouth that had given me the hangover.

III: PYSCHADELICS

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’ve been taking a lot of LSD recently, mostly because the fake reality is better than my bummer of a real life. Have you ever felt the same way?

Anonymous, USA

Here’s the deal, no bullshit: if you keep taking the LSD, your “fake reality” will soon become a lot fucking worse than real life, no matter how bad your real life is. In my experience, LSD is a great time until it ain’t—and when that happens, it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. One minute you’re running down Miami Beach with a foam finger on your head; the next you’re sticking a gun in your best friend’s face. The worst thing is when you want the trip to stop, but you’ve still got another eight hours to go. I still get the after-effects of LSD to this day: I call them my “wobblers.” In a flash, every tiny little problem freaks me out and becomes the end of the world. Seriously, man, be very careful. If you keep taking that shit, it’s gonna bite you on the balls.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’ve heard people say LSD can cure depression. What’s your expert medical opinion on this?

Brian, Seattle

As I’ve said before, I wouldn’t recommend that anyone take acid. On the other hand, it does open your mind to certain things. For example, I once walked into a field in Staffordshire when I was as high on LSD and ended up having a long conversation with a cow. After a while, the cow turned to the cow next to it and said, “FUCK me—that bloke can
talk
.”

OZZY’S AMAZING MEDICAL MISCELLANY

Turn On, Tune In… Freak OUT

As crazy as it sounds, LSD is making a comeback as a possible treatment for everything from “cluster headaches” to post-combat stress. After a 40-year ban on government-funded research, the US Food and Drug Administration is allowing trials again. LSD is still illegal and dangerous, though, so it ain’t a good idea to attempt any experiments of your own.

Ask any major acid-head about “Bicycle Day” and he’ll know exactly what you’re talking about—it was the afternoon in 1943 when the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann mistakenly took 100 times the “threshold dose” of LSD and then tried to ride home from his lab on a bicycle. Needless to say, the journey took a long time and involved visiting several other universes. Before then, no-one knew how high you could get from LSD (which is made from lysergic acid, found in certain kinds of fungi).

No matter how much more research they do into LSD, it ain’t likely to become a new blockbuster drug any time soon, ’cos it was discovered such a long time ago. That means all the chemical formulas behind it are now “in the public domain” and aren’t gonna make anyone rich.

Other common psychedelic drugs include peyote (a small, spineless cactus which contains mescaline), psilocybin (found in certain kinds of “magic” mushrooms) and PCP—which was used as an anaesthetic until surgeons realised it gave their patients head-trips that were worse than their injuries. Illegal PCP later became known as “angel dust.”

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

After spending the late sixties and the seventies in a psychedelic fog, I’ve found that even now, after thirty years of abstinence, my sight hasn’t recovered. Everything moves or breathes—the walls, the floors, people’s faces—and I can wake up in the night with full-on “acid vision.” Do you suffer from this? If so, what can I do about it?

Phil, Aberystwyth

They used to tell you that LSD never leaves your system for the rest of your life, although I think that’s been disproven now. What might be happening is that something’s triggering a memory of a bad trip—like when you think about spicy food and your mouth starts to water. But it doesn’t sound very fucking normal, still having “acid vision” after 30 years. You should go and get an MRI, because you never know, it might not even have anything to do with the crazy shit you took when you were a younger man.

IV: EVERYTHING ELSE

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

Was Charlie Sheen really “winning” when he was fired from
Two and a Half Men?
Or is it impossible to lead such a wild existence without some kind of tragic conclusion?

Ted, Yorkshire

There are three things I don’t like talking about these days: religion, politics, and Charlie Sheen. I’ll say this, though: if Charlie Sheen had found a cure for cancer, the guy wouldn’t have got as much press as he did when he was doing his Winning Warlock thing—which probably says more about our society than it does him. Also, as a general rule, it ain’t ever a good idea to make a big announcement about how you’re suddenly clean and sober, ’cos chances are, you’ll fall off the wagon at some point—and I guarantee, there’ll be a camera there, waiting for you. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, the baseball cap, the mug and spoon set, and every other souvenir you can think of.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I am a 47-year-old woman who’s indulged in various medicinal herbs and chemicals for most of my life. Now I’d like to stop, but how do I fight the urge to self-medicate?

Lucille, New York

It ain’t easy. When I finally admitted that I had a problem with booze, my mum said to me, “Well why don’t you just stop bloody
drinking then
?” But the truth is, very few people can do that. Fortunately, there’s a lot of help out there now—which wasn’t the case in my day. The fact you understand that you’re self-medicating is a good thing, ’cos it means you ain’t under any illusions, although it sounds to me like you haven’t come to terms with the fact you might be an addict yet. The next stage is to find a good therapist, or a local AA meeting. That’s how I started. Having said that, the most important thing for me was changing my social circle. I just don’t hang out with practicing drug addicts or alcoholics any more. When you do that, you finally realize what a small minority of people have a case of beer and an eight-ball of cocaine for breakfast.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’m not a big druggie, but I have a big birthday celebration coming up and I want to enjoy myself. Obviously I don’t want to cause any permanent damage—or end up in hospital—so what combination of magic plants, powders, pills, and other mind-altering chemicals would you recommend for a really kick-ass time?