Dan Peres’ book As Needed For Pain chronicles his addiction to Vicodin and Oxycodone. I wondered who the person listed as Rockstar and after I came up with the idea that it was Nikki Sixx. My clue came from the lines in the book, “The Rockstar dressed like a Rockstar even when he was just sitting around the house.” Other reviewers commented that this is not a Kiss and Tell Book, and maybe they were a bit disappointed? Not many names were named. There was a sort of scandal, that I think was left out of the book. I only used the Audible App for the book and I don’t own the Kindle Edition, but apparently this was not put in the book.
There was scandal called “Gay or Asian” is about an article in Details magazine that Dan Peres should have given a pass, but there is another scandal as well. Dan Peres allowed an article to go to print that was not written by Kurt Andersen but used his name. I had no idea who Kurt Andersen was but some people consider him important. In another article it was pointed out that all Peres had to do was give Kurt Andersen a call to confirm, but he did not do so. I assumed he was too involved with his pain killers to bother to make the call. He said he would let things go to print without checking them first. Although Peres was responsible, he fired Bob Ickes. Bob Ickes disappeared into obscurity after that. This does not seem to be such a big deal to me in terms of a mistake was made, nothing could be done to apologize and move forward with more attention to details in the future.
What I found to be the worst thing about Dan Peres is people like him make it impossible for people who would use pain killers responsibly to get pain killers at all. Many people are going to die in pain thanks to the selfish and indulgent habits of people like Dan Peres. No doctors want to prescribe pain killers for daily use for average people with pain. Some people have even committed suicide rather then live with real pain without narcotics. For every weak person who just pops as many pills as they can there are many more people who are responsible. When I read he took 15 Vicodin pills just to wake in the morning and as many as 60 pills a day, I was like “How can anyone let this happen?” He knew the risks of physical addiction.
The Acetaminophen they put in these pain killing pills is there to stop people from taking too much of them. The Acetaminophen is really harmful to kidneys and if people take too much they will get very sick from the Acetaminophen. I wish they would stop putting Acetaminophen in pain pills and cold medicines. It feels like a deliberate sabotage. When I read Peres counted his pain pills daily, it felt like he was not being carefully and would just take them without any regard because he was so confident that he could use his money and social status to insure he could get as many as he wanted.
I don’t why Peres did not ask The Rockstar for Heroin rather then try to buy it himself. I am also not convinced that Dan Peres is actually clean and sober. I assume he may be still taking pills but has learned to regulate them. He must be getting them from the Underground because he can’t go into a doctor’s office as himself and ask for pain pills after writing the book.
William Burroughs wrote about conning doctors in his first novel Junky. In Junky Burroughs’s wrote about all he did for his habit. He had to spend all his time working to make sure he did not run out of drugs and to portion out his use. Burroughs looks like the picture of self-control compared to Dan Peres. Maybe I would find myself in a similar position, if I had access to pain killers, but I doubt it. I would not ever what to go to that place and risk the pain of withdrawal.
As Needed For Pain is a good book to read if you want to know more about addiction. Some of the stories the book the seemed to end without a conclusion, but I still giving this book a positive review. It’s a page turner. I can’t really say if I think Dan Peres is still using. I think he may be. Once someone is famous for taking drugs dealers will seek them out and offer services. But I could be complete wrong about that.
Macy Makes Magic 