Coleridge's Drug Addiction

Exploring Samuel Coleridge’s use of opium or laudanum, I found some interesting things about his addiction. According to Earl Leslie Griggs in his article “Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Opium,” Coleridge took opium for numerous health remedies growing up but it wasn’t until the autumn and winter of 1800-1801 that opium really took hold (357). According to a letter written by Coleridge, he was suffering from swelling joints when he read in a medical journal that rubbing in laudanum and taking some internally would alleviate his distress (357). After applying the remedy, Coleridge writes that he “recovered the use of [his] limbs, of [his] appetite, of [his] spirits” until the remedy wore off and the pain returned (357).

            Coleridge also wrote “The Pains of Sleep” about the withdrawals from opium use. Griggs quotes a letter from Coleridge in which he quotes some lines from “The Pains of Sleep” that he says were “an exact and most faithful portraiture of the state of my mind under influences of incipient bodily derangement from the use of Opium” (358). Clearly Coleridge was so addicted at the time that not continuing the use of opium caused withdrawal symptoms. In 1808, Coleridge tried to quit opium cold turkey, but was met with such symptoms that he and physicians decided that quitting opium at that point would cause his death rather than save his life (359). Coleridge tried cutting his doses, but nevertheless returned to his full indulgence (359).

            It is sad that such a brilliant life was cut short by a drug problem, but Griggs writes that it shows Coleridge’s strength of character that he could produce such memorable works under the influences of such a debilitating addiction (364).

Works Cited

Griggs, Earl Leslie, and Seymour Teulon Porter. "Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Opium." Huntington Library Quarterly 17.4 (1954): pp. 357-378. Web.