Oliver Sacks: I was a dangerous drug addict

OPINION INTERVIEW brother. He decided to head west, and after a brief dalliance with the Royal Canadian Air Force – “I wanted to fly, they wanted me to do physiology” – Sacks headed south to California where he met the poet Thom Gunn, who would become a friend and writing mentor. Though that period seems crucial in the development of Sacks’s interest in neurology and in cultivating his nascent writing skills, exactly what happened while he was in California is still shrouded in mystery. When I ask him about it, he looks wistful and says: Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who brought us Awakenings “Those were my lost years, maybe one day I’ll write about them in greater detail.” and The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, tells David Cohen He moved to New York in 1965. “My about his “lost years” in California, his subsequent life as an alien ostensible reasons for coming to New York were academic,” says Sacks. He became and how cancer gave him the opportunity to experiment on fascinated by the techniques being pioneered himself for his latest book by Robert Terry, then at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, to study Alzheimer’s disease. However, he later admits there was another FOR his 76th birthday, Oliver Sacks received an neurological disorders, together with his own reason he left California. “I was a dangerous ounce of osmium, the densest natural element scientific, poetic and philosophical reflections. drug addict,” he says. “It started almost by in the periodic table. “I like density, and it’s the In person Sacks is gentle and polite, with accident. I would occasionally smoke cannabis, only really blue metal, it’s rather beautiful,” the air of a doting uncle, though a series of which everyone does. Someone had given me he says. The year before he got a “nice rod of knee and back operations have left him with some cannabis laced with something. I found rhenium” and the year before that it was a aches and pains. “I can’t sit still for more than that lacing agent gorgeous.” Sacks became piece of tungsten. 20 minutes,” he says. This comes on top of a addicted to amphetamines. He says he was You may have worked out that the gifts were more dramatic health issue: in 2005 Sacks was doing it as “a recourse for a lonely and isolated chosen because the place they occupy in the diagnosed with a melanoma in his right eye. person”. He never took drugs with friends, periodic table corresponded to his age. Sacks’s Later this month, Sacks’s latest book will be always alone. “I would take a huge dose of office in downtown Manhattan, New York, is published. The Mind’s Eye explores a series of littered with samples of elements. “I like to neurological disorders affecting vision. Unlike “I would take a huge dose of have some of my metals around me all the many of his other books, he devotes a chapter amphetamine – 400 tablets time,” he says. It is an impressive collection, to his own experience of partially losing on the weekend” though perhaps a little unexpected for a man his sight. He describes how he experienced who is famous for his amazing collection of curious and unexpected optical illusions case histories in neurology. as his brain struggled to fill in the blanks. amphetamine – 400 tablets on the weekend – Sacks, a physician-turned-author, shot Ever the scientist, Sacks experimented and basically have something like a non-stop to fame in 1973 with the publication of with his newly developed blind zone. In one orgasm for 48 hours.” Awakenings, a book that describes how he experiment he looked at his foot, visually After three years of drug-taking, on New treated a group of patients suffering from amputating it. Within moments a surreal foot- Year’s Day 1965 he found himself staring encephalitis lethargica, otherwise known as like blob began to form in its place. On another at his gaunt form in the bathroom mirror sleepy sickness. The story was later turned occasion, after an operation to remove the and decided he needed help. He moved to into a film starring Robin Williams. His next tumour left one eye completely bandaged, New York and began seeing a therapist who famous book, The Man Who Mistook his Wife he closed his good eye, only to see the scene he continues to visit regularly. In 1966 Sacks for a Hat, created a template for his non-fiction before him persist, as if he hadn’t closed began working with the patients that would books about neurology: collections of case his eyes at all. Sacks stops short of drawing feature in his book Awakenings, and the rest histories that Sacks picked for the intriguing sweeping conclusions about the nature of the is slightly better documented history. ways in which his patients cope with baffling brain and visual system, preferring his case After Awakenings was published, histories to speak for themselves. But he says Gunn wrote to him in admiration. Sacks fishes Profile his general conclusion is that the brain has a out a letter from his files and reads me an Born in London in 1933, Oliver Sacks read medicine remarkable ability to compensate if a sensory extract: “The very things which had been most at the University of Oxford. He moved to the US, input is taken away. “It’s always busy,” he says. missing earlier of feeling for other people, worked as a neurologist at Albert Einstein College Sacks was born in London in 1933. He now seem to be the centre and organising of Medicine and is now professor of neurology and studied medicine at the University of Oxford principle with the whole book.” Gunn asked psychiatry at Columbia University, both in New but felt after qualifying that there were “too him what happened. “Did you fall in love, was York City. His new book is The Mind’s Eye many Dr Sacks” in the UK at the time – both it psychoanalysis? Have you been taking drugs? his parents were physicians, as was his older Or did it just happen?” Sacks replied: “All four.”

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26 | NewScientist | 2 October 2010

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Sacks is guarded on personal matters. He never married, nor does he have any children. Though he has “20 or so godchildren”, he says, “sometimes I do regret not having any, but in a way my books are my children.” Kicking his addiction to drugs may have saved his life, but unlike many English people in New York who “go native”, Sacks has maintained a certain distance from his adopted home. “I have never voted in a US election, despite being a resident in the country for the last 50 years. I’m called a resident alien, and this suits me,” he says. Does he feel regret at being an outsider? “I think there are good and bad aspects to being an outsider. The good thing is that I can look with detachment and sympathy, the bad thing is that there’s not a sense of belonging or identification.” This detachment has arguably been key to his success. But while the books have won huge praise and popularity, some critics think his style exploits the misfortune of his patients. Sacks says he takes the utmost care not to take advantage of anyone, though admits that after all these years he still has a residual feeling of discomfort when writing about his patients. “I had to fight against the notion that I was betraying people. Now I feel that if I write in a mode of respect and appreciation, and if I’m persuaded that it is OK with the person, then it is OK.” Despite his age and ailing health, Sacks shows no sign of giving up his passions. Having largely recovered from his operations, he is back seeing patients. His next book, a follow up to The Mind’s Eye, exploring nonpsychotic hallucinations brought about by conditions such as blindness, migraine and drug use, is in the pipeline. Despite being brought up in a house where fervent Zionist meetings took place – his cousin Abba Eban later became the first Israeli ambassador to the United Nations – Sacks has largely shunned making his political views known. In his autobiography, he says he came to “hate Zionism and evangelism and politicking of every sort” – a feeling that has stayed with him to this day. He declined a recent invitation to join a group of “evangelist atheists” including Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett and says “I don’t want to take a public stance on the matter – why should I?” Sacks prefers the subtle approach. “If I can go on describing things quietly and often at some personal reference, then in my own quiet way I will affect people one way or another.” And that, at heart, seems to sum Sacks up. n 2 October 2010 | NewScientist | 27