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The teaching life is stressful.
Whether you’re wrangling kindergarteners all day to teach them how to read, trying to get high schoolers to pay attention long enough to study for the SAT’s or instructing at the highest level at college, we’re sure they all have their way of letting loose and destressing, but none likely as interesting as Columbia University professor Carl Hart.
Hart, a psychology and neuroscience professor, has a unique way of feeling euphoric, and it involves being a regular user of heroin for the past five years. In his new book, Drug Use for Grown-ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, Hart speaks on the stigma that is attached to using such a drug, explaining that he’s still able to fulfill his professional and personal obligations and doesn’t consider it to be a drug “problem.”
“I wrote this book to present a more realistic image of the typical drug user: a responsible professional who happens to use drugs in his pursuit of happiness,” Hart explains on his website. “Also, I wanted to remind the public that no benevolent government should forbid autonomous adults from altering their consciousness, as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others.”
According to the NY Post, Hart is explicit about his use in the book and says that doing a couple of lines at the end of the day by his fireplace make him feel “refreshed” and “prepared to face another day.”
He goes on to liken his heroin use to other parts of his life– as it all boils down to knowing your limits and having a balance.
My heroin use is as recreational as my alcohol use,” Hart wrote in the book. “Like vacation, sex, and the arts, heroin is one of the tools that I use to maintain my work-life balance.”
Hart’s book was released on January 12, and you can currently buy it on Amazon here.
