There is a moment in Junky in which a psychiatrist asks William Burroughs’ narrator why he needs narcotics. His answer is to get out of bed in the morning, to function – “I need it to stay alive.” Later, managing to stay clean for two months but seeing his new existence as dull, he can’t help but remember the pleasure from his addiction, “your life draining into your arm three times a day.” Heroin was for him a necessary stimulant, a vitalizing giver not sapper of life.