Audiobook 04 – “The First Trip Report”

Audiobook 04 – “The First Trip Report”

From Psychedelic Salon by Lorenzo Hagerty

October 6, 2025 · 3h 46m

About this episode

The episode explores Thomas De Quincey's struggles while writing the first addiction memoir during a time of personal crisis.

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speakers: Lorenzo's AI Friends PROGRAM NOTES: London, autumn 1821. Thomas De Quincey is broke, hiding from creditors, and addicted to laudanum when a magazine offers him fifteen pounds ($2,000 in 2025 money) to write about his opium experiences. He has six weeks to finish what will become the first addiction memoir ever published Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. This historical novella takes us inside those crucial weeks of literary creation, following De Quincey as he races against deadlines while wrestling with an impossible question: How do you write honestly about drug experiences without encouraging others to repeat your mistakes? Each page he completes brings him closer to fame—and closer to accepting responsibility for consequences he cannot predict or control. Based on historical events, The First Trip Report explores how private suffering became public art, how a desperate writer accidentally invented a new literary genre, and how one small brown bottle of laudanum helped create the template for every addiction memoir written since. It's a story about the dangerous act of confession, the ethics of influence, and the moment when…

People in this episode

Host: Lorenzo Hagerty

Topics covered

  • addiction memoir
  • literary creation
  • drug experiences
  • ethics of influence
  • historical events

Keywords

  • Thomas De Quincey
  • opium
  • addiction
  • literature
  • laudanum
  • confession
  • historical novella

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

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