A memoir of intoxication like no other, On Drugs explores Chris Fleming’s experience of drug addiction, which begins while he is a student before escalating into a life-threatening compulsion.

A philosopher by training, Fleming combines meticulous observation of his life with a keen sense of the absurdity of his actions. He describes the intricacies of drug use and acquisition, their impact on the intellect and emotions, and the chaos that emerges as his tightly managed existence unravels into arrests, hospitalisations and family breakdown. His account is accompanied by searching reflections on his childhood, during which he developed acute obsessive compulsive disorder and became fixated on martial arts, music-making and bodybuilding.

In confronting the pathos and comedy of drug use, On Drugs also opens out into meditations on the self and its deceptions, on popular culture, religion and mental illness, and the tortuous path to recovery.