SCUMBAG SEWER RATS:

CRIMINALIZED MALE DRUG ADDICTS AND THE TRICKSTER ARCHETYPE

by

JOHN SMETHERS

to

PACIFICA GRADUATE INSTITUTE

in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the

degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY

This dissertation has been

accepted for the faculty of

Pacifica Graduate Institute by:

________________________________

Mike Denney, MD, PhD

Advisor

_________________________________

David Nieman, PhD

External Reader

_________________________________

Patricia Katsky, PhD

Dissertation Coordinator

Copyright by

JOHN E. SMETHERS

2003

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ABSTRACT

SCUMBAG SEWER RATS:

THE CRIMINALIZED MALE DRUG ADDICT AND THE TRICKSTER ARCHETYPE

by

John E. Smethers

The general public, the mental health profession, the American judicial system, and criminalized male drug addicts themselves are struck with a social paradigmatic attitude toward criminalized male drug addicts that characterizes them as dirty, rotten, scumbag sewer rats.

This attitude, which others have toward them and which they have about themselves causes a self-fulfilling prophecy of aberrant behavior that keeps them isolated from the general public. As long as their dysfunctional behavior is scrutinized and labeled in this way, most addicts will continue to remain in a marginalized sector of society with little motivation to join the ranks of the general public.

To complicate matters, most criminalized male addicts who do recover retain many of the qualities that

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have placed them into this category in the first place, and many of those qualities are redemptive if they apply them to the betterment of mankind.

Motivated by spending more than 30 years as a member of this population, I have asked how I might inspire myself and others of my ilk to view themselves not as degenerates, but as worthy and productive people who have been directing the proclivities of the trickster archetype in the wrong direction.

To approach this phenomenon, I have chosen a phenomenological/artistic methodology: phenomenological in that I analyze data gleaned from interviews with drug addicts, and artistic in that I elucidate the lived experiences of criminalized male drug addicts in a series of stories about the fictional figure of Harry Scumbag.

Through these stories, I have elucidated the trickster archetype in drug addicts both in the stories themselves and in the act of story-telling, for in telling these stories, I, too, continue my own trickster ways creating works that are confabulation, partly factual and partly fictional. In the process, the redemptive possibilities in the trickster archetype emerge.

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This dissertation is dedicated

to my daughter

Lynda Castenada

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Introduction 1

Criminalized male drug addicts 3

Male drug addicts and the criminal justice system 12

Personal history 17

Correlation between drug use & incarceration 22

The Trickster archetype and criminalized male addicts 23

Drug use in prison 27

Purpose of the study 28

Chapter 2. Review of the literature 31

The criminalized male drug addicts and the trickster 35

The male drug addicted trickster as puer 50

The male drug addicted trickster in prison 56

Writing by drug addict inmates as tricksters 64

Trickster drug use in trickster institutions 69

The male addicted trickster in group therapy 72

Treating addiction with anger management 76

Statement of the problem 83

Chapter 3. Method 85

Phenomenological component 86

Subjects 88

Data analysis 91

Limitations and delimitations 92

Ethical assurances 93

Results 94

Artistic component 110

Chapter 4. Harry Scumbag and the Tijuana connection 118

Chapter 5. Harry Scumbag and the cattle rustlers 136

Chapter 6. Harry Scumbag and the car theft caper 151

Chapter 7. Harry Scumbag and the lube-bay bandits 168

Chapter 8. Harry Scumbag’s prescription for addiction 184

Chapter 9. Discussion and analysis 195

Hermeneutic Review 196

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Inspirational aspects 201

References 204

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Every generation occupies itself with

interpreting Trickster anew...

--Paul Radin

Toward the end of my addictive lifestyle, I was on probation. Being the manipulative trickster that I was, I got what I thought was a bright idea. At my next appointment with my probation officer, I decided to take my beautiful young daughter in with me. It would surely impress him that I had raised such a nice girl. Wrong! He saw right through my shallow ploy. He looked at me, kind of shaking his head. He then looked at her and asked, "Did you know that your dad was a dirty, scumbag sewer

rat?" Jung said:

Without the interest in the trickster archetype in the criminalized male drug addict and the ways I have experienced it in my life, I probably wouldn’t have been drawn to writing about it in a doctoral dissertation. The unique perspective of this dissertation is the acknowledgment of just how crazy the world of criminalized male drug addicts is, and how hard these tricksters are to pin down, compartmentalize, label, and understand.

It is worth considering what we can learn about criminalized male drug addicts that is different from the usual theoretical and statistical studies done on this population. Can a depth psychological perspective on the trickster archetype in criminalized male drug addicts help us to better understand their lived experience? Will a phenomenological/artistic study of a group of criminalized male drug addicts help us to determine why they don’t respond well to treatment, and why their recidivism rate is so high? And what are the ramifications of criminalized male drug addicts being viewed as, and viewing themselves as, dirty, lying, cheating, scumbag sewer rats?

This dissertation will address these issues in an attempt to elucidate insights that are otherwise unknown to those who tend to judge these people negatively.

This dissertation will examine the lived experiences of male drug addicts who have become criminals, in varying degrees of misdemeanor and felony. As one who was once a criminalized drug and alcohol addict, I can attest, using their own street jargon, that drug addicts believe that they are, and that they are viewed by others as dirty, rotten, lying, scumbag sewer rats.

To be sure, many criminalized drug addicts think of themselves within these cultural stereotypes. At a deeper level, however, the lived experience of being a drug addict may be something quite different and, indeed, may vary from person to person. Certainly, many drug addicts seem to view themselves as victims, others may simply live in a minute-to-minute expediency as they search for their next bag, and some may even consider themselves to be misguided human beings who are worthy of redemption.

In this dissertation, I began by using a phenomenological methodology, and in the process of analyzing the data found that I had to add an artistic methodology component in order adequately to express the emerging themes of the trickster archetype in my male drug addict participants.

It is common for young men who think of themselves as hip, slick, and cool to start using drugs. Before they experiment with drugs, they usually don’t have the motivation to indulge in criminal activity. Of course, poverty, bad parental role models, and a pressing need for cash can trigger criminal indulgence. But even these types of men will eventually succumb to drug use through association if for no other reason that dealing drugs is good money. There are exceptions, but for the most part, it is a misconception that drug dealers don’t use their own products.

It is also difficult for many recovered (abstinent) male addicts to change the con artist behavior they developed while they were using--conniving, lying, stealing, womanizing, and not being responsible or accountable for their actions. Just staying away from addictive substances isn’t enough, so a majority of abstinent male drug addicts will repeat the same old behaviors and expect different results.

These individuals will start associating with their old road dogs (buddies), hanging out in bars, and going to other hangouts in the ‘hood. Many of them, such as speed and coke addicts, are accustomed to fast cash, fast

women, and a fast lifestyle. It’s very difficult for them to stay clean and sober. The same goes for the robbing and burglarizing night life of heroin addicts. These varied forms of criminal lifestyles are all they know. Drugs and alcohol offer a comfort zone they’ve been in for the better part of their lives.

Extrinsic abstinence resulting from a nudge from the judge (AA meetings or treatment), a spouse threatening to leave, or job security is rarely conducive to lasting recovery. Proclaiming themselves as hope-to-die dope fiends generally negates any and all attempts at intrinsic recovery. These confirmed addicts are professionals at feigning recovery--even convincing themselves--for a while.

Why did they start using to begin with? The causes of drug addiction are uncertain, controversial, and many. Some scholars, such as Corbett (1996), believe that addiction is a search for spiritual transformation:

William James (1958) said "I refer to the consciousness

produced by intoxicants and anaesthetics, especially by alcohol. The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature" (p. 324).

Most psychological and developmental theories and explanations don’t provide an adequate account for understanding. Given the influence of Carl Jung on Alcoholics Anonymous and the myriad 12-step programs that came later, this dissertation, therefore, will have a Jungian orientation which intends to examine phenomenologically the lived experiences of addicts themselves. According to the book Pass it On: The Story of Bill Wilson and How the AA Message Reached the World (1984), Jung’s direct influence on AA originates from a man named Rowland:

Burns (1999) further integrates Jungian Psychology and AA using archetypal psychology in the treatment of alcoholism. He explains that "merging archetypal psychology with Twelve-Step treatment has improved results at a lower cost (p. 19). Burns explains that

Within these pages I will use a more effective mode of elucidation: story--my story. Personal experience is a valid reference tool. Qualitative researchers insist that qualitative methods are more appropriate than quantitative methods and also allow subjective knowledge. Academia is also recognizing that the personal experience of felons is proving to be a valuable teaching asset.

In an article in the New York Times, Warren St. John (2003) discusses the role of "ex-convict criminologist professor, Stephen C. Richards, at Northern Kentucky University," saying that the "time these professors spent as prison inmates adds special insight to their research and their teaching" (p. A-13). My prison experience coupled with my background of addiction adds a worthy component to my theoretical orientation. Having established my personal and Jungian bent, I’ll continue to establish the spiritual essence of my study.

Weil (1972) suggests that altering consciousness is innate. Perhaps the internal need to release inhibitions, be devious, act crazy, fight, gamble, chase women, lie, cheat, and steal is also an innate need to alter consciousness. Perhaps some people are destined to live by organizing principles that we are unaware of. Perhaps there is far more than we would like to admit that we simply don’t know. Perhaps many of our present theories are wrong.

As one who spent many years with an addictive mind-set and lifestyle, and associating with many criminalized drug addicts, I don’t believe they are interested in causal explanations. They are preoccupied with lying, cheating, and manipulating to satisfy the urgent expediency of obtaining their next bag.

Drug addicts even lie when it would behoove them to tell the truth. For example, when a parole or probation officer asks them if they’ve been using, they will instinctively lie even when telling the truth would be more likely to result in avoiding a violation of their parole or in receiving probation instead of a jail sentence. Their lying will usually get them violated sooner than the dirty test.

Additionally, these drug addicts often choose jail over treatment programs because the slammer is familiar and there they won’t be expected to give up a lifestyle they’ve become accustomed to and comfortable with. Many addicts continue this compulsive behavior even though they know full well that their reckless ways can and usually do lead to jails, institutions, and death.

If we consider the social problems that addicts cause, we cannot help but notice the financial and emotional grief that they inflict upon others. Not only do addicts cost taxpayers an astronomical amount of money, such as for medical care and for funding prisons, they also contribute considerably to the high morbidity and mortality in the culture due to viruses such as hepatitis C and HIV.

Many drug addicts hurt the ones they love the most, usually by ripping off family members to buy drugs. How many families have learned the hard way that enabling addictive behavior by allowing their addicted family member to live with them most always ends with the stolen belongings of the family becoming profit for the fences (people who buy stolen property).

The Alanon and Narcanon programs are designed to help the families of addicts. According to the big book of Alcoholic’s Anonymous (2001), "The entire family is, to some extent, ill" (p. 122). Family members will repeatedly give money to, lie for, and make excuses for their addicted relatives, mistakenly thinking that they’re helping them. Regardless of the blinders that family members wear, most of them have a stereotypical image of drug addicts that certainly doesn’t fit the image they have of their addicted kin. "Not my son!" Denial is obviously not restricted to drug and alcohol addicts.

However, we will never know how many addicts stopped their dope-fiend ways and lived out the rest of their lives as productive citizens. There are very few people whose lives have not been touched in some way by addicts, and the problems they cause themselves are all too obvious.

Many people in middle-class and upper-class society visualize alcoholics as they are depicted on popular media--derelicts stumbling down the street with brown paper bags in their hands. They see drug addicts as thin,

gaunt creeps with pale skin and scraggly hair, hanging out in alleys with tracks on their arms, lying around with dirty outfits (syringes) surrounding them. Within this stereotype, addicts are thought of as degenerate, slothful, dishonest, hedonistic, and stupid.

But how can addicts be thought of as slothful when they will stop at nothing to get what they want--and they are highly motivated when they want to be? And how can they be thought of as stupid and still have such a creative intelligence? Consider the following typical dope-fiend creativity:

John, a meth addict, is attracted to Mike’s wife. One day, Mike’s wife asks, "Do you see something you like?" Surprised by her boldness, John admits that he does. She says, "well, you can have it for $500." After thinking about it for a while, John agrees. She tells him to be at her house around 2 pm Friday.

John shows up at the house at 2 pm sharp, pays the $500, has his way with Mike’s wife, and hurries away.

As usual, Mike comes home from work at 6 pm and upon entering the house asks his wife: "Did John come by the house this afternoon?" With a lump in her throat, she answers, "Why yes, he did." Her heart skips a beat when Mike asks: "And did he give you $500?" After mustering up her best poker face, she replies: "Well, yes, in fact he did give me $500." Mike, with a satisfied look on his face, says "good, I was hoping he did. John came by the office this morning and borrowed $500 from me. He promised me he would stop by here on his way home to pay me back." This is classic drug-addictive behavior, dishonest but wickedly creative.

So, are drug addicts dirty, rotten, scumbag sewer rats who deserve to be harshly punished, or are they misguided human beings, who, like Hermes with Apollo, are worthy of redemption?

Imagine a Neanderthal man named Moger leaving his cave to forage food for his family. Moger is responsible, the kind of person who stands on his own two bare feet and works hard hunting from dawn to dusk so his family can live in caveman comfort.

A few caves down the valley lives a neighbor named Cleb. Cleb is a shifty, lazy, deadbeat--an irresponsible, beady-eyed creep who sleeps a lot, freeloads off the generosity of others, and is known to imbibe certain

mind-altering herbs of the forest.

One day Moger is returning home to his cave, dragging a small saber-toothed tiger by the tail, when he notices a large hunk of venison that he had hung up to dry had disappeared. It doesn’t take much for even the slow mind of a caveman like Moger to conclude that his no-good, irresponsible scumbag neighbor, Cleb, has ripped him off again.

Moger picks up his club and stalks straight down the valley to Cleb’s rundown, dilapidated cave and finds the full-bellied Cleb smacking and drooling and gnawing on Moger’s venison bone. Anger and revenge flood through Moger’s prehistoric mind as he clubs the old opium addict over the cranium, knocking him senseless. Moger picks up what is left of his venison bone and strolls on home with a self-satisfied grin on his face. A wrong is made right and thus is the dawn of the criminal justice system.

However, Foucault (1977) explains that the recorded history of punishment goes from torture in the public square (p. 14) to the guillotine (p. 13) to the emergence of prisons (p. 231). Now we have community service and the probation and parole systems, and in some parts of the country we have drug courts. Unofficially, according to a PBS and WGBH Frontline Internet article entitled "Opium throughout history" (1998), the use of opium goes back to the ancient cave dwellers of Moger and Cleb who drew pictures of the poppy plant on cave walls. Historically, however, "it goes back to 3400 BCE where it was cultivated in lower Mesopotamia. The Sumerians refer to it as Hul Gil, the 'joy plant.' The Sumerians soon passed along the plant and its euphoric effects to the Assyrians. The art of poppy-culling continued from the Assyrians to the Babylonians who in turn passed their knowledge onto the Egyptians.

In 460 BCE Hippocrates, "the father of medicine," dismisses the magical attributes of opium but acknowledges its usefulness as a narcotic and styptic in treating internal diseases, diseases of women, and epidemics (PBS and Frontline, 1998).

"By the 1300s opium disappeared for 200 years from European historical records. It had become a taboo subject for those in circles of learning during the Holy Inquisition, then it resurfaced again in Portugal in the 1500s. In 1680, English apothecary Thomas Sydenham, introduced Sydenham's Laudanum" (PBS and Frontline, 1998).

According to Carson-DeWitt (2001), in the United States, laudanum "was sold widely as a tonic and cure-all, in shops, by mail order, and by traveling medicine shows. Laudanum use and abuse are often mentioned in novels and plays of and about the period" (p. 682). Also, soft drinks during that period were providing a buzz:

Carson-DeWitt (2001) explain that "by the late 1880s, opium was a customary medium of exchange at San Quentin Prison in California, and it was routinely available in the big county jails of the United States at the turn of the century" (p. 1122). "It wasn’t until 1910," Carson-DeWitt continues, "that drug addiction was popularly associated with petty thieves, dissipated actors, gamblers, prostitutes and other corruptors of society" (p. 1121). Around that time, "mental hygienists at Norfolk State Hospital gave up treating drug addicts and started incarcerating them in the Massachusetts State Farm at Bridgewater, a correctional facility. (p. 1122).

In 1914, things started tightening up concerning narcotics. Bratter and Forrest (1985) tell us:

Drug addicts have been on the receiving end of punishment for a long time. More recently, in addition to jails and prisons, 12-step programs, treatment center/rehabs, and psychotherapy have provided possible solutions, but statistically, most of them have been unsuccessful. Laundergan (1982) writes

It seems to me that with drug use only, the abstinence rate drops even farther.

Personal History

I am called to investigate the lived experiences of criminalized drug addicts because of my personal experience of more than 30 years as an addict. "Hi, I’m a wino, junky, and a bunch of other shit, and my name is John." This is the way I introduce myself in AA and NA meetings.

On my first day at Pacifica Graduate Institute, students were asked to introduce themselves and give a brief background that would describe who they are. I introduced myself to my fellow students and faculty members by saying, "Hello, my name is John Smethers. When I was 11 years old I went to a party, and didn’t get back until I was 45." Several students and a couple faculty members approached me and made comments afterwards, saying such things as "Hey, I was at that party!" After 3 years of study at Pacifica, I can see how that simple statement led to a common theme in writing papers, giving presentations, and eventually the writing of this dissertation.

Writing this dissertation is forcing me to acknowledge certain truths about the nature of my addiction. I am not one of those who would do everything differently if I had my life to live over again. My puerile and trickster lifestyle was fun, which is what my priority in life was. The years I spent experimenting

with psychedelic drugs, for example, were some of the most spiritually meaningful, in that I began seeing myself as a worthy human being regardless of the blinders I had on concerning the more opprobrious behavior that I displayed. Ferguson (1980) says

Concerning my opprobrious behavior, my fraudulent sales tactics in the service station business where I bilked people for tens of thousands of dollars, and my self-serving inattentiveness to my daughter’s well-being, caused me to regard myself as a downright unworthy human being. All my broken promises, lies, and utter disregard for being a father that my daughter could be proud of, were in direct service to my own selfish needs.

I believe this psychological, emotional, and spiritual dichotomy, however, has given me an insight

into the trickster mind-set of male criminalized drug addicts that most people are lacking. To introduce a new but descriptive word, I will periodically use the term jointster when referring to this population--joint, referring to prison, ster--referring to trickster.

Today, I consider myself a worthy human being who was possibly misguided at a very early age. For example, in the sixth grade my friend Richard and I agreed to contact each other if we ever found out where to get drugs. Richard was older than his years and could have had a profound influence later in my life. This same kid caused me to get expelled from school in the sixth grade for propositioning a female classmate. I had no sexual desires yet, but Richard did; in fact, he told me that he had sex with his sisters. Anyway, I believe that the year we associated together, he probably influenced my thinking in an outlawish direction. Through this dissertation I am convinced that I am still seeking redemption for the things that I would change if I was given the chance to live my life over again.

Until recently, my only redemption was incarceration in county jails and prison. Between July 1960 and January 1991 when I was released from parole, there was scarcely

a time when I wasn’t on probation or parole, doing time, community service, paying fines, or pending court. I’ve been arrested approximately 50 times for various misdemeanor and felony offenses--very few of which were unrelated in some way to my drinking and drug use. There weren’t many of those arrests that I wasn’t convicted of. Among those charges are six DUIs--driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. I pulled time in county jails and eventually the joint--state prison. In those institutions of lower learning, I found that most of the people I was imprisoned with were, in many ways, like me. Redemption, then, was paying my debt to society. Once my fine was paid or my sentence served, I had redeemed myself, and I was then free to do whatever I wanted. It was a superficial form of redemption, but still redemption in my mind. A more profound redemption would come later.

When I was 18 years old, I was sentenced to 60 days in the county jail for possession of alcohol by a minor and having an open container in a motor vehicle. Shortly after my release, one of my friends asked how I liked it. He was just kidding, but I will never forget his reaction when I smiled and said, "I liked it."

Compared to what I was expecting, I did like it. Two of my running partners (fellow drug users) came into the same institution with me a couple weeks later. One of them was even assigned to my dorm--we also worked on the kitchen crew together. The other one was in another dorm with only the day room between us, and we were allowed to visit each other’s dorms during day-room hours. We met new drug connections, played practical jokes on each other, and we spent our off time talking about all the things we were going to do and how high we were going to get when we got out. I remember describing it as being like a summer boy’s camp. It’s nickname was camp snoopy.

From that time forward, doing time was not much of a threat to me. In fact, over the next 20 years, I returned to that same county camp four more times. After that, when I was 43 years of age, I was sentenced to the California Department of Corrections because of a probation violation that I received for a drug sale. Little had changed since the 1960s--with me, my friends, or the people I was incarcerated with.

Prior to the 1960s, convicts were in prison for committing crimes. Not that many were committing crimes, malesuada fames, for drugs or because they were under the influence of drugs. Times have changed.

Kipnis (1999) reports studies done by the Prison Activist Resource Center that list the top ten reasons for Californians entering prison today:

1. Possession of a controlled substance

2. Possession of a controlled substance for sale

3. Robbery

4. Sale of a controlled substance

5. Second-degree burglary

6. Assault with a deadly weapon

7. Driving under the influence of a substance

8. First-degree burglary

9. Petty theft with a prior conviction

10. Vehicle theft

Clearly, substance-related charges are at the top of the list (p. 176). According to Kipnis, drug offenders represent 60 % of federal prisoners and over one-third of state and county prisoners (p. 121).

Considering those percentages, let us re-examine the list of the top ten reasons for Californians entering prison. Numbers 1, 2, 4, and 7 are directly drug-related. However, how many of the people incarcerated for robbery and burglary--numbers 3, 5, 8, 9, and 10--were acquiring money to support a habit or to buy recreational drugs? And how many of number 6's assaults were committed while

under the influence of drugs or alcohol? Judging from my experience, that would be hard to determine, as would the correlation existing between number 10, car theft, and drugs.

King and Mauer (2002), suggest that this trend is nationwide: "the number of inmates incarcerated for drug offenses at all levels--state and federal prisons and local jails--has skyrocketed by more than 1,000% from 40,000 in 1980 to 453,000 by 1999" (overview).

I have described the connection between chemically dependent males and their criminalization, but what makes these people tricksters? Weren’t the prison populations prior to the 60s also tricksters? Probably, but the astronomical number of them now makes a study like this valuable because we can identify them now as embodying an archetype (a rather interesting one), instead of just being dirty, rotten, scumbag sewer rats.

Jung believes that the trickster "is both subhuman and superhuman, a bestial and divine being, whose chief and most alarming characteristic is his unconsciousness" (Jung, 1933/1959, p. 263 [CW 9/1, para. 472]). To say the least, the behavior of addicts, especially after they

have become criminalized, can be quite unconscious--malesuada fames, hunger that urges people to crime. "Because of it [the trickster’s unconsciousness] he is deserted by his (evidently human) companions, which seems to indicate that he has fallen below their level of consciousness" (Jung, 1933/1959, p. 263 [CW 9/1, para 472]).

This quote by Jung calls to mind a situation among male drug users when an addict’s road dogs desert him. An addict will often steal another addict’s dope, and then help him look for it. Of course this scandalous behavior will cause the other addict to seek revenge or at least

to abandon the relationship.

Jung (1933/1959) said, describing the trickster, "He is so unconscious of himself that his body is not a

unity, and his two hands fight each other" (Jung, 1933/1959, p. 263 [CW 9/1, para 472]). Criminalized male drug addicts often exemplify the old saying about the

left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Psychologically analogous to this idea is how most

addicts expect to spend time in jails periodically--"that’s just the way it is," they say. They consider

doing time in jail as dues paid to live the lifestyle they live. Yet, they will turn around and say that they’re never going back, that they’re going to clean up, settle down and get married, and "stop all this bullshit." Sometimes they do, but most of the time they don’t.

Another example is how on one hand the addict continually flirts with death, but on the other hand he has a high motivation to live, and the lifestyle he lives is what he considers living. Not really living is being stuck working a nine-to-five job, married to the same woman forever, and that stupid little house with the white picket fence. But the male drug addict is always "going to clean up, settle down and get married, and stop all this bullshit." Most of us know which side wins. They continue to use, and they go to jail or prison, and they continue to use. Wills and Carona (2000) give a real-life example:

Without the interest in the trickster archetype in the criminalized male drug addict and the ways I have experienced it in my life, I probably wouldn’t have been drawn to writing about it in a doctoral dissertation. Consider the following story from Hyde (1998) about coyote:

Coyote is a recognized trickster in many cultures and has been for a long time. The above antics of coyote can be compared to the antics in the following story by Walker (1999) where he tells stories about human tricksters--bootleggers during the prohibition era:

This is a good example of what Hyde (1998) describes, that a "trickster can also get snared in his own devices" (p. 19).

Walker (1999) tells another story that took place in the Muroc area around Lancaster:

The prohibition era also had its criminalized male

drug (alcohol is a drug) addicts, for bootleggers ended

up in jails and prisons too.

The creative intelligence of tricksters, whether

animal or human, are satisfying some type of hunger. With

coyote, hare, and raven, it’s food. With drug addicts, of

course, it’s drugs. And the hunger for drugs doesn’t stop

when addicts are incarcerated.

Among addicts, it is fairly common knowledge that drugs are more readily available in prison than on the streets. How do they manage to get drugs inside the walls? That’s easy--bribe or con the guards into it. Many prison employees are more than willing to make extra money by smuggling in drugs and selling them to prisoners, and there is plenty of money to be made.

Families also participate in this subterfuge. Many inmates receive money which has been placed on their books--brought in by friends and family. Pruno (home made wine) is a household word among jointsters, even brewed up by inmates in many county penal camps. Prison inmates in California are allowed a package sent to them quarterly which will contain anything from a tin can to a church organ. Besides all the money that’s placed on their books periodically, their wives can bring in money during conjugal weekends, which are allowed every 3 months. Through this family smuggling, together with

convict-guard relations, drugs are easily smuggled in. Serious drug addictions are common in the joint.

Despite the best efforts of our culture to eradicate drug addiction through a combination of rehabilitation programs and imprisonment, male drug addiction remains one of the most prevalent and tragic realities of our modern culture.

The following statistics come from the website of Narconon of Southern California (no date):

This dissertation asserts that a depth psychological, phenomenological study of male drug addicts from the point of view of the trickster archetype may help us to understand these problems in a new light, and perhaps provide insights that might teach us how better to deal with drug addicts.

Chapter 2

Review of the Literature

In the beginning of this literature review, I address spiritual aspects of criminalized male drug addicts; then I move to their psychological and sociological profiles and highlight their personification of the trickster archetype. I also focus upon texts concerning group therapy and 12-step programs, and then I continue with an anger management perspective. Finally, I include stories characteristic of contemporary tricksters.

On the first page of the introduction of Confessions of an English opium-eater, Thomas De Quincey (1994) states:

Hypothetically, these Confessions could be about an ignominious 17th-century trickster who smokes opium and chases women, but they could also be about a suffering man on a spiritual quest for wholeness.

In The Thirst for Wholeness: Attachment, Addiction, and the Spiritual Path, Christina Grof (1993) is one who attributes addiction to a spiritual quest:

Whereas Grof was searching for wholeness through alcoholism, perhaps criminalized male drug addicts, with all of their trickster ways, are also on a spiritual search for wholeness.

In The Natural Mind: A New Way of Looking at Drugs and the Higher Consciousness, Andrew Weil (1972) suggests that "the ubiquity of drug use is so striking that it must represent a basic human appetite" (p. 17). The appetite Weil writes about isn’t the appetite for drugs. Instead, he says, "it is my belief that the desire to alter consciousness periodically is an innate, normal drive analogous to hunger or the sexual drive. Not that I do not say ‘desire to alter consciousness by means of chemical agents’" (p. 19). There are many ways to alter consciousness, and contemporary tricksters seek them out.

In a paper entitled "Archetypal Foundations of Addiction and Recovery," Naifeh (1995) is concerned with the nature of addiction and its source in human psychic structure:

Editors Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz (1984) share, in American Indian Myths and Legends, that "for longer than anyone knows, Indians throughout the Americas have smoked tobacco and other plants for pleasure and praying. The smoke was the Great Spirit’s breath taking the prayers up to the Ones Above" (p. 62). According to Barnhart (1995), etymologically, spirit (espirit)--from Old French, meant breath of life; from Latin (spiritus), it meant soul, courage, vigor, breath, related to spirare, to breathe.

Depth psychology draws heavily on mythological figures such as one of the original tricksters--Hermes. To draw further from classical mythology, and at the same time integrate addiction, Jan Bauer (1982) examines, in Alcoholism and Women: The Background and the Psychology, "women--in terms of archetypal patterns represented by the Greek gods Apollo (structure and order), Dionysos (freedom and intoxication), and Aesklepios (the wounded healer)" (back cover). The patterns of those Greek gods can be found in everybody, including criminalized male drug addicts. For example, Apollo had a great many love affairs, with both nymphs and mortal women. However, his love for Cassandra failed to get him into her bed, even after he taught her the art of divination. Like a typically vengeful addict, Apollo took revenge by ensuring that none of her predictions would ever be believed.

Dionysos is the god of the vine, of wine, and of mystic ecstasy, and he isn’t lacking the debauchery of Apollo. Burkert (1985) says, "there are two very specific stimulants that belong to Dionysos, which cannot have been missing even in the secret celebrations: alcohol and sexual excitement, the drinking of wine and phallos symbolism" (p. 292).

Asclepius was the god of medicine. "One of the notable features of the Asclepian myth," says Edinger (1994), "is that curing someone who was meant to die would lead to the healer’s own death in place of the one cured. In fact that became Asclepius’ fate" (p. 136). We have a saying around Narcotics Anonymous: Sometimes some of us have to die in order for others to live. In other words, some of us recover and some of us die.

The relevance I see in these books is spiritual. Though I often refer to scumbag sewer rats, I also want to give expression to a dichotomy by bringing alive a spiritual element concerning the phenomenon of craving inherent in criminalized male drug addicts.

Probably the most cited book on the American Indian trickster is The Trickster by Paul Radin (1972). Trickster was wandering around aimlessly and heard a voice that said "He who eats me will defecate." Hmmm, thought trickster, and after walking a little farther, he heard the voice again: "He who eats me will defecate." So he walked in the direction from which he heard the voice, and again he heard: "He who eats me will defecate."

"Well, I wonder who is speaking, I know very well that if I eat it, I will not defecate." He finally discovered that a bulb on a bush was the one speaking. So he seized it, put it in his mouth, chewed it, and then swallowed it. Cocksure trickster continued wandering until he had to defecate. He defecated more than he ever had before, so much that he had to climb a tree to get away from it. Finally he stopped defecating, and when he did, he slipped from the tree and splashed down into the dung heap (p. 26).

In a modern myth, John, a drug addict, got fired from his job. A week later a little voice says, "He who robs the 7-11 store will go to jail." John passes the store every day and realizes that the little voice is coming from the direction of the store. Hmmm, thought John, as he walked passed the store for the last time. "What does that little voice know, I know very well that if I rob that store, I will not get caught." John got caught.

As any recovered addict knows, the best way to get a drug addict to do something is to tell him not to do it.

In Witness to the Fire: Creativity and the Veil of Addiction, Linda Leonard (1990) specifically addresses

the trickster archetype and spirituality during her addiction:

In the CORK Bibliography on the Internet (CORK, 2003), Granfield states that "two dimensions of natural recovery that have important implications for treatment providers are: (1) the common strategies used by the subjects, (2) the concept of ‘recovery capital’ in terms of personal attributes and social environments that contribute to recovery."

Spontaneous remission from drug addiction is something that is not acknowledged much in the literature. To elaborate on trickster creativity, involving a spontaneous remission, I will use a creative exercise I once used myself.

It occurred to me while I was in prison that if I was going to remain clean and sober when I hit the streets, I was going to have to change my thinking. Every waking hour I was either thinking about the bar I used to work in, the people I used with, or the women I slept with. I remembered a video I saw that stated "if lasting change is going to take place, one has to monitor one’s thoughts."

So I decided to shoo those thoughts away--literally, and replace them with different thoughts. With my hand in a swooshing motion by my ear, I shoo’d the thoughts away. Walking around the big yard shooing thoughts away in that manner, I could tell by the looks I was getting that I was being viewed through jaundiced eyes. "A nut case, I’m sure," they must have thought. I didn’t care.

At first it took me a long time to remember to do it, so I only did it two or three times a day. As time passed I started doing it more, and more, until I was doing it a lot. That’s when I started getting so many of the looks. After awhile I discovered that I wasn’t doing it as often. Day by day I did it less and less. And then Guess what? After about 5 or 6 months I exorcized those thoughts by replacing them with thoughts of what I really wanted to do when I got out.

I visualized myself in NA meetings (still thinking about women, though), and I visualized myself in classrooms at Barstow College. I also visualized taking care of my aged and ailing mother. I did all of those things. So, where does my inner trickster come in?

Well, I wonder if my story would be thought of as a spontaneous remission by the editors of the CORK bibliography? Probably not if I had told them the truth. It happened while I was a resident in a substance-abuse education program in prison, so it couldn’t have really been spontaneous remission.

The trickster archetype is often portrayed as a negative force in the collective unconscious, but that is not always the case. Trickster energy can also be a positive force, even with jointsters.

The positive energy of the trickster is well developed by Lewis Hyde (1998) in Trickster Makes this World: Trickster "helped shape this world so as to make it a hospitable place for human life" (p. 8).

For example, in an article entitled "Prescription for Addiction," in The Chief of Police magazine, Smethers (1992) explains that, "today I sit in front of my computer and write about things, but several years ago the only things I wrote were forged prescriptions" (p. 71).

After 8 1/2 years and being busted five times for this highly illegal activity (only being convicted once on a petty misdemeanor in a plea bargain), I stopped writing prescriptions for my addiction and went on the methadone program. However, I didn’t stop writing prescriptions.

Armed with the wherewithal to write and fill prescriptions, I continued to write and fill prescriptions for myself, friends, and family when we were sick and could not readily get medical care. Donnatol works wonders for irritable bowl syndrome and other stomach disorders, and a Physicians Desk Reference (PDR) provides all the information required to take the drug safely.

Carl Jung (1933/1959), in The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, says:

Drug addicts are also medicine men--they are continually self-medicating. These trickster addicts also fall victim to vengeance because of their nefarious behavior. Drug addicts, in true trickster form, often sell other drug addicts placebos instead of drugs, and that will often prompt well-deserved revenge. Addicts don’t take lightly to being duped into ingesting or injecting something that doesn’t get them high.

Hyde (1998) says, in Trickster Makes this World, "if trickster’s freedom of motion regarding dirt means that he can acquire water or fire (acquire new energy, new tricks, new technologies, new mental insights, new ways of walking), then his narratives can be road maps for fundamental change" (p. 189).

For example, prison is a breeding ground of much of the slang used in society by young people. New changes and trends often start there. For example, in 1989, it was common on prison yards to see African American men with their trousers down below their butts, with their underwear glaringly visible. Today we often see that on the streets. Jointsters can, indeed, be agents for change just as traditional tricksters are.

Kerenyi (1990) says, in Hermes: Guide of Souls, "that it is not without good reason that Hermes was supposed to be the inventor of language" (p. 88). Male drug-addicted tricksters can even be trend-setters. In jails and on prison yards, cliches’ are continually being born. Much of the jargon heard on the streets today originated in prisons. For example, an inmate asks another inmate for a loan. His answer is "can’t bro, I’m to the curb." It wasn’t long before "I’m to the curb" was being said on the streets instead of "Can’t bro, I’m broke." Perhaps the expression "I’m broke" was also coined in the joint.

Hyde (1998) has devoted a chapter to Frederick Douglass as trickster, and part of the reason is that Douglass "was born into a world where two distinct moral systems conflicted, and found himself forced to mediate between them" (p. 227). One of those systems was American slavery, and Douglass is to this day a black folk hero for his resistance to this institution.

If a criminalized drug addict were to write an autobiography, he would likely write it in such a way that would benefit him the most. If, 10 years later, the social or political ethos had changed in the culture, it wouldn’t be past him to write another autobiography more suitable to the times and his pocketbook.

Interestingly, Douglass wrote three autobiographies--one in 1845, one in 1855, and one in 1881. Typical of a trickster--all three autobiographies are somewhat contradictory in facts and events. For example, in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, he says, "my mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Isaac and Betsey Baily, both colored, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather (1994, p. 15). In his 1855 autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass says, "In regard to the time of my birth, I cannot be as definite as I have been respecting the place. Nor, indeed, can I impart much knowledge concerning my parents (1994, p. 140).

Today, the number of black men in prison is astronomical compared to that of white men. In From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom, Roberts (1990) reminds us that "blacks and whites, in the late 19th century, were supposedly subject to the same forms of punishment, but few whites were sentenced to the two most common forms of punishment: the chain gang and the convict lease system" (p. 178). Black folk heroes such as Dolomite and Stagger Lee (poems originating in prisons), are as alive and well today on the prison yard (and on the streets), as they were during the 1890s when "Railroad Bill was just one of many badman heroes to capture the black folk imagination" (p. 173).

Roberts (1990) also addresses Frederick Douglass with this quote from Douglass’ 1855 autobiography:

Voracious hunger is, indeed, in the trickster’s repertoire, whether it is hunger for food, drugs, gambling, alcohol, or sex. As to the previous references to Frederick Douglass, it is Roberts’ (1990) contention that

This relationship to masters could be viewed as synonymous with the criminalized male addict’s relationships to correctional, police, and parole and probation officers.

Prometheus is often thought of as the first trickster for stealing fire from Zeus for human benefit. However, Hermes also stole fire, and he eventually became the classical trickster figure, not because of his theft of fire, but of cattle. Norman O. Brown (1990), in Hermes the Thief, explains the evolution of the myth. In that evolution Hermes tells his mother "that he intends to put his own interests first, and follow the career with the most profit in it; that a life of affluence and luxury would be better than living in a dreary cave" (p. 76). That is typical dope-fiend thinking.

Brown (1990) also says that Hermes the cattle thief, adopted as their patron god by thieves in general, became Hermes the Thief (p. 3). This is interesting because this book doesn’t pigeonhole Hermes as a criminal the way we identify thieves as criminals today. By today’s standards, "Hermes the thief is a criminal," (p. 71), and today we lock up criminals. However, most scholars agree that every generation occupies itself with re-interpreting the Trickster. At Cnossus in Crete, the procedure for borrowing money was simply to take it. This form of primitive exchange seems to have survived in the ritual of Hermes the Giver of Joy at Samos, at which there was general license to steal. Originally, "stealing" meant stealthy or magical action" (p. 41), much different than what it means today.

In Omaha Tribal Myths and Trickster Tales, Welsh (1981) reminds us that

Indeed, why would the family members of criminalized drug addicts continually put up with lying, stealing, and manipulation? Because, for a while, they succeed at the good-natured feigning of innocence and placing the blame elsewhere. Love for their trickster son or brother also plays a part in it, but love does not explain why they tolerate it for so long. It’s borderline stupidity on the part of the family, and they will often have a difficult time denying their own stupidity: "How can I be so stupid!"

"Dogon, Ashanti, Yoruba, and Fon are peoples in West Africa where trickster has had a loutish and lustful career full of boasts and lies, whether he is in the form of a god or an animal" (p. 1), writes Pelton (1980) in The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight. In the stories of the Ashanti tribe, Ananse (like the criminalized male drug addict of today, for that matter) "moves to the fringes of life at the expense of all obligatory ties--familial, economic, and ‘natural’" (p. 59). Though statistics reflect lower socioeconomic groups as being more susceptible to drug use, that is not always the case. Maralys Wills and Mike Carona (2000) provide a good example in their passionate plea and book entitled Save my Son:

In In Favor or Deceit, Basso (1987) eloquently notes that

Here is a myth as it was told to Basso (1987) by

tribal members:

Sexual exploits such as this are common themes in trickster tales, especially in the Winnebago Indian traditions. For example, in Mythical Trickster Figures, editors Hynes and Doty (1997) report that the trickster’s penis is extremely long, "detached from his body, and often carried coiled in a box in his pack. Such detachment allows the penis great mobility and autonomy. The trickster sends it swimming across a lake to lodge in the chief’s daughter" (p. 43).

Those of us who are familiar with criminalized drug addicts know what womanizing horndogs most of them are, and the lengths they will go to for their sexual appetites. As Bunker (2000) says in his chapter "Whores, Hearst, and Hollywood’s Angel":

In Mythical Trickster Figures, editors Hynes and Doty (1997) offer narratives on the trickster figure in different cultures and settings, and each author explores different ways in which trickster figures challenge, reinforce, and play with fundamental social structures (back cover). One of the authors, Laura Makarius, quotes Luomala concerning the Polynesian trickster figure, Maui:

Throughout this book there are similar parallels to the puer/senex archetype, and when considering the criminalized population, "the trickster is cast as an ‘out’ person, and his activities are often outlawish, outlandish, outrageous, out-of-bounds, and out-of-order" (p. 34), which is ammunition for those who see jointsters as dirty, lying, cheating, scumbag sewer rats.

In The Addictive Personality, Nakken (1988) describes the addict, but he is also describing the puerile trickster when he asserts that

Marie-Louise von Franz (2000) agrees in The Problem of the Puer Aeternus: "the man who is identified with the archetype of the puer aeternus remains too long in adolescent psychology; that is, all those characteristics that are normal in a youth of seventeen or eighteen are continued into later life" (p. 7).

Referencing Saint Exupery, author of The Little Prince, von Franz describes the puer, indicating that he has a tendency to take opium. In the following sentence, she states that "the whole psychology of the drug taker is connected with the idea of flirting with death, getting away from reality and its hardships" (2000, p. 88). A couple of sentences later she says that alcohol sometimes goes along with this problem.

Von Franz briefly alludes to the puer and a prison sentence when discussing the shadow: "That is how the shadow, in practical life, hits the puer aeternus: he either crashes to his death in an airplane, or dies in a mountain accident, or in a car crash or he lands in prison" (2000, p. 128). We can, of course, add drug overdoses to the list.

Without ever actually mentioning the senex, von Franz does, however, make the connection between the two:

There is often a fine line between the nature of the criminalized and the nature of law-enforcement officers. They too are often described as similar in behavior and attitude. They too, as well as the chemically dependent tricksters they arrest, are often puer and chemically dependent and criminally active: tricksters arresting tricksters.

Hillman (1970) says "that the senex is a complicatio of the puer, infolded into puer structure, so that puer events are complicated by a senex background" (p. 146). Explaining that the senex has a double nature, Hillman continues by saying that "one characteristic is never safe from inversion into its opposite" (p. 148).

While not elaborating extensively on the senex, I now highlight this dual archetype, who is found within or in collusion with the trickster archetype, by drawing analogies between law-enforcement officers and the criminalized. Therefore, we have the dual puer/senex archetype working in tricksters who arrest and jail other tricksters. Like coyote, police tricksters get caught in their own traps.

Back in the early 1960s, my dad owned and operated a security patrol, and I went with him to put little red tags between the door and the door jam to show to merchants that we had checked the security of their business. One night on patrol, my dad’s police radio was active: a burglary in progress at Hartwick’s Market. We patrolled two of the businesses across the street from the market, so we sat in the parking lot and watched the action as the Barstow Police did their thing. We watched as the police brought the handcuffed burglars out of the market and placed them into their police cars where they were expedited to jail. We didn’t find out until the next day, however, that the Barstow Police had arrested four of their own--four Barstow Police officers. A joke was going around for years after that: "If you find anybody prowling around your place at night, just get their badge number."

Contreras (2000), a former Los Angeles vice cop, spoke at a meeting I attended in Claremont, CA, stating that:

In Puer Papers, Hillman (1979) considers the puer eccentric:

Spread throughout puer literature, we find many common threads with the trickster archetype. They can be looked at as brothers. Brother puer can be thought of as the as-yet-uncriminalized addict. Looked at through these lenses, we’ll find the puer in all criminalized males; however, we won’t necessarily find the trickster in many uncriminalized addicts. In a general sense, you might say the puer addict graduates to trickster status once he’s been criminalized.

In "Puer Aeternus: The Narcissistic Relation to the Self" Jeffrey Satinover (1980) explains that:

It isn’t difficult to see how such eccentric individuals often evolve into criminalized addicted trickster figures. Nor is it difficult to see how their positive attributes can create figures of much more notable worth.

In Now or Neverland: Peter Pan and the Myth of Eternal Youth, Yeoman (1998) tells us that "neverland presents an endless round of adventure and freedom, yet whereas in many ways a land of ‘light and liberation,’ it is not without an admixture of evil, violence and cruelty" (p. 108). Yeoman’s contention isn’t without parallel to the ambivalence of life on the prison yard. The agreeable side of the yard wouldn’t be characterized as "light and liberating," but it can certainly be a haven for criminalized drug addicts, and it is certainly not without an admixture of evil, violence, and cruelty.

In The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men who have Never Grown Up, Kiley (1983) draws a synonymous picture with the trickster figure of the criminalized male:

This description could be one of a criminalized male drug addict. Or, more than likely, he is a criminalized addict who hasn’t gotten caught . . . yet.

This crossover is similar to the addict who lands in prison, yet never crosses over into being a genuine criminalized trickster--a jointster. He will be released from prison, successfully terminate his parole, and eventually get a pardon, and possibly end up with a PhD in depth psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. The puer, therefore, is usually still in the fun mode. We can say he crosses over into trickster mode when his addictive lifestyle has become more established.

Taking up on the puer theme is John Lee’s Flying Boy trilogy (1989, 1991), and (1997) where he expounds on the mother complex of the puer. Other approaches include Bly’s (1996) The Sibling Society, an Internet article by O’Malley (1995), Slater’s (2002) work in Psychology at the Threshold, Stockman and Graves’ (1994) Grown-up children who won’t grow up, and Abrams’ (1990) Reclaiming the Inner Child.

We must rid ourselves of the illusion, emphasizes Foucault (1995), in Discipline and Punish, that penality is a means of reducing crime (p. 24). Foucault also explores the role of prisons in society and shows that prisons today, as always, actually perpetuate crime rather than serving as a deterrent to crime--prison being a virtual trickster factory.

Smethers (1995) describes his prison experience in an article entitled "Prison--The Day Care Center" published in Pleiades magazine:

In this article, I assert that there is not much incentive in most prison systems for inmates to become responsible and accountable upon their release into society:

As mentioned in the introduction to this dissertation, not only do drug addicts cost taxpayers an astronomical amount of money, to fund such things as medical care and the funding of prisons, but they also contribute considerably to the high morbidity and mortality in the culture due to viruses such as hepatitis C and HIV.

In States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons Joy James (2002) states:

In California, official estimates of hepatitis C infection are 43% for men and 55% for women in prison (p. 168). This epidemic is the result, for the most part, of intravenous drug use and sexual promiscuity.

Written by Daniel Glaser (1964), with a forword by Robert F. Kennedy, The Effectiveness of a Prison and Parole System denigrates the criminalized population. Not that denigration isn’t sometimes indicated, but Glaser’s mind-set is as follows: "It should be stressed that criminals are not necessarily less mature than noncriminals in biological development, or even in attributes of social development, such as facility in social interaction with their peers" (p. 38). This is in direct opposition to my puer/trickster hypothesis and the supporting material. Much of the literature on convicts written prior to the 1970s is derogatory.

The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison by Gresham M. Sykes (1974) is even more dated than Glaser’s work; however, "this book is concerned with a so-called maximum security prison, that is, a custodial institution reserved for adult male criminals who are thought to require extremely close supervision and control" (p. xiii).

The above quote refers to what would now be classified as a level-4-security prison facility. Levels 1 and 2 are dorm living. In levels 3 and 4, convicts live in cells. Popular media, like motion pictures and television generally depict the prison environment of maximum security, level-4-prison yards, which gives prison a stereotypical appearance to the average citizen.

When considering prisons in general, there are several aspects worth mentioning: there are noteworthy differences between county jails and farms, state prisons and fire camps, and federal penitentiaries--and that is in California alone. The diversity doesn’t end there, for there are differences between prisons in different parts of the country, such as in the Deep South, the Midwest, and the East Coast, not to mention the unique characteristics of the prisons and jails in each state.

The relevance of Sykes’ (1958) work, written before the influx of drug addicts into prison systems, distinguishes the difference between various prison populations. Inmates leaning more to the puer side are usually found in minimum-security prisons or county jails. Inmates leaning more to the trickster side are usually found in maximum-security prisons--some of who are career criminals or psychopaths who don’t have a background in substance abuse or addiction.

Prior to the 1960s, most convicts, psychopaths, and gangsters were not addicts. Their nefarious personalities have often been depicted in popular media as hardened, violent, racist, devoid of compassion, destructive, and untrustworthy.

Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March played escaped convicts in a classic nail-biter entitled The Desperate Hours (Wyler & Hayes, 1955) where they held a terrified family hostage. Robert De Niro has since portrayed similar stereotypical figures in films such as Goodfellas (Winkler, Scorses & Nicholas, 1990), and Cape Fear (DeFina, Scorses & Strick, 1991). Whereas their roles are fictional, there are those in real life who are found on the front pages of daily newspapers, in magazines, biographies, case studies, newscasts, and documentaries about serial killers, pedophiles, rapists, cannibals, sadists, and many other people who have committed atrocities.

These people have always and will continue to be housed in prisons. Those are the ones, however, who are characteristic of the stereotypical convict prior to the drug abuse explosion. Unfortunately, the popular media has made culture heroes out of killers and other hard-core criminals, such as Jesse James, John Dillinger, and Robert Stroud.

In the motion picture Birdman of Alcatraz (Frankenheimer & Gaddis, 1962) Stroud is depicted as a mild-mannered, easy-going victim who had an overly affectionate love for his mother. Robert Stroud was far from what the cinema presented on the big screen. Jolene Babyak (1994), the author of Bird man: The many faces of Robert Stroud, emphasizes the real bird man:

With stereotypes such as this still lingering in the contemporary psyche, it is easy to understand why we have such a negative view of prisoners.

In the title of his book, Charles Murray (1997) asks, Does Prison Work?

This quote tends to confuse the question/title of the book. For example, the opening statement "the broad proposition that ‘prison works’ is not in question" is ambiguous because the following sentence states "of course prison can work." The word can being the point of ambiguity. At the end of the chapter I just quoted from, Murray asks the question, "what do we want prison to accomplish?" which clears up some of the ambiguity.

Considering the archetypal nature of the trickster, it is highly unlikely that punishment of any kind will rehabilitate him. However, his energy could be redirected to more productive ends. Though I can’t say how, why, and what would influence this kind of shift for others, I believe I have showed how, why, and what influenced this kind of shift for me when I thought I was inventing what I later learned was thought-stopping.

In the following quote from Making It Right, Challeen (1986) makes suggestions that make sense. Unfortunately, no one seems to be listening:

One of the two types of criminals that Challeen (1986) describes are called slicks (p. 27), who are basically sophisticated tricksters. Another type he calls slobs (p. 32), who are best described as deadbeats without any motivation except maybe to cop another bag of dope and jump in the sack with whoever will accommodate him.

In an undergraduate textbook for administration of justice programs, The Psychology of Criminal Behavior by Andrews and Bonta (1998), the authors ask:

These are the "slicks" (p. 27) that Challeen (1986)

refers to in Making It Right.

Writing by Drug Addict Inmates as Tricksters

The Soul Knows no Bars, edited by Leder (2000), is a compilation of reflections and dialogue between inmates incarcerated in Baltimore, Maryland. Here the inmates ruminate about their lives and imprisonment. They discuss their thinking and the similarities between the inside and outside concerning lifestyle, coping mechanisms, recidivism, drug use, and their childhoods. One of the inmates, Tray, reflecting on his childhood in a dialogue group, shared:

In a book edited by Franklin (1998) entitled Prison Writing in 20^th Century America, Malcolm X wrote:

In this work we find a range of literature written by many other 20th-century American prisoners. The works have been chosen for what they reveal both about prison, specifically the modern American prison, and about human beings in the most difficult of circumstances.

In Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing, editor Chevigny (1999) says:

The criminalized drug addict trickster has been characterized as a confidence man for a long time, and he can willfully adapt his persona to his environment.

Chevigny also informs us that "the war on drugs is a miserable failure because it has not stopped drug use in this country. It’s a great success [for prisons] because it’s the best economic boom we’ve ever seen (p. xvi). Chevigny continues: "The prison-building boom, the growing privatization of prisons, and private industry’s use of prison labor have so transformed the nation’s economy that it seems harder than ever to reverse the trend (p. xvii). Therefore, the astronomical numbers of jointsters being released into society from our prisons, create an ever-present social problem.

Suzan Still (2002) writes about the prison-building boom and prison labor from a different perspective in "Prison as Shadow" taken from Psychology at the Threshold, edited by Slattery and Corbett:

The above quote is referring to big business--that of the prison industrial complex. Still (2002) writes:

Donziger (1996), in The Real War on Crime, says that "more than 1.5 million Americans are behind bars (p. 33), and "five million Americans are under correctional supervision," and "over 11 million people are admitted to locked facilities" (p. 34). And most staggering of all is that there are "fifty million criminal records" (p. 36). According to Kipnis (1999), drug offenders represent 60% of federal prisoners and over one-third of state and county prisoners (p. 121).

Undoing Time: American Prisoners in their Own Words, edited by Evans (2001), is another anthology written by inmates. It has given prisoners the rare chance to communicate who they are and what went wrong. Here is an excerpt from the forword by Jimmy Santiago Baca:

When I started reading Undoing Time, a con named Vincent came to mind. I'd helped him parole out: got him a job, his book published, paid for his literary readings, an apartment, and a car. Six months later, he relapsed into heroin and cocaine and went on a robbing spree. (2001, p. ix)

Vincent could be the poster boy for the criminalized

male drug addict as trickster. Given that this was all

the author wrote concerning this con, we can only

speculate about why he relapsed.

Edward Bunker (2000), actor, screenwriter, and author of Education of a Felon, has epitomized the life of a jointster in his autobiography. Consistent with much of the literature concerning drug addicts, Bunker says the same about criminals: "If anything is true in a young criminal’s mind, it is the need for immediate satisfaction. Truly the place is here and the time is now. Delayed gratification is contrary to his nature" (p. 92).

William S. Burroughs (1977) was one of those tricksters who came from an upper-class background, studied at Harvard, became a heroin addict, then wrote a memoir entitled Junky. Later, after writing more than ten books, he also became an actor and director. Like Edward Bunker, he probably would have had little professional success had he not been addicted to heroin for so many years. This bisexual heroin addict didn’t stop being a trickster when he stopped using heroin, he just directed his trickster energy to a more productive lifestyle.

William S. Burroughs accidently shot and killed his wife in front of their 4-year-old son, William S. Burroughs Jr. For 10 years after that, Burroughs Jr. only saw his father a few times, and they didn’t spend much time together after that either. However, the lives of these father and son tricksters ran a similar course up to a point.

In 1970, William S. Burroughs Jr. wrote Speed --the first of three books depicting his life as an amphetamine addict in New York’s lower east side. At 34 years old, Burroughs Jr. died of liver failure due to alcoholism. But, tricksterism didn’t kill Burroughs Jr.--alcoholism did. Drug addiction didn’t cause the success of Burroughs Sr.--tricksterism did.

In The Oxford History of the Prison, editors Morris and Rothman (1998) discuss the changes in the practice of punishment. They trace the evolution of incarceration from the English jails of the 1700s to the Big Houses of the current American prison system (back cover). Though it is not the main focus of the work, they also emphasize the links between drugs and the prison population, starting as far back as the 1920s, with widespread morphine addiction, and facilitated by inventive smuggling schemes:

Drugs in Prison by Gravett (2000) offers statistics about drug use by young people--potential tricksters.

"The strong link between drugs and crime is borne out by research. Half of those arrested reported illegal incomes which were 200-300 percent higher than those arrested for reasons that were not drug-related" (p. 23). Apparently, being a jointster can be lucrative.

In "On Dope Row," Maier (2002) writes in an Internet article in Insight on the News:

Whereas drug addicts have been killing themselves for years inside and out of prison, prison officials are obviously either in denial or they don’t care. It’s understandable if they don’t care, for jointsters are continually trying to take advantage of them in any way they can, and the correctional officers get fed up with it; however, what isn’t understandable is that they deny there is even a problem.

In Drug Use and Prisons: An International Perspective, editors David Shewan and John B. Davies (2000) write:

The editors continue: "drug consumers have spent more time in prison than in therapy facilities (p. 59).

Drug addicts are more at home in the comfort zones of the trickster prison environment (depending whether it is maximum or minimum security) than being placed in an environment where they are going to be expected to change literally everything that defines who they are. Low self- esteem and narcissism make strange bedfellows, but that’s not really too difficult to understand when considering the character traits of a trickster whose priorities are gluttony and hedone, and an inflated male ego that tells him he isn’t worth a shit.

In the first chapter of Coyote Speaks: Creative Strategies for Psychotherapists Treating Alcoholics and Addicts, Rutzky (1998) addresses the trickster archetype in the alcoholic, the addict, and the therapist. Consistent with other texts in this literature review, Rutzky discusses the connection between Carl Jung and the co-founder of AA--Bill Wilson, when Jung introduced the idea concerning the need of a spiritual experience for lasting recovery.

Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women have Recovered from Alcoholism (2001) is a self-help group-therapy approach to recovery from alcoholism. The preamble of Alcoholics Anonymous states that "Alcoholic’s Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism."

The discussion of recovery in this basic text elucidates alcoholic and other character traits found more in the puer than in the trickster archetype. That is not to say that the trickster isn’t also found in AA meetings.

Narcotics Anonymous (1988) is more specific to addiction overall and therefore is more compatible with the trickster rather than the puer; however, that is not to say that the uncultivated puer won’t be found in NA meetings. The NA basic text states that NA follows the same path as AA "with a single exception; our identification as addicts is all-inclusive with respect to any mood-changing, mind-altering substance" (p. xv). NA’s contention that alcoholism is too limited a term makes this review of the literature more compatible with NA, because the trickster archetype in the criminalized population uses drugs primarily and alcohol secondarily. It must be kept in mind, however, that alcohol is also a drug. Tricksters commonly patronize bars, but it’s the life around which their drug use centers that is primary. AA came first; therefore, it is difficult to review literature without including both the AA and NA programs.

Alcoholism and SubstanceA abuse: Strategies for Clinical Intervention, by Bratter and Forrest (1985), is an authoritative guide to treatment methods that covers the etiologies of addiction and assesses the medical and biological effects of various drugs. Focusing on treatment, part 3 addresses ten modalities, three of which cover different types of group therapy. "In a comprehensive review of the literature, Killilea (1976) discovers that self-help organizations have been categorized as support systems, intentional communities/communes, subcultural groups which provide a philosophy of life, and organizations for deviants" (p. 466).

It would be interesting to know how the researcher defines deviant. The Dictionary of Psychology by Corsini (1999) states that deviance is "any behavior that deviates significantly from what is considered normal for the group with which the individual or subgroup is to be compared. Also known as deviant behavior" (p. 273). The phrase deviant behavior usually has a negative connotation.

In Staying Sober: A Guide for Relapse Prevention, Gorski and Miller (1986) emphasize that "the most successful treatment combines the Twelve Steps principles of AA with professional counseling and therapy" (p. 53). Relapse is common, especially for the criminalized male who not only participates in the revolving door of the criminal justice system, but also the revolving doors of treatment and recovery programs.

Not everyone agrees with 12-step programs. In his critique, Alcoholic’s Anonymous: Cult or Cure, Bufe (1998) explores the reasons why many people are opposed to AA, including addicts. Often addicts’ character traits are what causes them to resist recovery--character traits all to commonly found in the trickster archetype. The "I want it and I want it now" syndrome, the "I’m not like these people" syndrome, and especially the "I can do it myself" syndrome, to name just a few, are examples of the rationale of those (often tricksters) who oppose 12-step programs.

And then there are program tricksters who get fully recovered in 6 months and start sponsoring people when they haven’t even worked the steps themselves--referred to as 2-steppers, characterized by their short-lived sobriety. These tricksters of the "guru" persuasion are also the ones who practice the 13^th step--pursuing newcomer women. These tricksters will inevitably trick themselves right back into doing what they do best--drinking, using, or both.

The title of Bufe’s (1998) book is a question: Cult or Cure? Yes, by any definition of cult, AA is one; furthermore, says Bufe: "It could well be that AA does more harm to society--and to far greater numbers of people--than all other religious cults combined" (p. 157). This book is gold to a criminalized male trickster who wants to intellectualize his resistance to recovery--food for the slick.

Both Facing the Fire by John Lee (1993), and Of Course You’re Angry by Rosellini & Worden, (1985) address anger. Lee (1993) emphasizes that the principles he puts forth in his book apply to anyone but alcoholics and drug addicts. He emphasizes: "I know they cannot safely do the exercises I give here while under the influence of drink or drugs. They are not then safe people to be around" (p. xvi).

Rosellini and Worden (1985) explain that "for positive recovery to take place, this anger needs to be acknowledged, dealt with, and resolved (p. 7). Though their approaches are different, the results, if successful, are the same.

Drug addicts, especially criminalized drug addicts, commonly have anger issues. John Lee’s (1993) approach is more consistent with most contemporary thinking; for example: just as psychotherapy for any other mental disorder cannot commence until abstinence is achieved, treatment for an anger disorder cannot commence until abstinence is achieved.

A practicing addict is a con; therefore, he would logically con an anger-management facilitator or therapist into believing he is working the program, when he really isn’t. Another scenario is played out in the movie Anger Management (Dorfman & Segal, 2003), where Jack Nicholson, the trickster, cons the therapist into getting angry.

Tricksters will often go into any kind of treatment if it will save their jobs, marriages, or freedom. However, if they have a choice between serving 6 months in jail or a year in some bothersome anger-management program that will probably result in a jail sentence anyway, then why not get the time in jail over with and eliminate the anger-management program that wouldn’t do any good in the first place? Ironically, this rationale makes sense. Tricksters, like addiction, are cunning, baffling, powerful, and contradictory.

The studies I have drawn from in this review offer ideas, theories, syntheses, and statistical studies, which make them basically theoretical, sociological, and personal. None of them, however, addresses the actual lived experience of the criminalized male drug addict as trickster (except my personal experiences), and in no case has a careful phenomenological study been done to scrutinize this phenomenon.

The unique perspective of this dissertation is the acknowledgment of just how crazy the world of the criminalized male drug addict is, and how hard these tricksters are to pin down, compartmentalize, label, and understand.

In an essay entitled "Attempts to Crash into San Quentin, published in One Eye Closed the Other Red: The California Bootlegging Years, Cliff Walker (1999) tells a story:

Unlike most prisoners who wanted out, the trickster

Clements wanted in.

Like Fred Clements but in a different way, another trickster had been knocking on the doors to the California Department of Corrections for many years before they finally let him in. It was me. When I appeared in front of Superior Court Judge LeRoy Simmons in November 1989 on a drug charge, the judge said "Mr. Smethers, I have in front of me three pages of rap sheet." He looked down at it, then looked at me and asked: "Why? Why is it that you haven’t been sent to prison?"

I meekly replied "I don’t know, your honor."

"Mr. Smethers, I can’t believe that I’ve been sitting here trying to think of a way to keep you from going to prison. I’m not going to do that. That’s what all the other judges have done. I’m afraid you’re going to have to go to prison."

He sentenced me to 3 years. He gave me time served for the two 6 month sentences I already served, one of which was the result of a revocation of probation on the original charge on which I was appearing. But I needed some time to take care of personal matters, so I boldly asked for a stay of execution--the judge agreed.

I came back in 2 weeks and told him that I needed an additional 2 weeks, because my mother was sick and I just needed to get her stabilized--the judge reluctantly agreed. I returned in 2 weeks and asked the judge for an additional 2 weeks.

Exasperated, he said "Why, Mr. Smethers?"

"Your honor, I’m sure you’ve heard about the recent murder of John Doe. He was a good friend of mine, and a long-time friend of the family. I would really appreciate it if I could go to his funeral."

"Mr. Smethers, why do I have the feeling I am being taken down the garden path lane?"

Still, the judge agreed to the additional 2 weeks. However, he was definitely being taken down the garden path lane, for I had no intention of going to John’s funeral, and I had no intention of showing up in court to go serve time in the state penitentiary--they were just going to have to catch me. I didn’t leave town, however. I just continued partying until I was finally caught at a friend’s house that was on fire and burning down. The fire department wouldn’t let me leave until I was questioned.

Back in the court room after being on the lam, Judge Simmons asked me why I didn’t turn myself in as I promised. I told him the truth for a change. "I was scared, your honor, I’ve never been to prison before."

Judge Simmons seemed to believe me, and he didn’t even give me any additional time for not turning myself in. However, I had to force myself not to ask if I could get just 2 more weeks.

I played with the criminal justice system, in true trickster form, for many years. It was as if I was daring them to send me to prison, but at the same time my good-natured, affable personality and sincere sounding bullshit kept me out until I was 43 years old.

When the time came for me to apply for a pardon, Judge Simmons wrote a recommendation. He had been monitoring me during the years after my release while I was actively pursuing my education. When the time came for me to apply to Pacifica Graduate Institute’s doctoral program in depth psychology, Judge Simmons wrote me another recommendation. This time he wasn’t being taken down the garden path lane. The new path led directly to this dissertation, a phenomenological study of the lived experience of criminalized male drug addicts.

This review of the literature starts with the spiritual inclination of contemporary drug-addicted tricksters, moves to their psychological and sociological profiles, and elucidates their personification of the trickster archetype. This review concerning a population of marginalized, criminalized, and pathologized people, also focuses upon texts concerning group therapy in general, but 12-step programs in particular, continues with an anger management perspective, then sums up with stories characteristic of contemporary tricksters.

Having determined that knowledge of the lived experience of criminalized male drug addicts is negligible and not well understoo, brings me to several important questions:

1. What can we learn about criminalized male drug addicts that is different from the conclusions provided by theoretical and statistical studies done on male drug addicts?

2. Are there character traits of criminalized male drug addicts that make them difficult to pin down, compartmentalize, label, and understand?

3. Will a phenomenological study of a group of criminalized male drug addicts help determine why they don’t respond well to treatment, and why their recidivism rate is so high?

4. Can a depth psychological perspective of the trickster archetype in criminalized male drug addicts help us to better understand their lived experience?

5. Do criminalized male drug addicts view themselves as, or are they unconsciously giving expression to a common opinion that they are, dirty, lying, cheating, scumbag sewer rats?

Chapter 3

Method

Jung emphasizes that

In this dissertation, The Criminalized Male Drug Addict and the Trickster Archetype, I have engaged a hybrid phenomenological/artistic research methodology. Beginning with a phenomenological method employing interviews with five criminalized male drug addicts, I soon realized that I needed more than interview data (experimental psychology and text books a foot thick) to reveal the trickster archetype. I immersed myself in the spirit of heuristic research, as described by Moustakas (1990):

Thus, I went beyond a purely phenomenological methodology. Deriving from the confabulation and exaggeration in the stories that I heard during the interviews and adding other trickster stories I had heard or experienced through the years, I added an artistic component of storytelling--of tall tales in the expression of the results of this dissertation.

Phenomenological Component

Through interviews, I attempted to scrutinize the lived experience of criminalized male drug addicts in the context of the trickster archetype. By exposing the flagitious behavior of the criminalized drug addict as trickster behavior, I hoped to elucidate the nature of drug addiction in our culture through a depth psychological lens.

In my quest for knowledge concerning the trickster archetype in criminalized male drug addicts, I chose a phenomenological methodology because I wished to reveal the quality of the lived experience of the addict himself. Many qualitative researchers criticize or even reject the quantitative approach, arguing that it is in direct conflict with the aims of qualitative research, insisting that qualitative methods are more appropriate by allowing subjective knowledge. Jung (1951/1960) acknowledges the limitations of quantitative methods. He said:

I felt that a quantitative methodology would be insufficient, offering information only regarding large populations or groups, whereas I wanted to evaluate the lived experience of criminalized male drug addicts. I hoped that a phenomenological study might reveal deep issues and make voices heard--the voices of the trickster archetype in the criminalized male drug addict.

I selected five recovered drug addicts from the community of Barstow, California. They were drawn from members of Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous. All of the participants had criminal arrest records.

To protect their identity and for clarity in the text, I gave the five participants pseudonyms: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, and Comet. Each of them is a recovered or recovering addict with either an extensive misdemeanor or felony criminal record.

Dasher is a 59-year-old white man who has served two prison sentences--one in Oklahoma and one in New Mexico. His drug of choice was whatever was circulating at a given time. Dasher is admittedly gluttonous, like his vulturous counterpart--raven. In the words of Erdoes and Ortiz (1984): "Among a number of Athapascan-speaking tribes of the Northwest Coast and Alaskan tribes, Raven is not only a powerful supernatural creator, but also a trickster (p. 344). Dasher has since discontinued his vulturous ways, and has been clean and sober for 18 years.

Dancer is a 34-year-old white man who has been convicted of many misdemeanors but has never been in state or federal prison. Considering his spellbinding story and his extensive criminal activity, it is absolutely amazing that he never made it to prison. As Hyde (1998) points out, in the old days "sheep farmers tried to get rid of wolves and coyotes by putting out animal carcasses laced with strychnine. The wolves, they say, were killed in great numbers, but the coyotes wised up and avoided these traps" (pp. 20, 21). During his using career he used alcohol, pot, PCP, LSD, and speed, but all that stopped when he found heroin. He spent much of his using career in and out of city and county jails and served several terms of probation. Dancer has been clean and sober for 3 years.

Prancer is 39 years old, and has served several prison sentences--all in California. His shaved head and tattooed body identify him in the drug subculture as a peckerwood.

The term peckerwood is used to refer to white youths with loose ties to white power gangs in and out of prison, as well as to actual skinhead gangs. The various peckerwood gangs appear to be concentrated largely in California, where they participate in the methamphetamine trade and have ties to other white supremacist gangs such as the Nazi Low Riders.

Like coyotes, peckerwoods are nocturnal and often run in small groups. Methamphetamine was his primary drug of choice. Prancer claims that he has been clean and sober for 30 months.

Vixen is a 50-year-old Mexican American who, like Dancer, managed to avoid serving time in prison, but was also in and out of jail and served several terms of probation. Though he sold and used drugs, his true love was alcohol, and his temperament was extremely violent. He has been clean and sober for 18 years.

Comet, another 50-year-old Mexican American, served time in the federal penitentiary. His drugs of choice, like Dasher is, were whatever would get him high--he didn’t stick to one for very long, but alcohol was consistent through all of it. He has been clean and sober for 19 years, and has miraculously held on to his wife through many years of addictive behavior and the recovery process.

I designed my interviews around five topics of discussion:

I used an informal conversational style to encourage a relaxed and uninhibited dialogue. During the dialogue I observed body language, facial expressions, and other idiosyncracies. Each interview/dialogue lasted between 2 and 4 hours. After each interview I transcribed the tape recordings and descriptions of body language and demeanor which were pertinent.

In this analysis, I evaluated the transcribed data from interviews in the context of the trickster archetype. In the first phase, referred to as epoch by Marshall and Rossman (1999), I confronted my prejudices, assumptions, and expectations. Though this is done before interviewing, "the purpose of this self-examination is for the researcher to gain clarity from his own preconceptions, and it is part of the ongoing process rather than a single fixed event" (p. 113); therefore, I was obliged to keep in continual touch with these possible elements of interference, because phenomenological research seeks essentially to describe rather than explain, and to start from a perspective free from hypotheses, prejudices, assumptions, and preconceptions.

Following the first phase, I moved on to what Marshall and Rossman (1999) call phenomenological reduction, in which I identified the essence of the study. Then I clustered the data from each interview around common themes--themes that might support one or more of my prejudices, assumptions, and expectations (p. 113).

I drew my conclusions in the final stage, structural synthesis, involving the imaginative exploration of all possible meanings and divergent perspectives.

I recognized that my method would be limited by the relatively small number of subjects. Nevertheless, I knew that what such a design sacrifices in terms of generalization of findings is compensated for by the depth of the findings which such a study reveals.

I complied with the American Psychological Association standards for conducting research with human subjects, and I gained approval from Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Ethics Committee before proceeding.

An informed consent form was used to establish time commitments, place, confidentiality, opportunities for feedback, permission to tape record, permission to use material in my dissertation or other publications, and an opportunity for my subjects to read the study. This form was approved by the Pacifica Ethics Committee.

Having completed my interviews on audio tape, I listened and re-listened to the tapes, immersing myself in the data during a period of weeks to maintain a sustained focus and concentration. Then I spent 2 additional weeks completely detached from the data. I transcribed the tapes and again immersed myself in the data contained in the transcripts.

Out of that immersion I gradually discerned six themes that were shared by each participant and which seemed pertinent to the trickster archetype:

1. Scumbag sewer rats

2. The beginning fun phase

3. Between fun and addiction

4. Disintegrating family relationships

5. Violence

6. Trickster war stories.

Scumbag sewer rats. During the interviews, all of the five participants used the word scum to describe themselves as drug addicts as viewed by others. This particular theme resonated with me because of my own experience with having been described by a probation officer as a scumbag sewer rat--a theme which was then adopted as the title of this dissertation on the trickster archetype in the criminalized male drug addict.

In describing the scum nature of others’ opinions of drug addicts, Dasher said: "They think we’re freaks, and I’m guilty of it, you know. I see the people that are going down the street going like this [flailing his arms] and I think, ‘oh, that poor son of a bitch.’ Then I think ‘but by the grace of God, there go I.’" Dasher also used the words pity and fear to describe how average people feel about drug addicts.

Dancer said that they [society] "probably think we’re scum. You know what I mean? And now I look at these guys and I’ll see them walking down the street, I just can’t even--it’s just dirty, you know. It’s just dirty to me now."

After asking Prancer how he thought normies (12-step jargon) would describe us, he replied: "We would be basically labeled as scum, not to be trusted, not to leave anything laying around of value, you know." A little later he gave this scenario: "If I went into a, say a church meeting and there was a bunch of people that never even did dope and I went in there and gave them my life story about how drugs messed my life up they’d be looking at me with horror and wouldn’t be able to relate to it at all--they’d be instantly scared of me. They wouldn’t have compassion like another dope fiend would."

Here’s Vixen’s response to the same question: "Oh shit, they looked at us as the degenerates of the world, the lowlifes of the world, you know, scum, the stuff that comes from under the rocks. I mean, what did the cops tell you when they busted you? ‘You piece of scumbag shit.’"

After agreeing that normal people look at us "with disgust, suspicion, and mistrust," I found myself fishing for the word scum from Comet by asking: If you had one word to characterize what the average citizen thought of us as a general group, what would you say? He said, "Scum." It’s a word that every addict is familiar with. Then Comet said something similar to my other participants: "I’m sober 19 years and I see that behavior, and the word comes out of my mouth ‘a bunch of scumbag mother-fuckers.’"

The beginning fun phase. In the beginning fun phase, all of my participants discussed what it was like when they started using drugs and alcohol and quite frankly they seemed to relive some of the pleasure of those times in their lives. All of them talked about how innocent their drug use was in the beginning, saying that it was fun and exciting.

Before we (I include myself as a participant) built a repertoire of disgust, suspicious, mistrust, pity, and fear from society, we were just out to have a good time. Roberts (1990) reminds us that the trickster is a perpetual child who lives in a world of overt rebellion. "He commits acts against taboos and mores in full knowledge of what he is doing. In fact he glories in this knowledge of revolt. He is consciously and sincerely immoral" (p. 185).

A recurrent theme through my interviews was how my participants initially responded to my first question: How do male drug addicts describe the lived experience of addiction and its consequences? All of them started by explaining what it was like when they started using drugs.

All of them described their first years of drug use as fun. They elaborated on this extensively before they began talking about their descent into the abyss of the netherworld of addiction. They were at this time of their lives personifying the puer archetype. And most of them began by talking about their beginning experiences, turning the question from male drug addicts overall, to their own experiences. There was one exception--Dasher, but he still kept within the fun theme.

Dasher said, "Well, it’s been my experience that males have a tendency to elaborate extensively on the good times, and not so much on the bad times."

Dancer replied: "I’d describe it as starting out as a lot of fun. It started out as a big party, and it started out right away getting high every day, every

chance I got, and that was when I was about 13 years old."

Prancer follows suit: "Well, my addiction started off real innocent, just smoking pot, stealing beers from dad out of his refrigerator and that was, like, in junior high and it wasn’t really a problem. It was just, you know, it was fun."

The same goes for Vixen: "Well, they were good experiences. I mean, when I first started off using, you know, it was not a big deal. I mean, we’re partying, we’re drinking, we’re using, we’re whatever. Early on it was exciting."

Comet said: "I loved my addiction. I loved the use of drugs. It started off as very pleasant. I enjoyed it." These guys are saying things that Peter Pan might say if he was living in contemporary society.

Between fun and addiction. My participants said that between fun and addiction they started getting into trouble. They would pick up a DUI or a possession charge, or they would get suspended from school or fired from a job. Each one made a statement concurring that none of these problems deterred them from continuing their drug use.

The transition time between fun and disintegrating family relationships varies with each individual. During this transition period we still have fun, but things also start to happen. For example, when I was 20 years old I got my second DUI. I managed to beat it in a jury trial, but I wasn’t so lucky with the four succeeding DUIs that I received over the next 20 years.

Comet said that he was asked to leave the armed forces because of his addiction: "I was let out early because of my drinking and using." Prancer said: "And I got fired from that job and then I said, fuck it. This is going to be my new job--getting high." I can’t even remember all the jobs I was fired from. Sometimes these things start happening to us at a young age, especially those of us who started when we were 11 or 12 years old. For example, Prancer explained: "Before I got to the ninth grade, I got kicked out of school three times from three different schools and then they ran out of schools to send me to." Of course bars are where we tricksters are usually 86'd from. Take Lenny Bruce, for example--a typical trickster figure in many ways. He was banned from night clubs nationwide, and eventually banned from Las Vegas. He also died of a drug overdose. As Thunderspud of Dragonfhain (1986) points out:

Hyde (1998) says that "the trickster is given something valuable with a condition set on its use, time passes, and before too long trickster’s hunger leads him to violate the condition" (p. 28). The criminalized male drug addict’s voracious hunger often leads to an overdose. Dancer told me about his: "I woke up one time in the back of somebody’s fucking yard and they were squirting me in the face with a water hose. Another time I woke up and somebody was trying to fuckin’ shove me into my truck and push my truck out of the yard so I didn’t die in their yard, you know."

Perhaps this transition period from fun to addiction is determined by the physiology of pleasure and pain. Pleasurable sensations diminish as they are repeated. The second piece of coconut-cream pie never tastes as good as the first one, and if you keep eating more it can become downright nauseating. On the other hand, pain and suffering become more and more exquisite with repetition--the more pain the more pain. The poet Keats said it this way: "pleasure is oft a visitant, but pain clings cruelly to us."

Disintegrating family relationships. The disintegrating family relationships caused by addiction was discussed in varying degrees, but mostly by the hardships they imposed on their families. Consistent among them was how utilities would get turned off, rent money was squandered and the kids would have to go hungry because grocery money was spent for drugs. Divorce and the loss of their kids were usually the result.

Question 3 is: How do the demands of addiction affect the family and personal relationships? Each participant gave a similar story. It is a story that is shared in 12-step programs all over the world every day.

Dasher’s initial response was "Well, it’s hard to have two lovers." He was talking about his wife as lover, and his addiction as lover. However, he also got involved, physically, with other women: "I would find other women who liked to get high because she [his wife] didn’t like to get high. She didn’t want any. She wouldn’t even try it. She was very narrowminded." Hyde (1998) provides a good example: "Trickster will be less ridden by lust and hunger if his organs of appetite have been whittled away" (p. 31).

Dasher and his wife had four kids before his wife divorced him. He said, "I’d spend my last dime on dope rather than bringing milk home for my kids. I would leave the family--just desert them without anything, just so I could do what I wanted."

Dancer said, "It’s sad to say, but my hustle at the time was driving a truck and spending all my money on fucking dope, man, while my kids were at home living on food stamps, you know, and not even getting the full benefits of them either. But sooner or later it comes down to the point: do I buy my daughter some new shoes or do I fucking shoot dope, you know. Of course I shot dope." Later he added: "During the course of the addiction between the two of us [him and his wife], and because of drug addiction, CPS had my kids."

Prancer stated, "My marriage only lasted 6 months because of drug addiction because I didn’t really care about my family. The only thing I cared about was doing dope. And I had--she had a son when I married her, and then we had a son together and I don’t know, I seen him off and on until about 4 years old and then I didn’t see him again until he was 14." As Roberts (1990) points out: "In numerous tales, animal tricksters not only acquired the material rewards that they sought but they also routinely violated social contracts in the process" (p. 36). Marriages are social contracts.

Vixen said "I’ve been married three times," but then told how he was married to the co-dependent one for 17 years. "She’d bail me out maybe the first 2 years, then after that she said ‘oh fuck you! I ain’t getting you out no more.’ So the strain on the marriage came on right away." A little later he told me about the four kids from that marriage. Then: "where’s the money?" his wife asked. "Well, fuck, I ain’t got my money back yet. I bought these drugs and I ain’t moved nothing yet, so you’re gonna have to wait, you know." Then Vixen said: "And that wasn’t true. Most of the time the money was squandered somewhere else." Vixen also talked about utilities being turned off periodically, and he ended this part by saying "I did nothing to make that marriage work. I did everything to destroy it. Now, with hindsight, I know that had she not been an enabler, that marriage would’ve been over after the first year."

Comet said, "I caused my wife an enormous amount of pain." This man, like Dasher, was married to a woman who didn’t use drugs or alcohol. Comet said that "she’s really got good values and she’s really raised me as well as she did my kids." Later, he said: "I think my greatest regret is the amounts of money I stole from my family. I stole from my in-laws. I stole a coin collection from my mother-in-law. I stole wedding bands and things that were valuable family heirlooms to get a fix." Talking about his wife, Comet said "today she’s experiencing some headaches from my banging her up. She’s got backaches from my banging her up. I did that." The pain in his eyes convinced me of his remorse. And he’s even sorrier for how he neglected his kids. Comet’s abusive behavior was unequivocally violent.

Violence. Violence is ubiquitous in the chemically dependent male population and was described vividly by each of the participants. They also talked about how their drunken fathers beat them, which they felt was why their violence emerged in the first place. Their violent behavior was subsequently perpetrated on their families, as well as in the community, which often resulted in their being jailed.

Violence is a common theme among drug addicts in general, and particularly so with jointsters. Vixen said,

It is not uncommon for us to be thrown out of bars for fighting; however, bars weren’t the only places we would get kicked out of and banned from. When talking about a man in a bar, Dasher said, "If I hadn’t had so damn much beer, you know, sitting in there, I wouldn’t have kicked his ass and sent him on his way."

While talking about the effects of addiction on the family, Dancer said,

When I was first introduced to Dancer, I saw that intangible quality--that aura that signals to other perceptive souls that he is a thoroughly dangerous man. He isn’t a skinhead and he doesn’t have tatoos or any of the other typical drug addict signs--just that undefinable quality that only street-wise familiarity can recognize.

Prancer’s shaved head and tattooed body advertizes his background. He told me about a couple of incidents on the yard where he got in trouble for fighting and disrespect, and he said that he also participated in riots while in the joint.

Vixen talked vehemently about his violent past. He said, "I got in a big fight while in basic camp and ripped this guy a new asshole." Commenting on his arrests for violence he said, "Five times I was jailed for assault with a deadly weapon." Later he continues: "I pistol whipped the shit out of a guy because he stole some drugs from me." If I were to quote all of the violence he reported, it would take two or three more typewritten pages, but here is one more: "I knocked him completely out, kicked him with a steel-toed boot, busted his jaw, drug him under my truck, and I was gonna run over him. The only thing that saved him was my brother choking the fuck out of me."

Comet’s only remarks on violence are at the end of the last section when he talked about "banging her up"-- domestic violence in his case.

My last theme elucidates the ever-present war stories that drug addicts are capable of spinning. A war story is 12-step terminology that describes the peccant, pugnacious, and hedonistic nature of trickster experiences--all those tales about the dirty, rotten, scumbag--typically trickster, which are transparently a mixture of fact and fiction. These are the stories that are made into literature by writers like Jack London and Ambrose Bierce, but which are labeled confabulation when used by doctors and psychologists to describe the behavior of drug addicts. This confabulation, coupled with exaggeration, by drug addicts is also found around the tables of Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Their propensity for confabulation and tall tales often continues into recovery and remaining a character trait for the rest of their lives.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, drunkalogues are called war stories. In Narcotics Anonymous, drugalogues are also called war stories. Short violent war stories were told in the last section. Some war stories are interesting, others captivating, and some are downright funny. What follows is a short sampling of some war stories told by my participants, which is illustrative of the trickster archetype.

Dasher. Dasher explained that "a lot of guys that I hanged out with were doing some border jumping--getting drugs in Mexico and bringing them back into the states." While Dasher wasn’t doing any smuggling himself, he did offer his house to store drugs in. To hide the drugs, he built a bookshelf with concealed wheels, and placed it in front of a closet where the drugs were hidden. Dasher remarked that he got the idea from an old Lon Chaney movie.

Dancer. When I think of cattle rustling, I think of cowboy movies; however, Dancer wasn’t that kind of cattle rustler. He and his buddies would go into supermarkets and "we’d pick all the high-dollar shit. We would steal all the beef that we could and steal all the filet mignon, and then store it in ice chests in the back of the truck, and later we would go into the bars and sell it for half price."

Prancer. "I didn’t have an income anymore, so I learned how to steal cars and I got pretty good at it. I got away with it for about 8 or 9 years." When I asked him how he did it, Prancer said "well, you need a pair of pliers, flathead screwdriver, phillips screwdriver, some extra screws, and a five-pound dent puller. Carry that with you all the time." His operation and his success at stealing cars were phenomenal.

Vixen. Tricksters are manipulative geniuses. Vixen was told by his lawyer that he was lucky to have gotten the district attorney to agree to 90 days in the county jail for an assault with a deadly weapon. Vixen told his attorney: "You know what? You go back in there and you get me a fine and get me out of that 90 days. I don’t want no time." The attorney said that he couldn’t get him off this time. "Well, fuck it then. We’ll go to court." The attorney said "wait a minute, wait a minute." The attorney went back into the court room and came out with no time and a thousand dollar fine.

Comet. Comet told an interesting story about his fraudulent practices working in service stations. He said "I tried my hand at 50 percenting in gas stations--cheating people for money, and I was pretty effective at that. It was exciting, adrenaline-producing, and was a high in itself. I was very good at it but it required a certain amount of bullshit. You had to be a good bullshitter if you really wanted to sling some shit. So, I think we were quality salesmen." This now-defunct confidence game was practiced diligently by these tricksters as they methodically extracted money from unsuspecting tourists for services rendered.

Artistic Component

Once I became so intrigued and fascinated by these part-factual, part-fiction stories from my participants that I began questioning whether my phenomenological research approach was really accentuating the lived experiences of criminalized male drug addicts and the trickster archetype.

I could effectively continue with this linear phenomenological approach, but I didn’t believe it would elucidate enough, in a depth psychological way, what it was that my participants had to offer concerning the trickster archetype in this population of drug addicts.

Therefore, I moved this straight phenomenological research study into a hybrid research methodology incorporating an artistic component where I have elucidated the trickster archetype by focusing on trickster stories of drug addicts.

Moustakas (1990) points out that once the researcher has mastered knowledge of the material that illuminates and explicates, the researcher is challenged to put the components and core themes into a creative synthesis. This usually takes the form of a narrative depiction utilizing verbatim material and examples, but it may be expressed as a poem, story, drawing, painting, or by some other creative form (p. 32).

I have chosen to combine factual and fictional accounts of trickster escapades, romps, and adventures and express them through the life of a fictional character who I have named Harry Scumbag.

Denney (2001) points out

In a Trickster-Hermes kind of spirit, Picasso said that "art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth" (Peter, 1977, p. 59). Similarly, addiction is the thimblerig that enables us to realize the truth.

The meaning of art is ambiguous. The International Dictionary of Thoughts (Bradley, Daniels, Leo, & Jones, 1969) includes the comments of a variety of thinkers on art. Allston says, "never judge a work of art by its defects"(p. 50). Atkinson adds, "Real art is illumination, it adds stature to life" (p. 50). The essence of storytelling can be entertaining as well as informative. Cobb, in the same work, stated that "a good storyteller is a person who has a good memory and hopes other people haven’t" (p. 691). And Eliot contends: "No story is the same to us after the lapse of time: or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters" (p. 691). "But that is another story" (p. 691), remarked Kipling. And Sir Walter Scott must have said these words with me in mind: "I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as it was said to me" (p. 692). And Lowell shares that "stories now, to suit a public taste, must be half epigram, half pleasant vice" (p. 691).

If one considers the power of art to reveal what is hidden and unknown, such as the nuances of addiction in the criminalized male, and if the power of art is nameless through metaphor, image, and literature, then an artistic method is well suited for depth psychology.

I believe that fictive storytelling is more effective than didactic rhetoric to characterize the lived experiences that my participants related to me. As Lavery (1980) points out, dissertations as fictions are not new:

Vonnegut wasn’t alone. Carlos Castaneda published fiction in a doctoral dissertation:

What I gleaned from the interview data of male drug addicts was, like Vonnegot’s and Castaneda’s work, also a paradoxical mixture of fact and fiction--confabulation and exaggeration. Being around drug addicts all my life, I recognized that what they were telling me wasn’t all truth.

Rather than presenting my experimental data as fact, I had to take into account that my participants were giving me "data" as stories that could be neither confirmed nor denied. Within this realm of self-referential paradox, I considered that as dissertation writer I, too, should perhaps become a trickster. To accomplish that, I would tell stories gleaned from the culture of drug addiction, stories of my own personal experience, and that of others.

In terms of dissertation writing, will my accounts be "fact?" I will forever swear that they are. But, as I had to assign fictitious names to my participants to protect their identities, so I must assign a fictitious name to my character in my stories.

In this way, my artistic method of storytelling will enhance my dissertation, making it more depth psychological and thus make it more meaningful. I have selected the name of Harry Scumbag as the main character in my stories.

"Harry Scumbag and the Tijuana Connection" is the story of how Harry Scumbag and his partners in crime passed counterfeit money to build enough investment capital to go into the drug smuggling/drug dealing business.

"Harry Scumbag and the Cattle Rustlers" employs Hermes the cattle thief. Harry and his fellow rustlers steal "cattle," meat from supermarkets, then sell it for half price to support their drug habits.

"Harry Scumbag and the Car Theft Caper" is about Harry and his friends stealing cars by either busting the locks on parked cars or entering cars that are unlocked, then using a dent-puller and a screwdriver to start the cars.

"Harry Scumbag and the Lube Bay Bandits" is a trickster story in the form of a confidence man in gasoline service stations, selling automotive parts by misrepresentation or fraud to unwitting motorists, while being praised as a savior by the very people he swindled.

"Harry Scumbag’s Prescription for Addiction" depicts the con man mode by stories of calling in and writing forged medical prescriptions for pharmaceutical drugs.

HARRY SCUMBAG AND THE TIJUANA CONNECTION

When Harry Scumbag walked down main street in his home town of Barstow, California in the early 1970s he was looked upon as the hippie type, with hair down to his shoulders and a scraggly beard. Before that, during the hippie 1960s, however, he was seen as a nice, clean-cut young man with short hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. Regardless of when it was, Scumbag was always 5'3" tall and weighed anywhere from 135 to 160 pounds, depending on what drug he was using at any given time.

Chapter 5