L is for Laudanum

You can find a full list of my A to Z challenge posts here. :)

Make your troubles float away...

For those of you who are new here, I write forensic fantasy novels, and they tend to pull no punches. As I worked through the events in the books, one of my major characters needed a way to face not only a daily grind of rapes, murders, and worse, but manage and minimize their reactions to the horrible things they've experienced. In short, they needed to cope. Like a lot of real people who self medicate with drugs and alcohol, this particular character turned to a narcotic. Laudanum.

It's an opiate derivative, similar to modern morphine, and it fit in well with my setting's timeline. This stuff used to be widely available in patent medicines and tonics. Makes me wonder how many opium addicts (by today's standards) existed in the 19th century when they could buy Laudanum and other opiates without any sort of restriction or prescription. It was even added to Absinthe to increase the high (oh, the fun of mixing narcotics and hallucinogens) and the side effects... wow.

It's nasty, yet incredibly awesome stuff, at least from a story teller standpoint. ;)  Just think of the fun things I can do to my characters!!