Sinclair on life: She kills pain and pleasure

By PETER SINCLAIR

Lady Morphine is a jealous mistress. She will countenance no rival.

You are speaking to someone who, at one stage of his life, was a Marlboro Man.

Yes, that guy outlined against the evening sky as his head droops towards the match-flame in his cupped hand and his horse stirs.

I was a minor Australian variant of the breed, in a knotted red neckerchief and a half-hearted sort of stetson, perched on a hired pinto on the cliffs at Cronulla, these being deemed sufficiently generic to represent the outback.

I was there courtesy of the Philip Morris All-Nighter, a Sydney radio show I hosted in the late 1950s.

Mine was the caressing bass-baritone that murmured through the night for the benefit of truckies and towies and taxi-drivers and people who wait for the dawn, like I do now.

Alpine, Philip Morris and Marlboro, along with Sinatra, Como, Glenn Miller and me: that was the mix.

To keep me fired up, I was supplied with a weekly carton of each of the sponsors' fine products, and rapidly built up an 80-a-day habit.

Forty years later I got leukaemia and was introduced to Lady Morphine. Within a month or two I was a non-smoker, for it became a choice between pain and breathing - Lady Morphine literally steals your breath away.

I've just been checking her out on the internet (www.bankhead.net/BoozeAndDrugs/Drugs/Morphine.html).

"Morphine is a narcotic drug ... The user feels a surge of pleasure, then a state of gratification into which hunger, pain and sexual urges do not intrude. The body feels warm and heavy and the mouth feels dry."

So far, I suppose, so good. But there's a price on these venomous charms. "Physical effects include nausea, vomiting, insensitivity to pain, increased urination, constipation, sweating, itchy skin and slowed breathing.

"With very large doses the pupils contract to pinpoints, the skin is cold, moist and bluish, and breathing may slow to a complete stop, resulting in death."

Charming. But the point is that Lady Morphine banishes all other minor vices that ease our way through life.

At one time I was a luncher of renown - a restaurant judge and professional foodie with a column in Cuisine magazine (CyberChef).

Now a piece of toast in the morning requires an act of will and some damned good marmalade. Lady Morphine is jealous of food.

Once, wine was a recognised part of the pharmacopoeia. St Bernards bounded through the snowdrifts of the Tyrol bearing brandy - the "medical comforts" - to stranded travellers; and doctors actually prescribed champagne for cancer victims such as myself .

(I recall Hal Porter's description of his mother in The Watcher on the Cast-Iron Balcony, drinking champagne to dull the pain as she "drifted off across the reedy shallows of delirium.")

Roger, my doctor, doesn't seem to think we'd get away with Moët on Southern Cross, though, and it wouldn't be of much use if we could - as a toper, my credentials were once impeccable, but now that Lady Morphine has come into my life she's arranged it so that just a sip or two of a hefty Aussie red, my passion, is enough to send me straight in the direction of the nearest basin.

Occasionally I manage to sneak a very weak G&T when she isn't looking.

Oh, and no sex please, we've got cancer - not when you're in the warm, heavy, neutering grip of Lady Morphine.

I have managed one small victory, though: I have acquired a little drinking problem.

I am now a tea addict. Not just any tea but my own fragrant blend, a combination of the rich and subtle acids obtained by mixing 50 per cent Dilmah and 25 per cent each Twining's Orange Pekoe and Prince of Wales: the Pekoe for its brilliant golden colour and delicate aroma and the Wales for its mild tarry flavour - although the smouldering-peat smokiness of Irish Breakfast makes a great alternative.

Tea may not quench physical pain with the same sinister compassion as Lady Morphine; but when it comes to easing the pain of the spirit at three in the morning, tea - this warming, comforting, amiable addiction - remains the cup that cheers.

* pete@ihug.co.nz