In the book "Three Day Road" drug addiction takes its toll on some soldiers in the war that are in no way a good thing for them or the people they are fighting with.
Grey Eyes, a soldier Elijah and Xavier meet, is the first soldier we find abusing the medicine to relieve pain in the field morphine. One death is responsible for his use. The death of Sean Patrick is partly responsible for Grey Eyes' use of drugs. His responsiveness to what is happening around him is impaired to the point where others die because of it.
Grey Eyes is rightly named for his character because of the effects of morphine in his body. When he takes to much he lies as if he is a corpse. "When Grey Eyes takes a lot of it, he lies still like he is dead until I worry he has joined them. Then he groans a little and breathes deeply like he is sleeping with the dead for a short while."(page 80, Joseph Boyden). This is powerful to me because when you take this medicine you lose yourself in it that you as a person is dead inside.
I agree many people that have drug addictions after war have the addiction because it helps them numb what they feel as well as what they remember or how their body reacts when they remember the situations.When Grey Eyes lays as if he is dead could it not be also because he wishes he as dead rather than at war? Could the moments he is "under the influence" be a feeling of freedom that he cannot reach any other way?
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