Oliver Sacks vs. Oliver Wolf Part 2

Did Oliver Sacks do drugs? Would he have done them AT WORK?

These were the questions I found myself asking after watching Brilliant Minds Chapter 4: The Blackout Bride. (Note: This post contains spoilers for that episode.)

So I picked up Oliver Sacks’s autobiography -- which I read a while ago and apparently forgot -- because the answer is a resounding YES.

He did a LOT of drugs including morning glory seeds (LSA), LSD, pot, amphetamines, cocaine, chloral hydrate and morphine. He was addicted! He had withdrawal symptoms, and he only quit in 1966 (age 33) because his analyst (therapist) said he’d be “beyond the reach of analysis” if he didn’t stop.

Like Wolf’s patient, Sacks once had a patient who murdered his wife while on angel dust (PCP) and had no memory of the incident.

“On the Move,” like all of Oliver Sacks’s books, is a masterpiece.

I also found some more touchpoints between Dr. Sacks and Dr. Wolf:

Dr. Sacks’s middle name is Wolf, and that’s what his motorcycle buddies called him. Also, like Dr. Wolf, Dr. Sacks actually did help outlaw bikers (actual Hells Angels) with their injuries.

Dr. Sacks was called mugwomp by his mom. (Also “pet lamb”)

Dr. Sacks’s mom was an intimidating woman and a famous surgeon, not unlike Dr. Wolf’s mom. (Dr. Sacks’ mom also was very upset about Sacks being gay.)

Dr. Sacks once reached through a car window and violently tweaked the nose of a man who tried to run him off the road on his motorcycle. (In the Blackout Bride, Dr. Wolf breaks the nose of a man who gropes Dr. Dana Dang on the dance floor.)

Like Dr. Wolf, Dr. Sacks snuck a dying patient out of the hospital for a motorcycle ride! She had a fatal disease and she had to be physically tied to Sacks because she was paralyzed.

A few dissmiliaries:

Dr. Sacks describes himself as diffident, insecure, timid and submissive. Dr. Wolf is none of these things.

Dr. Sacks LOVED having students/interns.

Unlike Wolf, who can’t bear to kill a frog, Sacks “sacrificed” and dissected PLENTY of animals, including hundreds of earthworms.

Some fun facts:

Sacks was a mess! He lost a notebook containing months’ worth of data; and then he lost the experiment samples.

He also lost two complete book manuscripts! One is “Myoclonus,” the other a series of case histories of Alzheimers’ patients. I’d love to find them. Searching for Sacks would make for a great podcast.

He rewrote so compulsively, when working on Awakenings he had to shove each finished page under the locked door of his editor to keep himself from revising.

He also was working on a book all about a single Tourette’s patient, but the relationship went sour and the patient ended up issuing him death threats. (Would love to find that too!)