Word: habits
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Christina, 33, a successful actress, began using cocaine to bolster her selfesteem. Too often she felt like a victim, but free-basing three to eight grams of coke a day, she recalls, "made everything all right." Her $3,000-a-week habit left her deep in debt, and after two years, she had her first attack of "coke bugs," a standard problem for free-basers, or smokers of cocaine. Her skin felt as if it were alive with fleas. She took four showers a day and rubbed her skin raw. A doctor, concerned about her hallucinations, warned that cocaine...
Tuchman seizes on the legend as evidence that such folly "is an old and inherent human habit." But her purpose seems deeper. The tale, told most memorably by Vergil in the Aeneid, portrays the Trojans as victims of fate. Despite the urgings of citizens that the Greek gift be destroyed or at least broken open, Troy's leaders take it in, hidden Greeks and all, because the gods have so ordained. That excuse will not do for Tuchman. "The gods (or God, for that matter) are a concept of the human mind," she writes. "The gods' interference...
...partly in rebellion against his money grubbing father that Jamie refuses to make good and flaunts his habit of frequenting bars and beds of whores. In addition, Jamie resents Edmund, always "Momma's baby, Poppa's pet", who now show budding writing talent. Edmund, meanwhile, apart from suffering consumption, blames his very existence on his mother's drug addiction. To escape from their troubles, the men spend late hours drowning themselves in alcohol, while Mary glides about smothered in morphine, dreamily praying to the Blessed Virgin as she did as a schoolgirl...
What should we lead with? What matters most? Let us concede from the start that the problem is subjective, that whatever choice we settle on will be formed more by habit than by a command of history; the press is not in control of history. Getting bored with Beirut? It's not unheard of (if you don't live there). Every few weeks another upheaval; the familiar picture of a crushed Mercedes, a balcony split open like stale cake. One hears that the American people are growing tired of the Middle East as a whole...
Despite his size, McDonough has gained a reputation as an aggressive player who has a habit of getting into the right place at the right time. He's proved his mettle as a clutch player with game-winning goals last year against Holy Cross, St. Anselm's, and Clarkson...