High Risk: A True Story of the SAS, Drugs and Other Bad Behaviour

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It’s about what drives us humans to do beautiful and stupid things told by a person’s journey through addiction and…maybe…redemption and something more. But such is the clarity of the author’s perspective that this part of the journey is less about self-loathing and and the emotional abyss; and more about a sense of identity and a lonely pride that comes with being a truly committed addict. To me the book became the (very articulate) ramblings of someone who is fully and proudly aware they are a member of a club and an attendee of parties to which 99. And speaking of PTSD Timberlake is one of the few people I’ve read who talks about PTG or Post Traumatic Growth; the concept that you can have hideous experiences and come away from them stronger and having learnt something about yourself, other people and the world. I'm not sure this review is even fair, but I found a lot of Ben's narration techniques to be noticeable and annoying.

The part of the story that I enjoyed the most was his describing of the flow state and even some of his descriptions of getting high and his withdrawal. It’s about Adrenaline, Endorphins and Dopamine, whether through action and pain, flow and game, BDSM, or drug addiction: mainly the author’s journey through SAS selection and then his own heroin and meth addictions and back. High Risk is, in a way, the story of a wicked Mr Hyde inventing a serum to transform himself into a reputable Dr Jekyll.The difference between Burroughs Junkie and todays is perhaps the absence then of trying to explain this as some type of pathology or product of trauma and therefore subsequent lack of agency. I'm much more of a fiction person, so it's not quite fair of me, but I found the narrative flat, especially while he was repeating his descriptions of what it's like to either be high, be trying to get high, or trying to get over his constant need to get high. Growing up in London, the son of an American journalist, Timberlake went to the Yugoslav war aged 18, where he was almost executed in a bar by a leader of the HVO, a Croat paramilitary full of Nazis.

There’s no threat in the world when you’re on vast amounts of MDMA, so you can revisit this stuff and you can talk about it. Back in Ramadi, Timberlake saw the way in which drugs are used in combat as a fuel to keep military personnel working. This is a dark, raw and uncompromising tale of the human condition in extremis, drawing on the many lives of Ben Timberlake: as an archaeologist, Special Forces soldier, combat medic and drug addict. At the beginning the author proudly introduces himself as “an arsehole” which on reflection should have been enough to put me off, but I persisted nevertheless, because of my initial intrigue in the title.Repeated or prolonged exposure to an odorant without any positive or negative reinforcement produces experience-dependent plasticity, which results in habituation and latent inhibition.