straighten v.2
1. (drugs) to give an injection of narcotics to relieve someone’s withdrawal symptoms.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | You Can’t Win (2000) 136: If he [i.e. a drug addict] is feeling neither very bad nor very good he takes a jolt ‘just to get himelf straightened around’. | |
| McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon (2001) 32: Between us, we got the woman straightened out. | |
| Corner Boy 103: You straight man, just straighten me. | |
| Addict in the Street (1966) 204: One bag’s not enough to straighten me. | |
| Last Exit to Brooklyn 256: If I had a couple a bucks I could see soma the boys tanight and maybe we’d pick somethin up. Thats what I need to straighten me out. | |
| Panic in Needle Park (1971) 58: Like I might find old Joe Schmo today and buy three bags from him and find that one bag straightens me out. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Get Your Cock Out 8: The brown had straightened him out, he felt almost chipper. | |
| Border [ebook] She cooks and fixes. [...] Straightened out, she says, ‘You got any money?’. |
2. (also straighten away, straighten out, straighten up) to stop (someone) taking addictive drugs, occas. of alcoholism (see cite 1973 (2)).
| Inside Dope 97: Well, I won’t say it exactly does you good, but if you go to a clinic now and then to get straightened out you escape the worst [...] A three weeks’ disintoxication or ‘straightening out’, minimum period, and not a cure but merely a cleansing of the system, will be undertaken against a fee of four to five thousand francs. | |
| Golden Spike 141: All right, I’ll straighten up. | |
| [W.R. Burnett] It’s Always Four O’Clock 49: ‘Have you really got [i.e. drug addiction] beat?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ said Royal. ‘Then let it stay beat. We’ll get you straightened out’. | |
| Cast the First Stone 54: They’d both been threatening to have me committed and sent away if I didn’t straighten up. | |
| Addict in the Street (1966) 223: Usually it’s the girl who straightens out a fella. | |
| Voices from the Love Generation 6: I got straightened away. | |
| Dark Fields of Venus 104: ‘You take heroin.’ ‘Not any more; I used to.’ ‘How did you straighten out?’ ‘It was easy,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t really hooked’. | |
| Dark Fields of Venus 172: ‘Do you drink a lot?’ I asked. ‘Not any more. I straightened out.’ ‘How did you do that?’ ‘I said a prayer’. | |
| Iced 57: Go and stay with mama, she might be able to straighten you out. | |
| Down by the River 2: A stretch in Lorton had straightened him all the way out, though no one mistook his clean lifestyle for the lifestyle of a pushover. | |
| Workin’ It 179: Still, I wouldn’t straighten up. | |
| Random Family 131: Lourdes’ family were working people, and whenever Lourdes visited, she straightened out. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Thrill City [ebook] Call back when you’ve straightened out. Yes you are, you’re off your tits. | |
| Hard Stuff 187: I expressed my sincere desire to straighten up. |
3. to stabilise one’s emotions with alcohol.
| Alcoholics (1993) 70: Put a few stiff ones under your belt — just enough to get straightened out. | |
| Sex, Vice & Business 116: I was in a bar when a man came in and announced [...] that he had been to a real party the night before and needed one to straighten himself out. | |
![[Oth]](/static/img/flags/oth.png "(Other)") | Legionnaire’s Journey 190: The hot coffee with rum helped to straighten me out a bit . |
4. to stabilise someone’s emotions (without drink or drugs).
| (con. 1958) Been Down So Long (1972) 47: I really thought I’d found him [...] ready to straighten my head once and for all. |
5. in general sense, to give or sell drugs.
| Corner Boy 103: You straight man, just straighten me. | |
| in Huncke’s Journal (1998) 32: Phil [...] cut into a chick he knows who straightened him. |
6. of drugs, to intoxicate pleasantly.
| Snakes (1971) 29: That good gauge’ll straighten anybody out in a minute! [...] Yeahhh straighten you out and jeck you around too. |