Where did the saying "going cold turkey" originate?

Answer 1

Originally referring to heroin drug addicts trying to quit. "The phrase describes the skin's reaction to heroin withdrawal. As an addict stops using the drug, blood is drawn toward the internal organs, thereby leaving the skin to resemble a cold, plucked turkey."

From Ask Yahoo!, which has a page explaining exactly that at http://ask.yahoo.com/20030128.html

Phrases.org.uk explains it, too. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/96950.html

Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope takes a different sort of stab at the subject as well. http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_269.html

Answer 2

"Cold turkey" is a slang expression describing the actions of a person who gives up a habit or addiction all at once, rather than gradually (easing the process through tapering off or using supplemental medication).

This is, of course, the cheapest method of quitting any habit, and its supposed advantage is that by not actively using supplemental methods, the person avoids thinking about the habit and therefore, the temptation.

The term arose in the 1930s when smokers would put cold turkey slices in their shoes in the belief that this would counter-act the side-effects from quitting.

Answer 3

I believe it originates from families going without food after Christmas and just eating the cold turkey from the Christmas dinner, I may be and probaly am wrong!

Answer 4

In turkey

Answer 5

cold turkey
"without preparation," 1910; narrower sense of "withdrawal from an addictive substance" (originally heroin) first recorded 1921. Cold turkey is a food that requires little preparation, so "to quit like cold turkey" is to do so suddenly and without preparation.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=c&p=18

cold turkey - withdrawal effects from abruptly ending a dependency such as drugs or alcohol - the expression seems to have been first used in this sense in the 1950's and appeared in the dictionary of American slang in 1960. The cold turkey expression is a metaphor for the cold sweat condition, and particularly the effect on the sufferer's skin, experienced during dependency withdrawal. (Specifically - ack Dr A Howard - during narcotic drug withdrawal, the skin of the patient becomes sweaty, pale and nodular - like the skin of a plucked turkey. This is caused by the over-activity of muscles in the skin layers called Erector Pili muscles.) Prior to this and certainly as early as 1928 (when it appeared in the British Daily Express newspaper), the cold turkey expression meant the plain truth, blunt statements or simple facts of the matter, in turn derived from 'talk turkey', now meaning to discuss seriously the financial aspects of a deal, and earlier to talk straight and 'down-to-earth'. This early 'talk turkey' usage dates back to the early-1800's USA, and came to the UK later, as Brewer doesn't list it in his comprehensive dictionary of 1870. The word turkey is interesting: the turkey species was originally native only to Mexico where it was found domesticated by the Mexican people when the Spanish invaded in 1518. The birds were brought to England in 1524 and appeared in Europe in 1530, and by 1575 had become associated across Europe with Christmas celebrations. Turkey is a shortening of the original forms turkeycock and turkeyhen, being the names given to guinea-fowl imported from Africa by way of the country of Turkey, as far back as the 1540's. The word was soon (circa 1550's) applied erroneously to the turkey because it was identified with and/or treated as a species of the guinea fowl. Turkey came to mean an inept person or a failed production in the mid 1900's, because the bird was considered particularly unintelligent and witless, and this too no doubt contributed to the modern meaning of the cold turkey expression.
--http://www.businessballs.com/clichesorigins.htm

To "go cold turkey," meaning to stop using an addictive drug suddenly and completely, usually incurring extremely unpleasant symptoms of withdrawal, is a phrase which dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. "Cold turkey" is actually based on another colloquial phrase, "to talk turkey" (sometimes "to talk cold turkey"), meaning to face unpleasant truths squarely. It's not entirely clear how turkeys came to be associated with honesty and straightforward confrontation of difficulties, but it may simply be that turkey farmers were renowned at one time for their lack of pretense and blunt speech.

The "wagon" in "on the wagon" (having sworn off drinking all alcohol) and "off the wagon" (having failed in one's resolve and thus having started drinking again) refers to a fixture of America's past, the water wagon. Before roads were routinely paved, municipalities would dispatch horse-drawn water wagons to spray the streets in order to prevent the clouds of dust that traffic would otherwise cause. Anyone who had sworn abstinence from alcohol (and would presumably be drinking largely water from then on) was said to have "climbed aboard the water wagon," later shortened to "on the wagon."

http://www.word-detective.com/back-p.html

Answer 6

It started with people coming off heroin & going cold Turkey
not nice.

Answer 7

drug withdrawal causes the skin to crease resembling the skin of dead poultry so i guess out of chicken/duck/ and turkey the latter was chosen

Answer 8

i dont know