Acid

Pot was nothing like I could've imagined. I found I really enjoyed listening to music stoned, or riding my bike. I started reading everything I could find about pot, pro and con. Reefer madness became a favorite.

I came across a-lot of literature dealigng with other drugs as well and I discovered the drug subculture. So many writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, comedians, all doing drugs and many of them not going crazy and killing themselves or becoming brain dead morons. It even seemed many of them were getting older and still using drugs. Oliver Stone, Hunter S. Thompson, Timothy Leary. I decided drugs were like driving or drinking or anything else. Some folks would over do it. Robbie was surely one of those who would over do it. I was confident in myself that I could use moderately and I decided I wanted to try everything.

I was questioning my Christian upbriniging, starting with Herman Hesse's Sidhartha. It was depressing to have the security blanket of religion taken from me. Life seemed meaningless. But I felt like I'd seen more of life by smoking pot, and some of these drugs I'd read about seemed to provide a view beyond this world. I wanted to know the secrets of the universe. Mostly I wanted to have every experience this life had to offer, since this life was, as far as I knew for sure, all I got.

So, I asked Robbie if he could get us some acid. Sure he could. My parents were to be gone most of the day. Robbie and I met under an old tree that grew by itself in one of the few empty fields left in our rapidly growing suburb. We dropped the acid, which came in the form of little paper tabs. Mine had an eye on it. Apparently we were dropping Black Eschers, featuring the M.C. Escher print of unravelling heads. The eye was rumored to be an extra strong dose. Robbie and I put the tabs on our tongue and sat beneath the tree waiting for it to hit. I rambled on about God and the meaning of life and Robbie nodded and waited to see what the hell I'd be like high.

The acid hit the belly first. My stomach hurt a bit and then began to tighten up. My throat and tongue felt it too. My extremeties started to get in on the act, feeling extra sensitive, slightly ticklish even. I opened and closed my jaw and it was tight but it felt great. I was touching my arms and my jaw and I felt alive and wonderful in my own skin. I forgot about god and fell in love with where I was at that moment. We found these amazing little wooden balls that the tree must have produced. I'd never seen such a thing though they were apparently laying on the ground around us all this time. I put one in my pocket so I could be sure it was amazing later when the drugs had worn off.

Robbie had arranged to be my co-pilot, something he'd assured me was very important when tripping for the first time. I didn't feel like being limited so I paid no attention to Robbie as I took of on my bike. I didn't intend to lose him, but I didn't intend not to. I rode my bike into an area where new homes were being built. Nobody was working so this neighborhood to be just sat there, weird and empty. It felt like a non-place. I rode my bike in circles enjoying the speed and trippin' on the strange surroundings. I looked at the sky and felt my size, how absolute tiny I was on such a big planet. A planet I'd seen so little of. Never mind an afterlife, I needed to get more out of this one. There was so much to see, and I'd missed so many cool things that were right here in front of me.

I headed out of the kuldesac I'd been doing circles in. There was Robbie. "Where were you dude?" he asked feeling a little put out.

I sped past him. I was the first timer here and I felt okay being a bit selfish. If I was ever with someone else durring their first trip I'd return the favor. I went back to the tree and Robbie joined me.

I had fallen in love with the world, with my body and now I fell in love with Robbie. I talked to him and I listened to him without being judgemental. I loved him for feeling and wanting and sharing, for being human. For once I didn't fixate on Robbie being a bit damaged and a bit simple. I instead appreciated Robbie's openness and his cheerful spirit. I was also well aware of the enigmatic abuse he had endured all his life. His father was insane and his mother was passive and a bit slow. Robbie and I talked for hours, trading our life stories and our wants for the future.

Now comes what I would determine in time was the bad part of every acid trip. The trip is done, I've learned all I have room for, I want to be done, but the trip just goes on. Eight hours or more, way too much for such intensity. And always there's the fear that you might just never come down. Robbie told me in advance of this phenomenon and that helped me dismiss or at least cope with the fears, but he also told me stories of people who indeed stayed "on" for the rest of their lives. I did my best to stay calm and ride it out, grinding my teeth, and being more aware of my sweat and spit and guts than at any other time in my life.

Finally the sun headed down and Robbie and I headed to our respective homes. My head and body were settling down. At it's peak the trip was very physical and my mind was reeling but things were never particularly visual. I didn't halucinate, but I did seem to see more vividl, catching something new in anything and everything I looked at. Colors were particluarly vivid. I always knew sunsets were pretty, but now I saw each and every detail, where colors bumped up against each other, made new colors, and how it changed right before your eyes, so subtle, but within minutes the entire images was changed, the sun moving faster and faster as it sped downward, to hide behind the horizon.

I got home late and went to my room, managing to avoid my parents. After putting the strange wooden ball that the tree had birthed on my night stand I closed my eyes and enjoyed a psychadelic show on the back of my eyelids. I saw wild echoing cartoon characters zooming about in space. I turned on the light and did some drawing trying to capture the pictures in my head. And then I went to bed.

That little wooden ball was still pretty amazing come morning. There were things right in front of me that I wasn't seeing. I would make an effort to open my eyes.

Weed

"Choose your friends. Don't let your friends choose you. "

I'd moved from Southern California, where I'd lived all my life in the same house, to Sacramento. My three older brothers all stayed in southern california. I had no friends and I had a horrible time making any. A year had passed and I still had very few people I could hang out with. The one friend I could call up, a transplant himself from Texas, was a bully named Jake.

I was in summer school and Robbie, the kid who sat in front of me in the Hawaiian shirt complimented me on my David Bowie t-shirt. I thanked him and we didn't exchange much converstaion after that but he always laughed when I clowned in class.

The last day of school came and I decided I would seize this opportunity to make a friend. I had become so neurotic socialy that I had butterflies in my stomach as I contimplated asking him if he wanted to hang out.

"Hey dude, you said you liked David Bowie."

"Yeah?"

"Well Labrynth is on HBO tonight, you want to come watch it?"

"Yeah that sounds cool."

I gave him my address and it turned out he didn't live too far from me. Mere minutes by bicycle. We swam and watched Labrynth. He ended up staying the night and my mom, so glad to see me hanging out with such a nice kid took us to rent a whole pile of horror films.

Robbie offered me some weed. Dammit all. I just wanted a friend. I wasn't going to let the weed keep me from being friends with Robbie. After all I attended continuation school with lots of stoners and they were nice enough. I told him I didn't smoke and I sat with him on the roof outside my window while he loaded his pipe and toked away.

I was friends with Robbie and his stoner buddies all that summer, skateboarding and watching movies, Brazil, Monty Python, The Wall, every horror film ever made. Everyone was amazed that I had never smoked pot but after awhile it was just my little quirk. Brook didn't like pizza, Robbie had really weird parents and Keith didn't smoke pot.

Then, one day, I sat watching some porno films from Robbie's parents collection while the rest of the gang was in the garage getting loaded. Robbie came in, poured what was left of a two litre bottle of Coke into my glass and started cutting the bottom off. Then he got a pictcher and filled it with water.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked him.

"I'm making a gravity bong." I followed him into the smoke filled garage, curious about this contraption. I was amazed as they showed me how it worked and I loudly expained it back to them.

"You've created a simple artificial lung. As you lift the bottle out of the water the water flows out of it expanding the capacity of the lung. Nature abhors a vaccumme so air has to get in to fill the space. The air naturally enter where it finds the least resistence, through the spout, through the weed, which you light, and the bong actually takes the hit. The smoke cools in this lung instead of yours and then you get a nice cool hit. Wow!"

Four stoners sat staring at me. Brook was the first to respond to my science lesson. "You want a hit?"

Yeah. I did. I took a hit. It was science. I took a big cool hit from the artificial lung. I didn't feel anything.

"You got to give it time." Brook said as he took a big rip of his own.

After everyone had smoked their share we hopped on our bikes and headed to the flea market.

"I still don't feel anything. Maybe I won't. You know I used to take ritalin and it didn't do much to me because I'm hyper, but if you took it'd be like speed. Maybe hyper kids don't get high either."

We got to the flea market and as I stepped off my bike, I felt it. I felt it in my foot hitting the ground. I felt it in the skin of my face as it tightened in the warm sun. The sky was blue, it was a gorgeous day. "Guys, I'm stoned."

My four friends raised a cheer and we went into the flea market. This place was just made for stoned kids. Mini donuts and lots of blinking lights and trippy things you might miss without that special marijuana brand concentration. Elaborate would carvings that boggled the mind with their tiny, intricate details.

I found a t-shirt booth and had to buy three; Pluto, as in Micky Mouse's dog shaking between to fire hydrants with "Decisions, decisions" written above him, Spuds McKinsey, the Budweiser dog, splattered across the road by a passing Coors truck and the prize winnner, a caterpillar, in glasses, giving some love to a crinkle cut french fry as the french fry proclaims, "Get off of me you asshole! I'm a french fry." It was, I was sure, the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

It felt great to get back on our bikes and enjoy the awesome weather. This was weed? I'd been drunk, once and it was mostly headaches and dizzyness, not so different from too much sugar or hyperventilating, but this. This was amazing. Damn I was hungry.

We got back to Robbie's and invaded the kitchen. Frozen pizzas, sodas, french fries, ha ha "I'm a french fry!". Robbie's dad was a survivalist and kept the house amazingly well stocked in food with an extra couple of freezers in the garage. Robbie's dad worked 24 hour shift at the fire house so we had it made. I called my folks, and managed to act normal as I asked to stay late at Robbies. I didn't want to go home until this wore off.

I discovered then that weed did indeed hit me a bit different than the other kids. For one, it made them lethargic but it made me talkaltive and more hyper than usual. It also lasted for hours. I assumed this was just a first time thing and that I would develope a tolerance but I was wrong. I would always be a hyper stoner.

Drugs?

Sugar

Probably my first drug, and ultimately the hardest to kick was sugar. We poured it on bleached white wonder bread and had sugar sandwiches. We overdosed on it at Christmas, Halloween and especially easter when we recieved a giant basket full of chocolate bunnies, marshmallow peeps, jelly beans and gooey Cadbury Eggs. We'd go through a few gallons of milk, my four brothers and I as it was the only thing that could take the edge off. I remember the shaking and sweating of a sugar over dose. And I remember that when a big glass of milk and some dinner I couldn't wait to load in some more sweet stuff.

Hyperventilation
Another childhood high was lack of oxygen, hyperventilation, auto-affixiation. Spinning in circles to get dizzy had lost it's former charm and a friend introduced me to the wonder of hyperventilating. We'd take fast deep breaths for as long as we could, until we felt dizzy and then we'd breath out as deeply as possible and hold it as long as we could, wrapping our own hands around our throats or having a friend help in that regard. This would cause us to pass out.

It was so strange to be under, seeming to go right into REM sleep, there were definately dreams, and then you'd open your eyes and wonder why you weren't waking up in you bedroom. Why were you waking up in the gym with all the other kids staring at you, your lips tingling. They'd all start speculating and weather or not you were faking and who would go next while you tried to get back in touch with reality. The first question of your lips would be "How long was I out." and the amazing answers was "Thirty seconds." That thirty seconds changed the rythm of the rest of your day. If I had parents knew what we were up to they might not have been so afraid of the dreaded marijuana. Hell, we'd have been better off sparking up a joint.

Ritalin

If I'd put my mind to it I might have been able to enjoy this one. I resisted it. I did not want to take it. The few times I was duped into actually swallowing the little pill I was a zombie. I'd sat at my desk and drool and the teacher was thrilled. I wasn't doing any better at focusing but I wasn't being a distraction. She gave my parents glowing reports of my improved behavior. The other kids were to be told that I was going to the nurse to treat my asthma. When the teacher broke our agreement, yelling, "Why are you so unruly? Did you take your pill today?" I chucked a chair at her head. I hadn't in fact taken my pill.

I took the Ritalin once more, in Junior High. I spent the day freaked out, writing pages and pages about the phonomenon of not knowing if you're awake or dreaming. I waited all day for dream like things to happen and it made me neurotic. My mom found the writings and I went to see a shrink, not the first time, or the last. The shrink didn't think it had anything to do with the ritalin and in hind sight I'm not so sure it did except for the placebo effect of knowing I was on something, something I wanted to not be on. My parents never pressured me to take ritalin again.

My poor mother. She figured my absolute refusal to take ritalin for fear that it would alter who I was, meant that I wouldn't go near the illegal drugs. I'm pretty sure she believe this to be true to this day.

Positive Drug Role Model

I did drugs. I don't do drugs now.

From this you should be able to fill in the rest of the story. It's been told enough times. It starts inncocently enough with a few tokes off a joint, peaks with lots of glamourous sex and cocain a-plenty and bottoms out with sucking dick for crack. Redemption follows soon after and then the book is written. The tale is a cautionary one, hopefully warning you away from the mistakes the author made. Of course, without these "mistakes" he wouldn't have a book would he? Leading a life worthy of a book, hell that's better than most of us do. And the sex and glamour, would the author really trade it in to have lived life as an insurance salesmen or a data entry person? Unlikely.

I'm not writing that story. I did drugs. I enjoyed them. I learned a few things from them. I don't regret doing them. I had only bad authors like the ones described above as role models so it's only natural that I made some dumb mistakes in how and where and when I did drugs. I hope to be a positive role model. I hope to write a truly cautionary tale. I'll not warn you off drugs. Hell drugs are the modern right of passage. But hopefully after reading my stories you'll know a bit more regarding which drugs to save until you're in a safe place away from the city and away from cars. You'll know which personality types NOT to do acid with. You'll know that even when doing things that feel excessive by their very nature moderation is the key to enjoyment. Or maybe you'll just enjoy reading about the adventures and misadventures I had as I "experimented" with drugs.