A short time after doing drugs for the first time, I scribbled the above anxiety-fueled meditation (and accompanying doodle) about looking into one’s own brain and never being able to look out again.
My Real Memoir
I’d turned nineteen, and like most nineteen-year-olds, had avidly started trying things cautioned against by codgers over thirty. I’d dabbled in “free love” and wanted more. Drunk myself into oblivion and wanted…well, less vomit. So, what about drugs? I’d watched the cast of Hair get naked, take communion with pot, and sing about “the Age of Aquarius,” and I wanted in! Into what I wasn’t sure, but into something, because…
I didn’t know who I was anymore. Growing up, I’d had an identity swash: I was the clever kid, the teenager who could act and sing and had a smart, beautiful girlfriend. But now? I was the freshman playing bit parts in college shows, who all the hot theatre girls assumed was gay because I was always with Marc, the lead guitarist in my band. And speaking of my band, we’d recorded an album, but had yet to sign with a record label. If I wasn’t a rock star, or a leading man—on or off stage—then who was I?
Maybe “expanding my consciousness” would help.
So, one night our wannabe roadie Andy invited us over for some hash. Not the kind you make with potatoes, the kind you make with marijuana. I’d never smoked before, so I coughed uncontrollably while Andy, Marc, and Jeph giggled about things that weren’t remotely funny. I smoked—this can’t be true, but it’s what I remember—seven pipefuls by myself, all the while saying, “It doesn’t work on me.”
Until it did.
On Andy’s record player, Led Zeppelin had just begun the opening crunch-crunch-tink-tink-tink of “Good Times, Bad Times,” and I thought, This is the most profound thing ever recorded! Then suddenly I was alone. On a lawn chair. At a drive-in movie theater. Getting a moon-tan while Robert Plant screamed out of 8,000 tiny metal speakers.
Somehow I got home and crawled into bed. My cat Ginchy, my fur-brother, climbed in next to me. “Good ol’ Ginchy,” I said. But then his eyes reddened and he sprouted tentacles. I gasped and shoved him onto the floor. He jumped back up again, sans tentacles, and I thought, Whoa, glad that’s over!
It wasn’t.
Ginchy monstered again, then un-monstered, then re-monstered. Meanwhile, I had to visit the bathroom 347 times, and kept forgetting where I was. I was imagining things so vividly that they seemed more real than my surroundings. I couldn’t control the images: they were beautiful, then hideous, joyful, then terrifying.
Did I sleep? I don’t know. I climbed out of bed the next afternoon, went into the kitchen and made myself a tuna sandwich. The moment I took a bite, a half-eaten albacore glared angrily up at me from between the slices. Well, this is it, I thought, I’ve gone to Crazyville and am never coming back!
I later learned that up to 30% of marijuana users suffer from anxiety, and that drunkenness can produce panic attacks as well. That summer, I began to scratch away my old identity like a cicada skin, and got my first glimpse of a new, or rather long-hidden, identity that would take years…
To claw my way out of.
My Real Memoir is a series. To read the next one, click here.
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Oh wow, that sounds terrible. I was heavily into sports as a teen and young adult, so that kept me away from drugs. I didn’t want anything to mess with my training and recovery.
That loss of control is scary – one of the reasons I stayed away from drugs.
Oh my, that must have been horrible. I’ve never done drugs and stories like yours are part of the reason why! I’m too scared to experiment.
My drug experience is pretty limited, being an old codger, so I missed the monsters. I did have that loss of control experience more than once, wondering how my car and I had gotten home, finding myself draped over a toilet boil in a strange bathroom, all with alcohol. That last experience resulted in an end to my alcohol consumption. I, too, am clawing my way up. Does one ever get to the top?
Let’s just say we’re on our way up, Gail. I think the “top” is beyond the veil of this life.
That sounds terrifying. Although in London in the ‘swinging sixties’ I never came across people using weed or LSD, so there was no temptation to try it.
Yikes! Seven bowls? I’m glad you made it back out. Back in the ancient 1970’s when I was young and gullible, I smoked a joint which I didn’t know was laced with elephant tranquillizer…I was lost in my head for days…nothing fun or enlightening about it. Peer pressure can be deadly.
How terrifying, Joy!
Truly, it was…
I barely had money for gas, so I never felt tempted to try drugs. And, as a driver of some who did-I definitely had no urge to try anything! At least you made it through to the other side of sanity, Mitch! 🙂
Thanks, Nancy–me too!
I discovered that I was allergic to pot. When my college neighbor had her pot going, I would knock on the door, hear the windows open, the fans go on and the general giggling that goes with panic. They’d open the door, and I’d get hit with a wave of perfume followed by a wave of smoke and a headache like a baseball bat to the head. I’d ask them that if they’re going to smoke, they should put a towel at the bottom of the door so the RA wouldn’t see it and I wouldn’t get sick. About the 3rd time I did this, there was no panic, they opened the door and blew smoke in my face. I promptly threw up on her shoes. The next time, when the knock came on the door and they opened it with joints in hand, the RA put them on report and they were kicked out of the dorm. They blamed me. I wasn’t the one who knocked. oops.
Thus proving, on their part, that gormlessness can lead to dormlessness. You go, Rebecca!
Oh Mitch–your experience sounds terrifying, especially not knowing if and when the hallucinations would stop. My experience matches Belinda’s above: stories like yours kept me from even thinking about trying drugs.
What a horrible experience! My only forrays into that world were taking a few hits off a neighbor’s joint that left me spaced out and hungry. No thanks. That said, I did try a low dose of some special chocolate last summer under the guidance of my niece who’s had experience with it. Other than leaving me very relaxed and wanting a nap, the spiritual side of things were similar to what I’ve experienced using spiritual hypnotherapy.
Drugs and the loss of inhibition can certainly seem so appealing for a young person until it becomes a loss of control and will. And it can be so terrifying. I’m glad you found a way out of there, Mitch.
Me too, Ab, and amen.
I just never see the attraction of drugs. It’s another form of escape sure, but when you come back to reality the problems are still there.
I’ve tried Marijuana once and it scared me. First it was funny laughing at stupid stuff, then it was hallucinations,fear and vomiting.
I never got on with marijuana – it never seemed to do much for me. I had lots of fun on LSD. I wouldn’t do it now, but I don’t regret my youthful experiments. I think alcohol is the most damaging drug of all – ironic that it’s the only one that’s legal.
I was pretty sheltered in my youth. I don’t feel like I missed anything good.
You could give Just Say No lectures with this story. That could help America. God bless, Mitch!
Thanks, and you too, Nancy.
You poor thing! I tried smoking pot a couple of times, but never felt anything (which was a good thing), and I was always too cautious to try anything else. Thank goodness for that!
Just as well, Ann.
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