DOSE:	15 lines	insufflated	Cocaine	(powder / crystals)
	15 shots	oral	Alcohol - Hard	(liquid)
	3 joints/cigs	smoked	Cannabis	(plant material)

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

‘Twas the eve afore the turning to my 22nd year. My friends, most of whom my elders, had been anxiously awaiting this day to come, eager to get me intoxicated in public for the first time legally. Given the adventures of the previous year, it was touching to know I still had people close to me who cared. By the time I was to turn 21, I had only been a year using illicit substances other than alcohol, and before that I had more straightedge qualities than could be found at the desk of an architect. By 20, I had grown weary of remaining sheltered from the world and had heard enough good things about marijuana to warrant some exploration in the area. Within 6-months of trying it, I was a daily smoker. I had always been a stoner at heart, and even when I was straight, I often had a hard time convincing people that I didn’t smoke pot. So stonerdom seemed to fit quite well for me. It changed me in ways both good and bad. I became infinitely more relaxed and at peace, although it also brought upon me a sloth and laziness I have not yet recovered from. Despite the torture of idleness, I wouldn’t change anything because I have certainly gotten more out of my use of marijuana than I regret, and it has made me who I am now – something I could never wish changed. The “yerba buena” has given to me moments of such clarity, such understanding, that I nearly shutter to think about what my life would be like had I not had such visions.

They say cannabis is the “gateway drug”. This is a decision each must make for himself. Smoking weed certainly is easy because there is no danger of permanent damage. Depending on your locale, it is comparatively cheap, and not considered a big deal by the general populace. Although I must admit, “growing-up” on the SoCal bud has thoroughly spoiled me, and I doubt I will ever be happy with less-than-outstanding herb. To me, it was indeed a bit of a gateway. It showed me that drugs are not as fearsome and horrific as I was led to believe all my life. It introduced me to the idea of Instant Nirvana; the idea that one could feel near-perfect merely by the implementation of an outside influence. It was a new idea to me since I had never even used over-the-counter medications or prescriptions or anything before.

So yes, in some ways, marijuana was a gateway for me. But I will forever maintain that the ganja just let me peek-inside the pandora’s box; I opened the lid myself.

There we were at the apartment I was soon to live in, a fair number of people congregated there for no other reason than to get messed up and take “the kid” out for a good time on the town. I had tried a line or two of cocaine a few months before and didn’t really like how it made my nose and throat numb. I was told my experience was less than mind-blowing because I took a low dosage, and because I was already baked by the time I did the lines. Well, this night of my 21st birthday, I had no excuses. I had decided that it was the one night in my life I didn’t have to be overly-responsible. The one opportunity I had to get as crazy as I wanted and not worry about it. I didn’t have to drive, I didn’t have to pay for anything; this was my night. Enter the coke.

We started off with cocktails around 8:00. I wouldn’t be 21 until midnight, so we had some time to kill before we went out. A friend of mine had decided to show me a great 21st, and arranged plenty of cocaine for our night – there was more than enough to go around, and being the birthday boy, I got a lion’s share. We started drinking and doing lines, having a grand old time. I must have done 8-10 small lines by 11:30 when we realized we should go since bars would be closing in but two hours. I would have been quite drunk by the time we left, but having exposed my relatively virginal system to so much coke, I felt like a million bucks. We went down to the local hotspot and cruised from one bar to the next downing drinks like water. We were very let down that the bars had to close at 2:00am, so decided to keep drinking at the apartment.

We came home, opened up a bottle of Stoli, and started doing more coke and drinking more. We sparked up some joints and proceeded to take intoxication to a whole new level. Everyone was out the door by 4:00 or 5:00am, and by then I was peaking on the 15-20 lines and as just as many hard-drinks for the night, not to mention the three or four joints.

I had experienced the beautiful combination of alcohol and marijuana before, and knew it to take me into new planes of thought, but what I was about to experience made previous breakthroughs seem like the buzz you get from a cigarette.

Between about 4:30am to around 8:30, what I went through can barely be described. I was running around, singing, dancing, feeling like I was God – unbreakable, invincible. I saw myself in the mirror and had a fascinating discussion with myself. Verse and rhyme came to me without the necessity to think them up. The motions of my body were more defined and perfectly nonclumsy than I knew possible. My hands and body moved quickly and eloquently as my mind. I was superhuman. To this day, and forever more I imagine, the experience will be closer to divinity than I knew man could ever attain. The journey offered me a taste of heaven, allowed me to realize human perfection as I had never conceived. The lessons and experiences of that night I will carry with me always and shall always serve as a reminder of total perfection.

Until I tried to sleep. There is no way all of the alcohol in my system could possibly have dissipated, but I had so much counter-effect from the cocaine that I was not sick. I had to be at my parents’ home the next night to celebrate my birthday with my family, so I knew I had to be at least somewhat rested, so I collapsed on the floor and rolled about in half-consciousness until around 2:00 in the afternoon. I don’t remember when I realized it, but shortly after I regained full awareness, I knew that my body was more trashed than I had expected. I could barely move; my head pounded like it was being sledge-hammered constantly – this was not a normal hangover. Every limb and extremity was sore to the extreme. Eventually I was able to walk around enough to find the excedrin and a glass of water. The hangover I was feeling was, in contrast to a few hours prior, the closest thing to Hell that I have ever been able to imagine. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t speak – all I could do is hurt - everywhere. My throat and nose were clogged with mucous and (little did I realize) coke. Eventually enough water and eyedrops and sniffling made me feel somewhat back-from-the-dead, but still in horrific pain. At least gravity now seemed to be only 1.5x the usual sensation. I realized later that all the sniffling emptied the contents of my nose into my throat, which is actually what caused me to feel alright – I was OK now that the coke was back in my system. I was able to get a ride to my parents’ house and to convince them that I was simply very hung-over: something most parents would expect on the day after their son’s 21st birthday. There was truth to this, after all, I had imbibed enough alcohol to bring my body to levels of toxicity it should never be exposed to – and the coke made me feel OK while I was drunk, so I didn’t puke it all up although in the morning I wished I had. My family bought it and we had a lovely time despite the worse headache I had ever been dished-out.

But the story doesn’t end there. The pieces have continued to fill themselves in as time has gone by: the breakthroughs and realizations I had when I was out of my head did not vanish altogether as I supposed they might. The morning after the experience, I thought I had lost everything after I came down. I thought the only way I might ever again achieve these new plateaus of consciousness was by doing the same thing again, but that theory proved itself only true in part. Admittedly, never since then have I been as totally consumed with the feelings of perfection and supercapacity as that night. But strangely, there were certain things that had changed in my day-to-day sober life. The eloquence of movement I had achieved that night began to surface more as I went through normal life: situations I would normally be clumsy about, my body reacted smartly. When I would make a sharp turn in my car, causing something on the dash to slide, I would be able to catch it from falling while keeping my eyes on the road. When I am tossed something, I catch it. I am able now able to groove to music as I had never been able before (alcohol is still sometimes needed to get me in the mood, however). True, these are things that many take for granted. Some people have been athletic enough in their life to have practiced catching things – to people as they, what I say may be no big deal. Lots of people can be completely sober and dance their hearts away. But I never was like that. I was never able to catch things in midair, and I couldn’t dance to save my life. But since then, almost 'The Matrix'-style, I can.

I’m not writing this to endorse drugs en masse as a means to propel your psyche, mind, or life. I have had more good experiences and fewer bad experiences than many can claim, and I like to think that I have enough self-control to know when to use drugs and when not to. Overall, I think I’m doing well at this, since my only addiction is to marijuana (anybody who tells you its not addictive doesn’t like it that much). I know that cocaine has opened a door to my mind and soul that shall never be closed, but because of that, I respect the power of the substance more greatly than many. For me, coke will be only for that special occasion – for the moments when the time is right and my head is in the right place. I also know now to be careful mixing coke and alcohol, because truth be told, the amount of alcohol I consumed that night was dangerous to my health, and contributed to a somewhat worse-off immune system that I have only recently built back up.

But I must also admit that opening this door to my soul also released some demons. I know what coke can do to me, and sometimes I want it. Not enough to actually go out and get it, but enough to plague my thoughts every so often. It opened my mind to other plagues as well: I have less control of what passes through my head now. Sometimes I can’t get disturbing thoughts out. If I end up as a psycho-killer, we’ll all know why, but I doubt it will get that bad. It’s not as though I’ve driven myself nuts yet, but it’s woken me up to the possibility that these drugs may cause some problems. As an example, (I won’t touch the stuff personally, but to each his own) have you ever met someone what did a lot of acid for a long time – like a hardcore hippy from back in the 60s who would fry twice a day for a 10-year period? Often people like that are just plain toast in the cranium.

In short: temperance. We have all our life to explore new realms. Take it easy on your body, mind, and soul, for these are your most valued assets, and let’s be honest: these kinds of drugs do cause negative effects on all of the above. Take it only so far as you know you can manage.

Good luck, fellow psychonauts, and please be careful.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 31869
Gender: Not Specified
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 3, 2006	Views: 22,848
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Cocaine (13), Alcohol - Hard (198), Cannabis (1) : Various (28), Hangover / Days After (46), Glowing Experiences (4), Combinations (3)