It was the summer of 1989 I would sleep all day. I never saw sun that summer. I operated my life in time frames that a vampire would keep if I were a vampire. Like vampires, I felt like I would disintegrate if the sun was out enough to shine upon me, this feeling was shared among my group of friends. As long as the shadows were prevalent the kind where all you could see were elongated figures of buildings and trees and you would appear like a giant in the reflection of sunlight you were ok. I always had sunglasses on many times wearing them inside the club and even then I often left them on. Lights traced lines when you’re high distorting shapes; the sunglasses toned down the intense glow.

I would crawl out of bed around 9 or 10pm. Eating was optional, hunger of food was absent. I would just eat something light. I knew what was coming up later in the night and it was going to be all I needed. What waited ahead was my beautiful vacation in a pill its name is ecstasy and everyone called them tabs.

Some people would drink alcohol when high. I tried it but soon found out you would never feel drunk because ecstasy canceled out the buzz. It’s very dangerous to drink while on ecstasy. The potential of your organs shutting down was a concern it is a system failure, ecstasy heats the body temperature, and alcohol dehydrates. That is were the natural desire for everyone to drink excessive amounts of water transpired. Your body is craving water. The bartenders served more water than any other drink. Water the ever-loving bounty of life; Water was likened unto liquid gold, a source of true fulfillment when drink is required while high on ecstasy.

Now there was one exception to the rule it was LSD. If you took ecstasy with LSD it would bind together, it brought the two worlds of completely different realms together cohesively. I knew this and had only tried it once before.

Taking ecstasy alone was called rolling (now called Raving) you would see everyone with lollipops in their mouths, hugging each other and neon hunting glow sticks could be seen all over the dance floor, and the dance floor was were everyone was at. Strobe lights flashed in time making everyone appear in still shots from a movie. Back then we dressed in complete black. Black pants, black turtlenecks, back shirts, black trench coats, and shoes, hats but always in black often times it was hard to tell gender, and we preferred the anonymity it provided us. We were the original ravers’ we made wearing all black and sunglasses cool long before the “Matrix” introduced such styles. We were the postmodern anarchists of our time. The underground. Some people thought everyone in our group were satanist, we weren’t but we sure looked the part and proved to be disruptive in our own way. The revolutionary vision of utopia was a common hope everyone shared however the nonconformist approach conflicted leaving no structure as well as leaders non-existent. The DJ was our leader by default because they controlled the music.

My friends and I would head out to New Orleans on the weekends. We would tell our parents on Friday night that we would see them late Sunday. Truly we did stay out the entire time on more than a few occasions non-stop partying, but this behavior was mostly on the weekends. For an Insomniac like me I fit right in. Ever since I could remember I had issues with sleep. I would get anxious around nightfall. I always felt so alone everyone tucked away in their beds while I lay wide-awake in mine. This lifestyle was a custom fit and I wore it well.

It always seemed to me that we were waiting for the tabs to arrive. Everyone would wonder what the new batch would be like. Back in 89’ pharmaceutical ecstasy was still in circulation. Kind of like on Wolf of Wall Street where Leo and Jonah characters get those Quaalude’s that are no longer made. That was what it was like for us but in the form of ecstasy, there was still a mass surplus of the pharmaceutical kind, the purest grade. When it would hit you, you would feel this strange rush similar to how I’ve heard heroin addicts react to a strong batch of heroin. The stronger the potency, the intense need vomit became prevalent.

I would patiently await the intense rush that would hit me, and then the rush would empty my stomach. I would look in the bathroom mirror and suddenly I am fire, I am a flame seductively dancing in the breeze to the vibes of the music, floating, feet non-existent, one with all things, and all things were one with me. Texture and patterns on walls and floors seemed to be alive, pulsating, breathing dancing.

Everyone always took their dose at the same time; we would look at each other as we swallowed it down knowing each of us would see each other in about an hour in a completely different realm, totally existing in a different dimension. When you arrive to the next level, into the upper dimensions words cease to exist. Speech is no longer needed. If you get thirsty, someone would hand you a drink, give you a hug, dance, kiss, sex was non-existent, don’t get me wrong, I tried with my boyfriend, however I soon realized that orgasm would never be achieved. The area of your brain that delivers the intense sensation of an orgasm is lit up to its highest capacity of dopamine and serotonin leaving you in total euphoria you can never hit the peak. You would come super close, and right when you think you are about to achieve the orgasm, it fell away, losing it. It’s like someone walked in on you while you were doing the deed. But no one walked in; your brains stimulation is in overdrive and prevents achieving an orgasm. You’re already beyond the tipping point way beyond fireworks you are the fire, the wind, the water, I could see the atoms, the molecules that form the matter interacting, because my keen heightened awareness allowed me to.

I don’t really know what I was thinking this particular night besides wanting to achieve the supreme high, even if the supreme high led straight to deaths door. If I had my choice and the endless supply I would have never come down. For the most part I had a constant supply. I had worked my way into the final four. The final four were the suppliers of the coveted treats. Being among the final four provided me access to the much-needed drug. I was a go between, I took the money, and I laid the pills down on the table. The reason I would put the pills on the table instead of the buyers hand was a loophole in the law. If I never actually handed the pills over hand to hand then it was a simple contribution of money made to me. The bonus was the pills I left behind on the table for the consumer.

I always seemed to take more and more. I felt I needed it, well not so much needed it, as I wanted the outside world to fade, and that special amazing euphoric world to exist where I all felt accepted and connected like I belonged. I craved that feeling and the high it was like nothing before, and nothing since. The high and connection to others was the single most powerful feeling and I was its slave. That was what had become of me; I was a slave to MDMA. It was the center of my world and it was my god.

On this night I dropped (slang for consumed) two tabs and one sheet of LSD. The acid was available because someone from our group thought it would be cool to troll. Taking LSD with ecstasy was a common practice to achieve a primordial spirit. Taking ecstasy alone was called rolling. If you took acid and ecstasy it was tripping and rolling and combining the two words was called trolling which coincidently is a modern term used for Internet assholes disruptive behavior. On this night I decided to troll.

I placed two hits of acid under my tongue and waited to arrive at the next destination. In an effort to achieve my supreme high I decided to take another tab as the first rush hit. Then I continued to consume one every two hours. I took more than enough ecstasy to keep anyone else going for the two nights easily. Add to the mix the acid. Acid is potent and on previous nights I was smart to never consume more than one dose. This time my good judgment escaped, my quest for the all time high won. Four hours into the newfound plateau I decided to take more acid. I took two more hits an hour later my worlds and dimensions collided. Hallucination were mixed with reality. The only thing to compare it to would be like walking into the movie “Cool World” or “Who framed Roger Rabbit” at the bar sitting next to me the Tasmanian devil and Bugs Bunny as well as the Road Runner were hanging out. Next to the bar tucked neatly away in the corner was a bathroom and Road Runner raced continually from the bar and back to the bathroom. I got up to go to the bathroom and noticed Porky Pig across the bar, he cut in front of me as I entered the bathroom and he seemed to be taking an endless dump in one of the only two stalls of the tiny bathroom next to the bar.

Kenny Vincent’s had about three or four themed rooms, each with a bathroom not far away, but by golly I had an affinity and connection to this barroom. I dare not venture into the mirror room next door. I stayed away from the mirror room; it scared the shit out of me when I was high. I was hallucinating enough on my own, I didn’t need the mirrors to accentuate the experience further

Somehow I mustered up the courage to go into the disco room and Peter Pan and Captain Hook were in battle, and there were at least a few hundred Tinkerbelle’s hanging out with Casper the ghost and his crew. I simply perceived the world around me as cartoon characters mixed with people. Every third person was seen as who they actually were. So two cartoons, then a person, two cartoons, a person. Got the picture? In this state you hope you can find the person you are looking for, and that you perceive them as who they are, or else you could be searching awhile. Alice in Wonderland was mild in comparison to my present condition. Speaking of which there was a large worm with a joint in its mouth above the bar or at least it appeared to be and the bartender was dressed like large spotted mushroom or maybe he was the mushroom it was hard to tell due to my current state of mind. Faces of others seemed to be slowly melting due to the enormous amounts of sweat from dancing. The drops of sweat falling from their skin made it seem as though it was sliding off.

Like I often did I got separated from my group. Perceiving my surrounding at that present time was bad enough however I had to look for them and this meant venturing outside. I had to be brave .The party would often bleed out into the parking lot and spill into the street. People grouped off here and there.

I began to float between groups looking for familiar faces very hard to do by the way, thanks to my current drug induced situation. I would often stay awhile in each group and they were welcoming. At one point I could feel every vein in my body and it felt like they were plastic with electricity flowing through my blood.

I knew I had overdosed. My pupils dilated, I laid down on the concrete and asked God to please take me to heaven, instead one of my friends found me lying on the ground. I settled for that. Sweaty and unable to stand without support they took me to a car, notice I said a car. Often people including myself would get left behind, but only for a bit, everyone would eventually find each other at the next destination, which would be Baton Rouge or Lafayette.

This time instead of meeting at the next destination I was offered two choices, hospital or motel room. Guess what I chose? Yeah I chose the hotel room. I told God to take me. I felt hopeless. I knew I needed to make a change and stop my destructive lifestyle. I seemed to visualize death as the only option seeing as I couldn’t stop on my own. In death I would be finished. Looking back I realize the destructive behavior and death wish stemmed from my undiagnosed bipolar disorder.

The next morning I awoke. I thought to my self what the hell.
Coming down from this episode of destruction proved to be a bitch. As the day progressed your body felt strange. The only way to describe it is to think of every vein in your body, now imagine feeling every vein blood rushing through it we have an estimated 120,000 veins in the human body.   Now imagine each one tickling against tissue around it. When you would eat, the food felt like it was alive and moving in your stomach. So the entire next day your body is still experiencing the residual effects of the chemical.