Pull up a comfy chair my friend, I’m going to tell you a story.
Once upon a time there was a strait-laced middle class girl
completely opposed to drugs because Authority had told her they were Bad. And she believed in Authority.
Yet as she grew into her late teens and observed people around her drinking alcohol and smoking pot, What she’d been
Told and What she
Saw were two completely different things.
What she
Saw was people having a whole lot of fun, while she was sitting on the sidelines all prim, proper, tightly-wound and
separate.
And she didn’t want to be separate from everybody else, she too wanted
to be relaxed, having fun, part of something bigger than herself.
Not so much Peer Pressure then – she’d learned all about that in school and there was no way anyone would
ever Pressure her into doing Anything.
No, this was
Peer Pull – and no one had ever mentioned anything about Peer Pull in school, so she had no defenses against it.
And so the journey into drugs began… first with alcohol:
Didn’t like the taste much. Or the cost. Didn’t like being out of
control. Stayed away mostly for the first few years. Then came living in
Canada and $2 drink nights. No more cost barrier. Plus discovered Vodka
Cranberry. No more taste barrier. Suddenly, instead of being the sober
observer separate from everybody else in the pub, club, bar, BBQ, dinner
party… a few drinks allowed relaxation and dissolving barriers
dismantled the constructs of the Mind so one dropped completely into the
moment and just
went with what was. Awesome!
Marijuana second: A very different experience to alcohol.
Sensory enhancing rather then reducing. Moment slowing rather then
speeding up. Consciousness expanding. Something to do alone while
exploring the nature of Mind. Something to do in nature while exploring
the nature of Life. Something to do with others while exploring the
nature of Relationship. Pot allowed a slow down of internal functions in
such a way that the mind could be observed in action – observing
thoughts, observing feelings.
What came next? It’s all a bit fuzzy really. So in no particular order.
Mushrooms: A favourite for a long time. Organic. A sensory
explosion. A consciousness explosion. Extraordinary sense of oneness
with the natural world. Total wonderment at the stars, at forests,
lakes, rivers and canyons. Worlds upon worlds upon worlds opening up.
Until the issues of psyche began to arise, changing the nature of the
trip. What was fun became a psychological process with support
necessary. Unshed tears from childhood breaking through. Understandings
of family dynamics arising. Unresolved or expressed grief coming up.
Nothing recreational about this anymore… something much deeper going on.
LSD/Acid: Similar to mushrooms but far more intense.
Metallic. Can still taste it. Dangerous. Oh so dangerous. The warnings
were clear though. Always on good terms with my dreams, six months prior
to LSD-induced psychosis, there was a dream clearly warning me of this
event. Where mushrooms had softy begun to expose the unresolved issues
of unconsciousness and psyche, LSD flung open the doors of perception
and marched out all weaknesses for minute examination. Wasn’t ready for
that. Didn’t understand. Collapsed mentally and emotionally.
Ecstasy: One tiny pill, one giant love buzz. Nothing ever
like the first, always on a slippery slope of ever-diminishing returns.
So THIS is what unconditional LOVE for ALL feels like. Pity it couldn’t
be maintained after the comedowns. Nasty nasty comedowns, getting worse
by the year. But always the tiny thought… what would happen if all of
humanity did E, just once? Or maybe twice? Just to experience what it
feels like to
truly love your fellow human being completely
just for being them? Fantasies of putting it in city water supplies.
Eventually the guilt over taking drugs over-powered the chemical high
and taking e didn’t even really work anymore. Didn’t go up, just came
down. Damn powerful Mind.
Ketamine: Special K. Horse tranquiliser. What was I
thinking? All boundaries of body disappear. Where’s my legs? What
happened to my torso? Complete stupification. Thank God it only last a
short time. Ten minutes. 30 minutes. Can’t remember now. Ugh!
Speed: Only ever touched this once. Maybe twice. Nasty drug.
I’m energetic and upbeat enough thank you very much. Certainly don’t
need to be kept awake all night on a knife’s edge of anxiety with
crawling skin. Don’t get this one. Doesn’t gel with my psyche at all.
Steered well clear after that.
Cocaine: The party drug. Common as chips in Canada, and just
as cheap. Just like having a drink right? Go out, have one or two
drinks, have one or two lines? And oh the ego boost.
I am fantastic. Of course,
you’re wonderful too.
But me! Awesome! Just
listen to me… Ego, Ego, Ego. Let me boost thy Ego with Star Wattage.
Short-lived though. Half an hour of POWER and then… more? Always maxed
out on about four lines. Internal sense of ‘had enough’. Thank God. No
coke benders for this girl. Still had the horrendous comedowns though.
H-O-R-R-E-N-D-O-U-S. Can’t even IMAGINE putting myself through that now.
What was I thinking?
Nicotine: An interesting one. Never a smoker, I did have the
odd drag here and there to turbo charge E. Brought on the most intense
body rushes. And then later, back in NZ, completely clean, living with
two smokers who would retreat outside to the balcony most evenings to
smoke and talk… started joining in so I could be part of the crew again
(always seeking oneness huh?). Just a drag here and there. The odd full
smoke. Enjoy just that much. But that’s enough. Too disgusting to smoke
more. Now… might mindfully have a half a cigarette (three drags seems to
be the limit) after a couple of glasses of wine once or twice a year.
Did I leave anything out? Never touched heroin – I wasn’t crazy. Just
a social drug taker. Like most people are social drinkers right?
Everyone was doing it. All the time. Just the circles we moved in.
Hospitality workers. Travellers. Seekers. Questioners. Rat race drop
outs.
Besides, I was never a big user of anything right? Even though I
spent a good seven years on something anywhere from two days a week to
seven days a week.
I mean, there were
always other people doing far more than
me. Grams of coke to my half gram. Three or four ecstasy pills to my
one. Bong after bong to my one pipe. A full tab of acid to my half.
No addict, I was aware enough to
know my drug use meant that I wasn’t completely healthy and whole. I
knew it
was a symptom of issues. And when the fun levels began to diminish and
the comedowns increased, I knew the ride was over and it was time to
stop.
Think of my drug use like a bell curve. By the time all that playing
with consciousness and a kundalini awakening (that’s another story…)
exploded my psyche with psychosis, I was well down the last 25% of the
Bell Curve.
Two episodes of psychosis was enough to rush me all the way down to
bottom. Almost. I still drink alcohol occasionally. And I continued to
smoke weed off and on for about another four years. Pregnancy put an end
to that, once and for all. Can’t imagine being stoned now. Don’t need
to, and the cost would be far too high.
That’s the story of use… It’s nothing out of the ordinary. I know
hundreds of people just like myself – people who hold down jobs, make
good money, function perfectly well in society and also take some
serious recreational drugs. It was the total norm in hospitality.
Amongst Kiwis traveling overseas. And it wasn’t taxing financially
either – over in Canada, where I spent the majority of my time,
recreational drugs were often cheaper than booze.
Now what to make of it all?
I’ve had plenty of time to reflect since I came home from Canada in 2004, plus even when I
was
using drugs, I was always an observer of my experience. I’d started
practicing yoga semi-regularly in 2000, and also often smoked weed
expressly for the purpose of meditation. As a result, I have a very good
understanding of why I did what I did, what needs were being met and
why I stopped.
For a start, you can divide the way I took drugs into two categories. First up, social enhancers:
These are drugs that we take to make us feel good about mixing with
other people. It’s probably the main reason most people use drugs. For
me, social enhancers were alcohol, cocaine and ecstasy. Left to my own
devices, I’d never touch them. Never took any of them alone – that would
just be silly. You can further divide these three up into those that
worked on the ego level – alcohol and cocaine (enhancing the ego,
boosting it), and those that worked on the heart – opening it, softening
it – ecstasy.
Taking e was a full-blown heart-opening experience. Until then, I’d
not realised I was living completely in my head. I hadn’t known what it
truly felt like to
feel love for other people. To feel open, and relaxed, and calm, and connected.
Four years after my first hit of e, I was working with a healer in
Hawaii, and I walked out of a session with him feeling the same kind of
heart-open experience as e, only without all the jagged jitters around
the edge.
That was when I realised that what I felt on e could be the natural
state of being – and I’d never need to come down. (Also the beginning of
that kundalini awakening… more to come in another article.)
This was a Watershed moment. There’s a BIG difference to a life experienced from the mind and a life experienced from the heart.
And I’d just discovered that it was possible to find a
natural way
into open-heart living – this was worth pursuing! Later, I would feel
the same heart-open sensation after a great yoga class or a
Kirtan session, and eventually, it would become something that I experienced as a natural way of being.
My need to take social enhancing drugs was an unconscious drive to connect – to drop the strait-jacket of Mind I lived in and just be my natural self around other people with no fear.
I knew there was another way to be I just didn’t know how to find it any other way than through drugs (at that time).
The second category of drugs are consciousness-expanders:
These are the drugs that shift our perception of
consciousness. I’d put nicotine into this category, and also weed, acid,
and mushrooms. These are the drugs I’d sometimes even take alone to
journey within my own mind. Especially weed. It was probably my most
favourite drug and the most difficult one to give up. It was also the
one I used most consciously to develop my psyche.
For example. People talk about how weed induces paranoia. From my own
experimenting, I would say this isn’t strictly true. Weed highlights
any insecurities buried in the psyche – fears about what other people
think of you mainly. Once the insecurities are gone, so too is any
paranoia. With my powers of observation – the development of the Witness
within – I was able to constructively work with weed (or so I thought
at the time). When I noticed feelings of paranoia arising, I could sit
with them and observe where they started, what thoughts accompanied
them, what was truly going on in my psyche underneath, and release it.
Later I began to realise that weed allows us to emotionally detach, which can make
appear
as if its easier to work through some issues, but in reality, all those
emotions that one is detaching from still have to be felt and released.
Smoking weed was just constantly putting off the inevitable. It wasn’t
under I quit for good that I was finally able to get through some pretty
serious relationship and intimacy issues that had been affecting me for
years. Decades even.
I can’t remember if I started taking mushrooms before or after reading
Carlos Castenda’s books…
but I do know his apprenticeship to a shaman and subsequent drug-taking
was a big influence on me. Who doesn’t want to travel to other realms
and learn to use psychic powers? I’ve heard quite a few people explain
away their drug use in this context;
Hey shamans do it, so it’s all ok.
Yeah right. Aside from the fact that Carlos might have all been a giant hoax…
Even
if shamans did use drugs… they certainly didn’t use
them the way we Western recreational users do. Their use had context,
ritual, and ceremony attached. There was specific intention, and guides
to help you through.
Plus there was always an understanding that drug use has a cost
attached to it. And that cost must be paid, one way or another. Now, I
do all my other-realm traveling and polishing of psychic powers via yoga
and meditation.
Acid was another drug heavily promoted in the ’60s and ’70s as part
of society’s evolution, and I have no doubt whatsoever that it shifts
our experience of consciousness enormously. Those that studied LSD use
were even able to categorise LSD trips into four specific types, each
one following logically on from the other:
- Abstract and aesthetic experiences
- Psycho-dynamic experiences
- Perinatal experiences
- Transpersonal experiences
I don’t have room to go into depth on these four stages here, but I
know that from my personal experience, it’s exactly what happened to me.
Taking LSD and mushrooms dug up aspects of my unconscious and
subconscious, bringing repressed issues to the surface for healing and
integrating. Trouble was, I didn’t know this was going on and the walls
of my psyche literally collapsed, with all of these issues swirling
around and manifesting as psychosis.
The interesting thing too is that I know people who’ve taken LSD
hundreds
of times and never had anything other than abstract and aesthetic
experiences. Me, I only ever took LSD a handful of times, and very
quickly progressed right through to transpersonal experiences. No doubt
having an awakening Kundalini had something to do with that… (yep, that
other article I’m promising you.)
With the perspective of hindsight, I can see now that my drive to
take consciousness-expanding drugs was all about the quest for oneness,
or as Paths Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Vision puts it – the need for transpersonal experiences.
Transpersonal experiences may be defined as experiences
in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the
individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life,
psyche, and cosmos. Paths Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Vision.
These two deep human needs – the need for connection (via expression
of the authentic self) and the need for oneness underscored all of my
drug use.
Like many people in their twenties, I had issues with intimacy, I
lived in my mind, I was judgmental and analytical, I had a low level of
underlying anxiety about success and doing well… and I was mostly
totally oblivious that all of these things were going on in my
unconsciousness and subconscious.
This total lack of awareness meant my behaviour was driven by things I
didn’t even know about. On the surface, I just thought I was having
Fun, Fun, Fun. Because everything
was fun, definitely more fun than the rigid, controlled, limited sense of self I usually occupied from within my mind.
By the time all this Fun exploded into psychosis, I’d already started
to wean myself off drugs. My growing levels of awareness due to an
increasing yoga and meditation practice meant that all those buried sub
and unconscious factors were starting to push their way to the surface
and I wasn’t able to surrender unknowingly into the drug experience
anymore.
I was increasingly aware that my drug use masked issues and I needed to sort myself out.
I didn’t find it difficult to stop using drugs, it just meant
sticking with my yoga practice, and staying away from drug-saturated
situations.
Unfortunately, that was most of my social circle. And stopping using
meant I began to separate out from the people I’d been friends with for
years. I did sometimes still go out to dance parties and full moon
outdoor parties and stay relatively sober – maybe just smoke a little
pot.
And it was difficult.
For a start, I was far more clear sighted than everyone else
wandering around fucked up on ecstasy, cocaine, mushrooms and acid. When
you’re on those drugs, you have no idea that you’re OBVIOUSLY fucked
up. And it was ugly. Real ugly. Inane conversations. Gurning of the
face. Incessant chewing. Total focus on staying high, to the exclusion
of all else.
I was once again on the outside looking in and seeing a truth that
dismayed me – especially because what I was seeing was myself.
Then the psychosis (or spiritual emergency as Ken Wilber would have classified it) hammered home the end of my drug use.
It meant I came home, to small town New Zealand, where the only drugs
around (that I saw) were alcohol and pot. My levels of awareness meant
my days of getting drunk were mostly done. My alcohol use continued to
slowly decline until now when one or two glasses is more than enough. I
just can’t physically get drunk anymore.
What I
did find really difficult was finding my place again.
And facing all of those long-buried issues I’d been able to
successfully ignore while living way away from home, and in a bubble of
partying and good times.
In Canada, I’d had a huge circle of (mostly drug-taking but not all)
friends – fellow hospitality workers, dancers, artists, film-makers,
travelers, passionate outdoor enthusiasts, creatives… great folk!
In New Zealand, I didn’t know how to make new friends without going
to bars, clubs, parties… all of which involved drinking (boring!) and to
a lesser extent, other drugs.
My experiences meant I couldn’t view other people getting high and
drunk without having a sense that they had shit they needed to work on. I
was in a serious judgment-phase of my post-drug journey as I pushed
against the way I didn’t want to be anymore. I craved healthy, whole
people who were capable of hanging out and having a great time without
needing to be drunk to do it.
I found this in the yoga community, amongst other people who’d also
found ways to healthily address those deep human needs for connection
and oneness through their yoga and meditation practice.
Going out to party now meant heading to a
friend’s house for Kirtan followed by a pot luck dinner
– and dang it all if the feeling and connection wasn’t identical to all
those e-fuelled house parties many years ago – except the feeling and
connection was real, solid, grounded, and clear.
And this is what all my drug use has taught me.
We humans crave connection – true connection that allows us
to express our authentic selves without fear of being judged, and
connection that says ‘I love you and I feel your love for me, just as we
are here today, two humans doing the best we can with what we know’.
We humans also crave oneness - a sense that we are
more than this body this mind in this place at this time. We r
emember our divinity and we want to know it again.
To me, what this means is that if we can look upon those who take
drugs with understanding and compassion, instead of condemnation and
criticism, we can offer a pathway out of use and into wholeness.
We can say;
Hey, I understand. I was there once too, and now, with
the help of yoga, meditation, friends and family (and maybe
psychotherapy of some form), I’m not anymore. Let me know if you’re
interested in finding your own way along the path to wholeness.
Because for many of us, drug use is just part of the path. It
doesn’t define who we are. I am not an alcoholic, nor am I an addict.
I am a person who, in the past, used drugs. My experience does not
define me for all time. By constantly seeking out answers to this great
mystery of life, and by bringing greater and greater awareness to my
experience and perspective of drug use via my yoga and meditation
practice, I naturally found a path that went beyond drug use.
My path won’t be the path that all people who use drugs take.
Some will do well with twelve step programs. Some will do well with
rehab. Some will do well with another transpersonal practice – tai chi,
buddhism, taoism.
And those who sit in judgment of drug users -
I see your fear.
For if you were not afraid you wouldn’t be able to sit in judgment,
instead you would offer love and compassion. The question you could ask
yourself instead is;
Why do I judge these people? What in me is still unresolved that I’m afraid to face?
For it is easy to stigmatize the illegal drug user yet abuse food, nicotine, alcohol, women, tv, computer games, work…
anything that we use to distract us from ourselves, to ease our discomfort in the face of life…
this is our drug.
In the end, we are all on the same path, facing our own demons in a myriad or guises.
For some of us the demons are smaller and more easily integrated – or
held at bay and ignored. For others, the demons loom large and demand
attention, insisting that we do all we can to become who we truly are.
Whatever the path we’re on, none of us can ever truly know what it’s
like to live as another. All we can ever do is offer understanding,
love, and compassion that says;
I’m with you, on the same path or one very similar, and if you ever need a hand, or just someone to laugh with, sing out.
That’s exactly what I’m doing right here, right now. I’m singing out –
singing out my truth, my perspective, my understanding, and I’m
offering it all with love and compassion.
And maybe too just a smidgen of a prayer—that
whatever the challenge is that you’re facing
you have the strength to be all that you are. We all do.
