Drugs: They’re Not Big And They’re Not Clever
A Life Coaching client and friend, Carl Harvey from Personal Development Planet, asked me to read his blog recently to see what I thought. After checking out a few posts, I responded that it didn’t ‘sound’ like him at all and I was a tad disappointed.
Carl is a bubbly, irreverent, fun guy a bit like a (very) junior version of me, but I didn’t get any of that from his writing. Not that there was anything wrong with it, far from it, it was fine. Just that it seemed to me it could have been written by almost any one of the 1.6 million self-development blogger wannabes out there.
I have no idea whether there is a recipe for success with blogging, but I do think there is a recipe for failure and that is to write what you think people want to read rather than what you want to write about.
First and foremost, how do you ever really know what people want to read? In my experience only a small minority of people offer feedback and the people that comment on blogs don’t necessarily represent what the majority is thinking.
Secondly, and probably more importantly, it’s draining. There’s a quote by (I think) Oscar Wilde that goes like this:
“Be yourself, everybody else is taken”
In other words be authentic. With writing that means write about what interests YOU, crack jokes that make YOU laugh and tell stories that are personal and fascinating to YOU. That way writing becomes easy as you only have one person to please and that person is amazingly enough, YOU.
Over the last 18 months I’ve pushed the boundary a fair bit to where I want it to be and not to where I think other people think it should be. That has meant taking on such thorny topics as Enlightenment, Politics, God, the Law of Attraction and my testicles.
I’ve never felt even remotely nervous about writing or publishing such controversial material, because it’s stuff that I love to talk about. My take is that some people will like what I have to say and some will not. The former group can read on, and the latter group move on.
I’m nervous about this post though and think the boundary may be being pushed a tad too far this time. I have a sense that some people will be appalled by the admissions of a Life Coach to having taken recreational drugs. Then again, is The Discomfort Zone the right place to be for somebody so easily offended? Probably not.
As you may or may not know I owned a record store for a number of years way back when. A large part of it was dedicated to selling vinyl to DJ’s. Not just your average wedding disco DJ, but serious DJ’s that played what we called at the time ‘proper music in proper clubs’
The clubs in question tended to be all-nighters and in the early days unlicensed and bereft of alcohol.
What they weren’t bereft of though was drugs, and in particular ecstasy and to a lesser extent, acid (LSD). I embraced that scene for a period of time on a semi-regular basis. I wouldn’t say I engaged in the overuse of ecstasy though. That would have probably been a real disaster.
I am neither ashamed nor proud of my past, it is what it is.
I made decisions that at the time seemed like good decisions. If I had kids today I wouldn’t want them taking drugs. However, if they were to, I would want them knowing the facts of what they’re getting themselves into.
Drug education is pathetic. Or rather it is in the UK, I’m not really familiar with how it works over here. My suspicion though is it’s similarly long on lecturing and short on real education.
We tell kids, drugs are evil and they kill people. Then they see their buddies having a great time and presume we’re lying.
This breaks down trust and helps nobody, especially when we have an epidemic of people dying due either directly or indirectly to tobacco and alcohol use every single year. The Government does little of real substance to curb that.
Anyway, back to the point. We used to sell tickets to one particular event that held party nights every month. In a small town of 20,000 people we would sell anything from 30 to 80 tickets depending on the line up of DJ’s for the event.
Approx 95% of those people took recreational drugs. In fact, I can only remember one person that never did and he was one of those rare people that genuinely seemed to be constantly high on life itself.
Guess how many of the regular clubbers died or even became addicted?
Yep, that’s right, none. Although one friend did get very cold once when he had a bad acid trip and decided to walk home 25 miles on New Years Eve to escape the inflatables hanging from the club roof that apparently wanted to kill him.
It was a rites of passage thing that ran its natural course. In other words, even though we had some great times, we all grew up and realized there was more to life than partying all weekend and felling like crap on a Monday morning.
I could have avoided talking about that quite easily and seriously thought about doing so. However, it would have been somewhat less than honest, especially when I’m reviewing a book like The Harvard Psychedelic Club that is in effect all about taking drugs.
Before we kick off with the review I want to tell you a funny story. I’m presuming the people that are up in arms about me and my murky history have passed out with shock and we’re all alone now, so I feel a bit safer.
Around the age of 20 I heard about magic mushrooms for the first time. Along with a friend that had already tried them out, we decided to acquire some of the said mushrooms and giggle ourselves senseless for 6 hours.
Where we lived they grew wild for about 6 weeks a year in certain areas and you could literally PYO. Although not illegal to consume fresh from the ground I was still very nervous about accompanying my friend on the trip (pun intended).
I say it wasn’t illegal to eat the mushrooms and that’s true, but it did require sneaking onto farm land at first light without permission, which I suppose is technically trespassing and thus, illegal.
We’d been picking these mushrooms for a few minutes when we heard a shout. I looked up to see this old guy running towards us waving a staff. Oh deary me I thought (or words to that effect) here comes Farmer Giles to beat the shit out of us with his walking stick.
When the guy got close he said “Are you two picking magic mushrooms?” I stood there paralyzed with fear as my friend quite brazenly said “Yeh, what of it?” “Oh nothing” said the guy “I just wondered if you could tell me which ones were the right ones to pick, I don’t want to make myself ill.” With that he whipped out a huge bag and prepared to create his own stash.
The Harvard Psychedelic Club
It seems almost incredible to me, that less than 50 years ago two Harvard professors were not only taking hallucinogenics themselves, but giving them to students (although not undergraduates) with the tacit blessing of one of the finest Universities in the world.
It was all in the name of research of course, but not the kind of research we usually take for granted involving people in white coats with clipboards and employing strict control situations. These experiments often took place in peoples homes, in loosely controlled environments that would be abhorrent to most serious scientists.
There was one trial described in the book that became known as the Good Friday Experiment which could have gone horribly wrong. One of the students high on LSD left Marsh Chapel where the experiment was being undertaken determined to see the Dean of Theology.
After wrestling with a startled mail man and taking a special delivery letter for the Dean off him, he announced he had the real special delivery and it was in his heart. Fortunately for the student he was restrained and taken back to the Chapel where he was given Thorazine to calm him down.
Another experiment in Concord Prison didn’t quite work out as planned either. Leary and Alpert knew how important it was to make sure the set and the setting was right in order to avoid sending people into a nose dive of paranoid hallucinations.
In this instance that was difficult to do as they had to conduct their work on prison grounds for obvious reasons. Needless to say gray walls with caged windows do not a happy scene make and some inmates had a less than ecstatic experience.
The intentions of the group were without doubt worthy. They all believed they were conducting serious science into expanding consciousness and demonstrating the true potential of the human mind.
Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (now known as Ram Das and famous for his seminal book on spirituality, ‘Remember, Be Here Now’) really believed that taking acid or mushrooms was a short cut to higher levels of consciousness.
Leary even believed that psilocybin (the ingredient in mushrooms that delivers the high) could be given to terminally ill people to make the whole dying experience one of ecstasy. Not sure about that one.
Lattin claims The Harvard Psychedelic Club and it’s four main protagonists of Leary and Alpert as well as Huston Smith and Andrew Weil, changed the face of American history.
I’m not convinced about that, and if they did, I think it was minimal at best. There were occasions when I was reading the book I was shocked by how much less tolerant large sections of Society are now toward drugs than they were nearly half a century ago.
The Harvard Psychedelic Club is a fascinating, at times very funny, well written and superbly researched book and I highly recommend it if you have more than a passing interest in the subject.
Prior to reading I knew some about all the main characters including Aldous Huxley who drifts in and out and was a huge influence on the group.
However, I didn’t know a lot, and my knowledge of Leary was sketchy at best. In fact other than he that coined the phrase “Turn in, tune in, drop out”, loved taking drugs and is dead, I couldn’t have told you much more.
The Harvard Psychedelic Club lifts the lid on a complex character that seemed to like alcohol and drugs more than he liked his kids, but not for the normal reasons.
Leary and Alpert (Ram Das) weren’t your everyday hippies, far from it. They were highly intelligent people committed to their work and honestly believed they were doing research that would benefit mankind. It remains to be seen if they were right, but my sense is, they probably weren’t.
Yeah, my bad mate – it was 5 in the morning and I was awake and fully alert cos my body is getting used to no nicotine… much coughing and spluttering and too much energy – naturally, this is all your fault as you helped cure me of my smoking affliction.
Er.. sorry for going on a bit. Rant rant rant…!
@ Carl – Your comment was longer than the bloody post man! I never agree to post anything until I have read it, not even for you fella, but I’m happy to take a peek.
@ Reality Surfer – Thanks for the link. Holy shit! Somebody pitched a perfect game in baseball on ACID???
@ Arsene – It’s not humor per se, but there are some very amusing moments like Ram Das buying a plane and flying to Mexico when he’d hardly any experience flying. Don’t think that would be allowed to happen these days.
@ Rachel – Thanks a lot!
@ Steve – Agree 100%, why do we do that? Surely communication is the way to solve problems and drug taking IS a problem.
About 20 years ago a girl died at a club I frequented although I wasn’t there that night. She had taken ecstasy and then collapsed and died on the way to hospital.
The tabloids lapped it up because she was the daughter of a one of the counties most senior Police Officers. Headlines such as “Killer Drug Claims Another Life’ were rampant.
At the inquiry on here death the toxicology report backed up what friends had said and that was that she’d drunk half a bottle of vodka on the way to the club and taken 14 pain killers!
It was that, that killed her and not the ecstasy.
There were no front page stories covering this saying we got it wrong amazingly enough. A year or two later I was reading a story on clubbing deaths and she was still listed as somebody that had died through taking e’s even though it wasn’t what killed her.
One report I remember suggested upwards of 6,000,000 tablets were being taken per weekend by kids and on average there was 1 death per annum. In the UK alone 200,000 people die each year from smoking and alcohol and kids can do that math.
@ Lisis – That’s a good point. Native Indians have been eating mushrooms and licking the backs of toads for hundreds of years.
And yeh you’re right, some of my friends have very respectable jobs that they managed to hold down.
@ Nathalie – I think a lot of it is who your friends are. I had two distinct sets of friends at the time and to be honest if I’d never opened the store I doubt I would ever have been exposed to that particular counter-culture.
I think it takes real guts to discuss this topic and your own experience with it personally. To be honest, I find it refreshing. I know you like to push the envelope here, but a lot of the topics like LOA and so on are pretty commonplace… now THIS is pushing the envelope. :)
I’m quite a bit younger and have never felt the need to participate in this type of lifestyle. That may just be my overly geekiness talking, but it never appealed. Besides, you can be high on life – or at least on raw chocolate. ;)
Thank you for your openness and for sharing things I never knew about. (Hello, Harvard!)
Hey, Tim! I loved this! I am a HUGE fan of the book, as will be ridiculously apparent in my review on Jan. 21, but I really enjoyed what you did with it here… bringing it home, making it real (and the farmer story is priceless!).
I think it’s important to keep in mind that when these “magic mushrooms” were being discovered (by the mainstream, anyway, since all sorts of natives already knew about them) they seemed like a natural, healthy, wonderful way to expand consciousness and bond with others. I can certainly understand why they would want to research them for potential benefits to society… but it still baffles me that, even at Harvard, the approach to the “research” was so unscientific and totally lacking in objective controls.
Nonetheless, what a fun story it was, at least for me. Sadly, I was not yet born during the 60’s, and was only in diapers (and in Latin America) during the 70’s. So I missed out on the whole psychedelic, tie-dyed, groovy stuff that was going on. This book, with its amazing amount of detail made it a little more real to me, which is as close as I’m gonna get, I’m afraid.
Good for you for being upfront and open about your experiences of this magical era. I think you’d be surprised how many “respectable” members of society were partying right along with you back then. No need to be ashamed of the experiences that made you YOU. And if it filtered out a few intolerant readers… all the better.
;)
Tim,
In America we are socially repressed about several major topics. Sex, Drugs, and Money. Sure we talk plenty about them, but it is rare to hear open honest intelligent conversations about those topics. It takes courage to face these issues. Thanks for having the guts. We need more people like you, Tim. I can’t say I relate to the club scene, but I can relate to being deep into a counterculture while growing up. You know… one of those Heavy Metal burnouts that mothers used to fear. I recall walking through suburban shopping malls dressed in jeans, a black concert T-shirt, and black leather, with my hair halfway to my butt, and watching mothers with small children pull them closer as I passed, like I might grab their kid and run off to a black mass. That was during the big phony satanic panic era of fundie America. I just laugh about it now… but I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Hi Tim
I’ve read your blog with interest and I think it is very brave and honest of you to be so open. The experiences that you have encountered can only add to a more ’rounded’ persona, which in turn gives one a deeper understanding of the human psyche.
Good luck
Wow. Someone else who’s been around the “club” scene for a living. Didn’t expect to see that in the personal development circle. I can relate, constantly in the environment. I’ll usually be the “high on life” guy though.
The book sounds… interesting (and like a good read, I like humour). The self-experimentation is good, and risky (I like risky too).
Please take a moment to watch my documentary film POWER AND CONTROL: LSD IN THE 60’S.
It features a new interview with Ram Dass about the Harvard days…
Plus, an actual participant in Tim Leary’s Miracle of Good Friday Experiment….btw..when I interviewed him..he was the DEAN & President of the Divinity school where Leary recruited the original participants!
Lots more, CIA & LSD with Marty Lee, Groucho Marx’s LSD trip with Paul Krassner….Free Speech Movement and ACID.
I have posted the entire film at this link on youtube..please share
http://www.youtube.com/user/Realitysurfer#p/u/1/hZdz0G4lG6k
Ha! Where to begin…?!
By expressing my disdain, horror and sheer incredulity at being compared to a young you? By arguing blindly that I must be better than a few of the other 1.6 million wannabees out there? Or by thanking you graciously for calling me out in public?
Naturally, it’s the last option.
Whilst I feel I do deserve an ickle bit of lee-way as I’m just starting out and it’s quite tricky to write exactly as I want to speak, I’ll take this one on the chin and use it as the inspiration / kick up the backside that it was inevitably intended as. This bloody resonated and I’ll be sure to write how I rant from now on.
I’m very grateful for the public smearing, and even happier that it was in a recreational drug related post. As you obviously know, I’m fond of Mary Jane in particular, so this is a nice touch. My friends will be utterly thrilled for me. Maybe my next article will be “balancing chronic marijuana misuse with a full time personal development effort”. Jesus, that’s one topic I know all about.
Anyway, I’ll read the book (sounds awesome), but think you’ve hyped up how damaging this could be for you. I know you live in Bible Belt country, but your misadventures were many (many, many, many) years ago, and all you’ve done is review a book here and admit to a few indiscretions in your youth. I think you’re being a bit of a pussy Brownson (oi – you told me to write how I speak – you big pusscake)
Perhaps if you actively snort some horse tranquilizer under the guise of “personal growth” and share a video on the blog you’ll have something to worry about… (although a certain A List blogger is currently trying to make the somewhat misguided link between BDSM and self growth and doing fine… hmm)… other than that, I think the awesome audience you have assembled here will be more offended that you thought that you’d offend them in the first place…!
(That may need reading once or twice… poor sentence structure… writing how I speak though… I’m from Essex remember)
Anyway, again I’m chuffed I got a mention, even if it was a horribly harsh and shit review. They say all publicity is good publicity – which is quite clearly bollocks in this case. If anything, you’ve set me back six months..!!!
Tell you what – I’ll write you an article in my voice and if you like it you can post it here. Deal? Sweet… (See, in real life I get my own way quickly and effectively)
Haha – cheers mate. Good article. Very engaging.
PS – I’m both thrilled and offended in equal measure that you think I’m like a young you. And I’m glad we’re “friends”…. ah…. big cuddle :-)
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