Experiencing Ecstasy
MDMA is different from all the drugs that came before it -- which explains why it has become the fastest-growing illegal substance in America. By MATTHEW KLAM

How Bad It Is to Be 20 Years Old

The pill was white and smelled like No-Doz. Although it had come to us in the mail inside a tennis ball, it was legal then, fresh from a lab in Texas. No rumors, no culture surrounding it. We took it on a whim, on blind faith -- because it was Saturday and there was nothing better to do. It was late afternoon, warm for November in New Hampshire.

Starting that day in 1984, and until May 1986, I ate Ecstasy, once or sometimes twice a month. During that same time I realized that the plan I'd made for my life (I was 20 years old) was useless. I kind of woke up. I didn't start wearing flowers in my hair, but I got more excited to live, made a new plan that felt freer -- a plan that sent me in the right direction. And I still wonder what the drug had to do with that. Maybe nothing. (How can a drug do anything for you?
Generally I hate drugs. I don't even take Advil.) It's impossible to say. But because it was inside my noodle, I can't separate out the Ecstasy.

I went to U.N.H., a crummy state school in the middle of some cow fields. A guy named Kelly called from S.M.U. in Texas. He went to high school with my friends Jim and Carl. Over the summer, S.M.U. had gone dry. But the student body had found something to replace liquor, Kelly said. The bars were full of people on a drug called Ecstasy. "I want to send you something that's going to change your life," he said.

It was my junior year. I had a B-minus average and zits on my face. I'd already moped halfway to graduation. I was majoring in philosophy because I didn't know what to study. I didn't know what I'd do after college; I had no plans other than a vague idea that I would be a zillionaire by age 30. I spent most of my energy getting ready to go out and party. I didn't find solace in school or books or sports. I didn't have a trust fund or parents who pushed me to achieve. I had a record collection and a floor clogged with dirty laundry. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights I rubbed on a cologne called Drakkar Noir and drank 10 beers. During the week I fell into such black moods that friends steered clear of me.

Sigma Beta was my frat. At our house, intellectual stimulation was subordinate to the pledge program. Do you know that you can pull someone around on a wet floor using just a toilet plunger suctioned onto his head? I spent my time demanding squat thrusts and smearing mustard on the heads of blindfolded, scared freshmen. Alcohol-fueled brawls were common. We had a black belt named Ray ready to jump in and pound people. I'd personally been in two fistfights. Both times I was bigger; both times I froze so they could punch me. I had nothing I could imagine fighting for.

I had no hobbies other than weightlifting. (I could bench 240!) But I had money from my summer job delivering auto parts, and because I came from New York, I had cosmopolitan tastes that set me apart. I was social chairman of the fraternity -- I ordered the kegs -- and was popular, an outgoing member of the Greek system. I had a Nastassia Kinski poster on my wall that blew everybody away. I was angry, sarcastic, lost.

The first time I took Ecstasy, I was in my room in Sigma Beta fraternity, second floor, facing the street. My girlfriend, Carol, and a bunch of friends had gathered to try it. We put on the Beatles' "white album" and swallowed the pills; after a while the effect trickled in. The six or seven of us were talking as though we hadn't had a chance to see one another in a year. I felt happier than I'd been 10 minutes before. A half-hour later a feeling came over me somewhere between the looseness that follows a good workout and the euphoria of winning the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. I sat there rubbing my arm and thought, "This is the softest sweater in the universe." (In that first wave, as the drug comes on, sensory awareness balloons.)

Inside the gerbil treadmill that is my brain, I stopped and blinked, exhaled and looked around. My mind was clear. "I am so happy," I thought. Although I wouldn't have rushed to operate heavy machinery, I didn't feel stoned or daydreamy. Unlike classic psychedelics, MDMA -- or, as it's known to scientists, methylenedioxymethamphetamine -- doesn't disrupt your basic sense of who you are. You barely even feel weird. Also, it doesn't scramble your external perceptions, except that soft things feel softer, music sounds better. It was in no way hallucinogenic. With Ecstasy, I had simply stepped outside the worn paths in my brain and, in the process, gained some perspective on my life. It was an amazing feeling.

Small inconsistencies became obvious. "I need money, I have a $500 motorcycle that I'm too scared to ride, so why not sell it?" So did big psychological ones: "The more angry I am at myself, the more critical I am of my girlfriend. Why should I care how Carol chews her gum?" Ecstasy nudges you to think, very deeply, about one thing at a time. (It wasn't that harsh LSD feeling, where every thought seems like an absurd paradox -- like the fact that we're all, deep down, just a bunch of monkeys.) I yawned once or twice, but it didn't presage sleepiness. I felt like some reptile quadrant of my brain had been soothed. My emotions, my memory, my sense of smell -- they were all as accessible as a photo album on my lap. I stared at Carol, transfixed by her eyes. I found myself in possession of this capacity to accept all of her, and all human frailty.

Everybody opened up. Scott, my weightlifting partner, swung his arm over my shoulder and squeezed me to him and thanked me for being his friend. My roommate, Tom, brought me a glass of water, and his thoughtfulness rocked me to my soul. We all just talked. Carol said her mother was thinking of joining A.A. Tom realized he loved a passage from a business-admin book so much he had to read it to us. Dave's mom had recently been the victim of a violent assault; he'd already told me about it briefly, but here he ran through the event and his reactions to it un-self-consciously, letting go of the humiliation and awkwardness. This was the beginning of a long night of feeling uncharacteristically undefensive, comfortable and kind.

And: all afternoon, all night, I didn't hate myself.

People have turned to mind-altering substances since the beginning of time in search of enlightenment. But while many other drugs, from ayahuasca to nitrous oxide, produce euphoria, Ecstasy creates not just a rush but a singular kind of emotional elevation -- you are launched on a hot-air balloon ride that floats over the pitfalls of typical humanity. The what ifs, the self-doubts, are knocked flat, and instead a hunger for human connection and a desire to empathize firmly take hold. No other drug produces this kind of feeling. That day I had a tingling awareness that something important was happening inside me: a bubbling birth of new wonder. The slate of lifelong guilt was being gently wiped clean. I'd discovered something new, something that worked, and I'd found it without adult supervision. All of my neck, back, shoulder, elbow and knee pain from weightlifting injuries vanished. Ecstasy's a powerful analgesic.

It's also a whopper of an antidepressant. Whereas Prozac-type SSRI antidepressants keep your brain from emptying reservoirs of serotonin too quickly, Ecstasy floods your brain with the stuff. Proponents say it improves memory, which may explain why you feel so connected to the continuum of your life. A subtle, purifying something descends like a cool cotton blanket. You feel restored, energized. MDMA is chemically related to amphetamines, so it raises your heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature slightly. You're warm. You're not hungry. Your mouth turns as dry as the dust on a Las Vegas rooftop parking lot. Eventually, you start grinding your jaw

Vidman

That's how it ends.. !?

ugh..

just like E...

-=dån=-

Jess

I read this article through the Neksis link, i think this is an amazing article...i thought it was written extremely well, and was a fair portrayal to be in the media

ShiFtAh

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by stargurl:
I had nostalgia for the moment I was living. I experienced a kind of wordless glory. This was the best I'd ever felt in my life.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

what goes up, must come down.
not necisarly right after, but some time during your life, being as happy as you get on ecstacy has to come back to you...
and when it does, watch your back, caue it'll knock you over faster than you could ever imagine.

ecstasy is bad for your soul.

cherry.bomb

wow i have to say i think it was well written, and ya it is true it does come back to haunt you some time, well i don't do it anymore, made parties a little too confusing and i don't exactely call sitting around on the floor with your eyes rolling back in your head a fun party

*cherry*bomb*
70727916

[This message has been edited by cherry.bomb (edited January 29, 2001).]

Luka

Ecstacy is not bad, it's people that are bad.

A while ago, after a party...I watched these kids at the back of the shuttle bus. They were reading a TRIP pamphlet (about Ecstacy) out loud and when they got to the last passage, which read somethih along the lines of "Think about your experience and apply what you have learned to real life" they laughed out loud and threw the paper on the floor. It almost made me cry. I remeber reading that passage before, and I remember how happy it made me. There was hope, maybe this wasn't just escapism. But no, that incident made me realize how pointless it is to try to build a better world. Silly idealism...
Anyways, E definetly changed my life for the better and gave me hope and determination to better things. It's just too bad that most people don't have the capacity to use Ecstacy for something other than escape.

Syphon

The article was not well written... it wasn't bad either. It was just an average article. However, it has no ending, it simply stops. Looks like there was no editor to smack this guy around and write an ending. Oh well, the world thrives on shoty journalism.

He did however write a decent descrition of the E experiance. This however is something we have all heard, or even voiced ourselves, so is nothing new.

All in all, I think this was a below average article. It has no clear focus, and takes a considerable amount of space to get to it's very abrupt and meaningless conclusion. That conclusion being, "I liked E". Well big fucking deal, so do a lot of people. What this article was missing was the continuation of the authors statement, "I like E, because...." or, "E showed me..." Oh well, we can't all be pro-stars.

Jeff

ProdigyBoy

Syphon took the words out of my mouth!

E makes ppl feel good for a periode of time. feeling good may lead to other positive things. was that the whole pt?

if ppl need to feel happy or good with E i feel pretty sorry for them. man hitting a switch in your mind is cheap dillusional way to make someone feel good.

so it's a fact some good will come out of to what i see (E) as a negative thing. i just think it's a shame that ppl come accross these results in not the brightest of ways.

later,
Cameron Bay.

dea

That right there sums up the reason that I first tried E, and contunined to do it after that.

It was the first time I ever remembered being happy. But more than happy... I wasn't shy... I was free to be myself.

I thought it was the best thing in the whole wide world, until I went to my first party sober.... I had the best time I've ever had at a party... I talked to everyone, and I even cried in the middle of the dance floor. It was then I relised that I didn't need E to feel that way... but E had reminded me of how to feel that way.

Kate

Nubbie

My first time trying e was fun, I basically started because I heard it helped you temporarily see what was really bugging you, and opened you up to dealing with your problems. My first time trying it, it didn't really catch at all, so I didn't experience it. The second time trying e was a nice fun night. I didn't see God or anything with it, I came to no spiritual revelation, but It did get me to smile and have a really fun time.

So I tried it again, and left doing it to special occasions, because I didn't want to get too into it. Now I do it a fair bit about once or twice a month, and I hate myself for spending that much money on the drug, but I don't hate how I am on it, because I am fairly the same, just maybe alittle more talkative. Eventually 'I saw God' as I put it (it was a while ago, I realised that my parents knew I did drugs, they knew I wasn't doing well in school and they knew I wasn't going to university. I didn't really have to let them know, I just was never to talk about it at all to them) and they wern't going to kick me out of the house for having a pipe on me. They knew I was hauling my own weight to get into college, and I was never late for my job, they were just coaching me along with what they felt best.

Personally, I think everyone should try it when something is realy nagging at them, as instead of repressing anything, they force it onto the table, and they think about it, really think about it, not just how the world is super fan-fucking tastic, but what is really bothering them, wether it be their friends, their social lives, and so on.

-=Nub=-