4

HIGHER EDUCATION

MDMA. Madonna named an album after it. Teenagers experiment with it (often recklessly). An entire genre of modern music—EDM—is built around it and often dominates the charts (in 2014, EDM accounted for close to half of all concert tickets sold, and a comedian once joked that the initials stand for Everyone’s Doing Molly). In a national 2013 survey, over 2.5 million Americans aged twelve and up reported using MDMA that year, with well over 17 million reporting having used it at least once in their lifetime.

But MDMA has gotten lots of bad press over the years, and this tends to stigmatize the substance as well as those who use it.

OPEN SECRET

Those of us who’ve been around long enough can remember all the bad press marijuana got in the ’60s. We’d read about the sensationalized stories of insanity and lewd and reprehensible behavior and how pot was “the gateway drug,” invariably leading to depravity and the hellhole of heroin.

But later on, we learned that weed was originally banned back in the 1930s partially due to the efforts of a number of industries—namely, alcohol, pharmaceutical, cotton, timber, and oil—that saw the plant (in the form of pot or hemp) as a rival. Racism and ethnic intolerance (e.g., of Mexicans as well as African Americans) played what some have documented as a major role as well.1

Nowadays, however, a majority of Americans accept that cannabis, especially in moderate doses, is relatively harmless and can also serve many useful functions. So the extant “no medicinal value” government stamp on pot flies in the face of the AIDS patient who uses it to increase his appetite or my friend’s eighty-year-old aunt, who credits it for resuscitating her marriage’s sex life, or the millions in America who today use cannabis (whether it’s intoxicating THC or non-intoxicating CBD) to treat pain, insomnia, anxiety, and depression.

Today MDMA’s reputation is undergoing a similar transformation. When it first gained popularity in California in the mid-1980s, it was with psychotherapists who saw it as a valuable tool for their work. Later, when it became popular in dance clubs, the government declared its use illegal with its “no medicinal value” stamp once again.

There were publicized warnings about MDMA burning off spinal fluid or triggering Parkinson’s disease symptoms. (These claims were later debunked.) In time, we’d hear about kids dying of so-called “Ecstasy overdoses” at raves and parties. This was misleading as well, because in just about every case, these poor souls died from taking adulterated batches of the drug or a different drug entirely (e.g., methylone and mephedrone) and not a standard dose of pure MDMA at all. Or they mixed the drug with alcohol. Sometimes a person would pass out (or worse) in a crowded, hot dance hall because they did not heed—or know about—the need to keep oneself adequately hydrated during the experience. (Or they would overhydrate.) In other words, all the problems that stem from the ignorance and criminal exploitation resulting from illegality itself.

But recently, word of MDMA’s benefits has been getting out as the research catches up with the reality so many of us have known for so long: this is not so much a drug of abuse as a medicine of use. The most prominent example is the double-blind clinical studies that have been netting significant results in Americans suffering from PTSD, specifically, returning vets and victims of sexual violence who’ve not responded to any other treatment. In phase 2 of these trials, which included only two sessions with MDMA, 43 percent of those who received doses of MDMA no longer met the qualifications for PTSD. A follow-up a year later showed this number increasing to 76 percent.2

Additional trials are studying MDMA’s effectiveness for treating social anxiety in autistic adults and anxiety associated with lifethreatening illness as well as helping couples needing to reconnect with one another.

When a prominent scientist in the United Kingdom listed substances in order of toxicity, he found that alcohol was number one, while heroin came in second, tobacco sixth (right behind cocaine and methamphetamine), and marijuana eighth. Ecstasy came in seventeenth. Another study lists Ecstasy as 1/8 as dangerous as alcohol.

Pure MDMA, without any adulterants such as those found in “molly” or Ecstasy, has been proven sufficiently safe for human consumption when taken a limited number of times in moderate doses. It is currently in line, if clinical trials continue to go well, to soon become a prescription medication, according to Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), an organization that funds much of this research.

So once again, a drug that was once banned and condemned is coming out of the shadows, along with those of us who have used it responsibly. It’s been our clean little secret. One could even call it an open secret, as I’ve found it to be a secret to opening—my eyes, my heart, and my life.

THE RISKS

Although MDMA is slowly being metabolized into the mainstream culture, risks do exist. I’ve seen the rare instance of a person abusing this medicine, and certainly, if one does so, it will do the same back. Anyone with an addictive personality, for example, might want to steer clear of it.

My nightmare, the one that almost kept me from this writing altogether, goes like this: Somehow, a reader is inspired to try MDMA for themselves, but then does so without utilizing the guidelines that those of us within the community have developed from years of hard experience (see chapter 8). And then s/he becomes a statistic. (In 2011, the last year the government kept track of it, .017 percent of ER visits in the United States were related to MDMA; it accounted for 1.8 percent of all drug-related ER visits that year.) But I’ve decided I cannot let this fear of irresponsible use or abuse hold me back from sharing the truth of what it’s done for Shelley, me, and countless others we’ve met.

It’s true that I’ve had some bad (or challenging) rolls myself, like the time someone offered me some ketamine (an anesthetic that is used by some as a psychedelic compound) in the middle of an MDMA experience, which I did, thereby breaking my own guidelines. (Some people swear by this combination. I swear it sucks.) There was the time I got greedy and did too much MDMA, had a hard time finding my way around at the party, and was exhausted for two days afterward. And there were times I’d felt I’d made a profound connection with someone but really hadn’t. And other times when I just felt chemically frustrated because, for some reason, I just didn’t get to that sweet spot as I usually did.

Just as it’s true that too much vitamin A will hurt you, and too much Tylenol will damage your liver and possibly kill you, then of course too much MDMA, or MDMA taken without following the guidelines, is risky.

A kid riding in the back seat of a car full of friends headed to the city on a Saturday night, a professional at a local gathering in an upscale neighborhood, a twenty-something at a club—all might be offered a hit of what they’re told is MDMA or Ecstasy or molly and could suffer the consequences of an adulterated batch, or mix it with alcohol or other drugs, or take too much or not sufficiently hydrate, or not replenish themselves with rest and certain nutrients afterward. These are all issues that are easily rectifiable.

Certainly it would be dangerous for this book to help turn the tide from the fear and ignorance of the drug-war era back to a 1960s anything-goes reckless naïveté about this or any psychedelic. It’s that kind of misuse, along with misinformation and scare tactics, that prompted the current repression of these compounds to begin with.

So MDMA can be dangerous, but this book is about how I’ve found it doesn’t have to be.

Let’s start with red flags. If you have any one or more of the following conditions, you should not do MDMA:

Further, you should avoid MDMA if you are being treated with an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) like Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro, Paxil, or Celexa or an SNRI (serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor) like Effexor or Cymbalta. (Note: Taking MDMA while on an SSRI or an SNRI is not dangerous; you just most likely won’t feel the effects of the MDMA.) And if you are being treated with an MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor) like Nardil, Parnate, or Emsam for depression or other ailment, you must avoid MDMA. However, if, under a doctor’s supervision, you wean yourself off of an SSRI, SNRI, or MAOI, an experience with MDMA may work out well.

If you are HIV positive or are otherwise being treated with a protease inhibitor such as Ritonavir, you must avoid MDMA.

In addition, as mentioned, another stimulant (amphetamines such as Adderall, Ritalin, or methamphetamine) should not be combined with MDMA. And, also as mentioned, alcohol or other drugs (like Tramadol or cyclobenzaprine) should not be taken before or during a roll.

Specific risks include neurotoxicity, which is caused by overheating, taking too high a dose, or using MDMA too frequently. Antioxidants can reduce this effect. (See “Avoiding the ‘Tuesday Blues’” in chapter 8.)

Also, overheating and under-hydrating are common risks, easily rectified with sufficient fluids. In addition, drinking too much water can cause dangerously low blood sodium levels.

There are also risks associated with an elevated heart rate and blood pressure. However, in the current phase 3 trials with MDMA, they are allowing the participation of people being treated for high blood pressure, so long as those people stay on their medication. As Michael Mithoefer, M.D., acting medical director of MAPS explains:

We have included people with controlled hypertension in our studies and had them stay on their antihypertensive meds, which sometimes included beta blockers. The added requirement for them was that they have a stress test with imaging (nuclear or echo) and a carotid ultrasound to assess for possible significant vascular disease. We haven’t had any problems related to the hypertension.3

There’s also a general decreased awareness of physical pain, which can result in an injury not being realized until one comes down, and there is a risk of temporary depression afterward (again, see “Avoiding the ‘Tuesday Blues’” in chapter 8). There are other emotional and psychological risks as well. Most notably, one should not make major life decisions or immediate, impactful changes to a relationship during or right after the experience.

Since the beginning of its popularity in the ’80s, there have been guidelines—call them best practices—developed and shared by tens of thousands of users who learned by experience over perhaps millions of rolls. These guidelines, summarized in chapter 8, vastly reduce the chances of something going wrong. Popular websites*3 have sprouted with treasure troves of valuable dos and don’ts about MDMA and a plethora of other drugs. They also offer knowledge of how to get the most from the experience, whether one chooses to use MDMA recreationally, therapeutically, or both. You can also find information on my YouTube channel (Listening to Ecstasy) and my website (CharleyWininger).

A word on microdosing: In recent years there’s been much interest in microdosing psychoactive substances. In regards to MDMA, as of this writing, there is no good data on its efficacy or safety. I’ve seen conflicting reports about its usefulness or desirability. (This stands in contrast to the many glowing reports I’ve heard and read about over time concerning microdosing LSD or psilocybin mushrooms.) Often, low doses of MDMA (like 25 mg) can actually make people feel terrible, but some do use it for creative purposes in this way nevertheless. Until more is known, I’m staying away from this practice, and I suggest you do as well.

If you find yourself interested in trying MDMA, which, as of this writing, is still an illegal substance and one I therefore cannot and do not recommend you try, please first thoroughly read through chapter 8’s guidelines. It will save you from making common mistakes and greatly improve your chances of having a positive experience.

But make no mistake: MDMA is a gateway drug! It swings open the gate to tactile, emotional, and spiritual exploration and opens the door to the heart. If you are not up for this or the possibility of seeing yourself or your life in a new light or of opening to a different way of seeing the world, then MDMA may be the wrong choice for you.

IN TOUCH: WHAT MDMA FEELS LIKE

Over my approximately sixty-five rolls, I’ve kept notes. I’ve also collected some descriptions from friends. While nothing can adequately convey the experience of water short of actually getting wet, I’ll try to articulate what we feel.

MDMA gives me an energized, expansive physical sensation centered in, but not limited to, my chest. I experience a warm glow of safety that’s both corporal and emotional, a loving impulse and a heightened, almost luxurious feeling of sensuality. I have an urge to relate to and embrace others. When it’s a really good roll, I feel like the sun is rising in my heart. MDMA italicizes tactile sensation and emotional experience, adding emphasis to a softly vibrating sense of connection to myself or another, to both I and thou.

A friend describes it as an energized feeling, gently burning a hole through his plate of body armor from the inside, so his heart can shine through. Another describes the feeling as akin to being plucked and strummed like a guitar by a master virtuoso. Yet another friend has likened it to the feeling he got the day he declared his love to someone for the first time, and she told him, “I love you too!” This is what pure MDMA can feel like when it’s done the right way.

I’ve found that some who are about to try it for the first time have expected it to be like their last drug experience, whether that was cannabis, acid, or whatever. But MDMA is quite different from a hallucinogen or strong pot or hash. As one friend told me, “With LSD or mushrooms, I feel like it’s calling the shots. With MDMA, I’m much more in control.”

Still others expect it to be like their last Ecstasy or molly experience, only to find that pure MDMA can be different, as these days the other two are often a mix of ingredients. If you felt real speedy, came down after an hour or so, or were hallucinating, you probably were not dealing with pure MDMA.

Often, then, when a person tries it for the first time, there’s the shock of what it’s not. I have summarized some examples of the expectations and actual experiences below.

What They Expected What They Got
Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath Enya, Pachelbel, “Rhapsody in Blue”
Trippy like strong pot  Clearheaded
Overwhelmed as with acid Relaxed and in control
Hallucinations Things look the same, except for a slightly enhanced visual acuity

THE BOOGIE MAN VS. THE MAN WHO BOOGIES

Speaking of the difference between expectations and what’s actually so, I’ve always been startled and baffled by the contrast between the characterization of drugs (or drug users) instilled in me and reality. Especially when it comes to substances like MDMA or psychedelics, the gap between societal perception and my experience is jarring. Like the image of the seventeen-year-old girl on Ecstasy screwing her brains out in the back of the club. Or of the hippie on acid or ’shrooms who’s dropped out and wanders through the forest all day. Hey, I’m sure there are some who fit these stereotypes. It just doesn’t jibe with what I’ve personally observed over the past fifty years.

I still recall the moment I stepped into the Queens Police Department drug education trailer at college and saw the image of a “reefer” over the words, “One puff, and your life goes up in smoke!” I realized then that the drug war’s chief strategy could be summed up in one word: “BOO!” And ever since, the messages I’ve heard through the media or through others who’ve been exposed to the D.A.R.E. program in school, are as follows:

The reality I’ve encountered is rather different. The closer I got to the MDMA subculture, for example, the better it looked, especially when it came to the people I met personally.

I’ve noticed that most of those seriously drawn to MDMA are already of a certain caliber. They are open-minded (as they’d have to be), open-hearted (as many are or become), smart, and curious. We have our share of elitists who feel superior to the sober. And indeed, there are those who use MDMA to escape, which of course can be both futile and self-destructive. But those few aside, the current renaissance of interest in this and similar substances has offered me the opportunity to meet, befriend, and play with people I’d otherwise never get to know: explorers, therapists, meditators, artists, political activists, and world travelers. Creative, smart, interesting, playful, friendly people—from all walks of life and of all ages, which is important to me at this stage.

For Shelley and me, they’re really the right crowd!

In my experience at least, people who engage in thoughtful exploration through MDMA do so more often for therapeutic and educational reasons, in addition to any recreational motivation, than those who habitually use what are known as “hard drugs” like opiates, alcohol, and snortable, smokeable, or injectable stimulants (i.e., methamphetamine, cocaine, crack). From what I’ve seen, when used correctly, MDMA tends to bring out traits such as acceptance, optimism, curiosity, generosity, and creativity. With the other substances, not so much. Users of psychedelics including MDMA often do so to explore their pain in order to heal it, whereas the other drugs are often used by people to cope with, numb, and soothe their pain in order to function and survive.4 And all too often, they get sucked into the addictive downsides of those drugs.

THE OTHER CLOSET

This societal tendency to conflate all drugs and drug users contributed to my staying in the closet for so long. No, not that closet, although I often struggled as a young man with my sexual identity before realizing I was straight. I’m talking about another closet.

Some people may have deep religious or spiritual values that forbid drug use. I can respect that. But those were never my values. Being so shame-prone during the ’80s “Just Say No” years, however, I often felt like some kind of furtive child molester when I would partake.

During this time I struggled with cocaine. Now there’s something that really is both dangerous and destructive! But I eventually came to realize, when I looked at it clearly and past all my guilt and shame about it, that it was an attempt to comfort or bolster myself. A very unhealthy and ineffective attempt perhaps, but nothing much more than that.

To be sure, my use of drugs was not the only thing I was taught must surely be wrong with me. In the ’60s and ’70s many of my fellow student radicals subtly instructed me to be ashamed of my religion (a kind of guilt by association, as at the time, many of the slumlords in Harlem who were exploiting the people I was marching for were Jewish). And of my pigment as well. In time, I was also assured that being a man was another thing I should have the decency to apologize for.

But when I discovered psychedelics at age twenty-one, I kept going back for more because I’d found them to be the most fun way to learn about myself, and the most educational way to have fun. Mostly, however, I kept it to myself.

Up until very recently, we’ve viewed drug use in this country the way we used to view sex: most everyone does it, or used to do it, but we just don’t talk about that sort of thing, and certainly not around the kids. And when we do, it’s in dismissive, judgmental terms: yesterday a person was “oversexed”; today they’re a “stoner” or a “druggie.” We’ve been a nation of sexual and chemical prudes and hypocrites.

But now the long night of shaming and prohibition seems to be over. It’s something of a psychoactive spring. In the distance, the sun is rising and flowers are blooming after a long oppressive winter. To me it’s been exhilarating but also discombobulating. Most of the recent publicity about MDMA and other such compounds has been positive! The cultural pendulum that was swung against its use, and even against clinical research about it, is swinging back. It may take me a while to adjust and shake off my winter layers.

Another culprit holding my closet door shut has been the scorn and sting of stigma. I learned long ago that one’s love for psychoactives like MDMA is not something one spoke about in polite company, lest one thereafter be regarded with disdain and suspicion.

And not only in polite company, but even in stoner company. Years ago, I found myself talking to a good friend who was quite the party animal. He loved to smoke weed and drink, sometimes ’til he barfed. When I mentioned that Shelley and I were starting to experiment with MDMA, I thought he’d be excited for us, but his voice dove an octave.

“Oh no . . .” he said, and he soon got off the phone.

And I realized I’d done it. This was something that scared or repulsed him. I felt embarrassed, like I had somehow said the wrong thing. This was one of several such incidents over the years, including ones in various New Age or therapeutic groups, where I’d share my enthusiasm for MDMA or psychedelics, or giddily forward emails to everyone about the news of the latest exciting research. I was so naive! I’d invariably end up feeling like the happy three-year-old who’d offered a flower to another kid, who then responded with “Yecch!”

So as you see, I’m sort of a once-burned-twice-shy kind of guy.

A friend who’s been in my men’s team for twenty years once asked me, “Well, doesn’t Ecstasy burn off spinal fluid?” I corrected this old wives’ tale—it doesn’t.

And then he said, “Yeah, but how many times have you done it?”

When I told him “over sixty” his jaw dropped. Especially because he respected me highly and had often personally benefited from my contributions to the team.

“Well, maybe you know what you’re doing,” he said. “But what about that mescaline epidemic I read about that’s decimating rural areas in the Midwest?”

For someone like me, who prides himself on knowing about drugs before he decides to experiment, this kind of ignorance is hard to swallow. I explained the drug he was referring to is not the hallucinogen called mescaline but the highly addictive form of speed known as methamphetamine. It’s so easy these days to mix up such information as if, well, they’re all just drugs, so they’re all bad.

One of my oldest and truest friends pointedly challenged me recently about what he considered the irresponsible recklessness of writing this book. He had spent decades teaching in New York City’s public schools, witnessing firsthand the detrimental effects of heavy weed use on the developing adolescent brain, not to mention the devastation of harder drug use on these kids.

“All drug use is abuse!” he yelled at me. To him, drugs are drugs.

But then I’m reminded of how he came to one of my birthday parties and afterward spoke warmly of all the wonderful people he’d met there. He especially liked my friend Otis and remarked on what a warm and open young man he was. I could only smile as I recalled Otis’s very poignant story of his suffering a crippling shyness until his personal awakening and social blossoming resulting from his first use of MDMA.

One person’s treasure is another’s trash, I suppose.

Being stigmatized can get you ostracized, fired by your boss or your clients, or shunned by your family and friends. One thing that helped me overcome my shame was when my therapist (an existentialist who dabbled in acid in his younger days and loved it) used the term responsible drug use to describe what I was doing. I love the phrase because it’s so culturally counterintuitive! I’d never heard those words used together. But that’s what we in our community engage in.

So lately I’ve even developed a healthy pride, and I sometimes feel like shouting from the rooftops: “You must all be nuts not to partake in what are among the greatest experiences of being alive in this world, and instead choose to condemn or ignore them! What are you thinking?”

And then there’s another antidote to shame and stigma—good old-fashioned outrage—as in: Now let me get this straight. Fearmongering, pandering politicians and Big Pharma in cahoots with the federal government have determined that how I choose to configure my body’s chemistry is their business? And if I choose to assert personal control, I should be denied all my freedom? I’m over seventy years old! I can make my own damn decisions about my state of mind! And you know what? Some of you may prefer to get high legally by drinking. That’s fine, but stop conflating what is illegal with what is immoral! Enough with your judgments!

It boils down to simple existential choice: live my one life the best and fullest I know how, or be cowed into settling for something less than that.

And I get sad to think there are many who just can’t hear any of this kind of “drug talk.” But while I get impatient with this kind of closed-mindedness, I’ve got to admit that I have my own. When someone speaks to me about their encounters with alien beings, or tries to interest me in Scientology, or in chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, my ears are sealed. You’re a “truther” who believes that there’s proof 9/11 was an inside job? My mind just slammed shut.

So I’ve got my biases, and things I just don’t trust, as well. Perhaps I sound just as far-fetched or just plain nuts to a lot of people in much the same way.

THE BUMMER: WHY MANY BOOMERS (AND MANY WHO FOLLOWED) SHUT THE DOOR

Back in the ’60s and ’70s, my cohort was messing around with enormously potent mind-altering substances without yet knowing how to safely do so. We were, as Keith Richards put it years later, “flying without a license.” For many of us, it didn’t end well. MDMA wasn’t available at the time, and although it’s much more user-friendly than hallucinogens, it tends to get lumped in with them, along with all recreational substances, in the minds of many of my fellow boomers.

Psychedelics were and remain unique compounds that act in unique ways. The effect of LSD alone is so completely determined by the set and the setting as to result in dramatically different trips when these vary.5 One could use crack, amphetamines, cocaine, or heroin under different circumstances, and one would still pretty reliably get revved up or slowed down. But your son could trip on LSD with his girlfriend on prom night and later tell you how they fell in love, saw God, and had a life-altering experience and naively offer you some. And then the next day, you could do half the dose from that same stash in a desperate attempt to escape your personal psychic pain and end up with the cops trying to talk you down from the roof.

Because we lacked the instructions that so many have labored on and perfected in the interim, many boomers, and those in successive generations, suffered the personal chemical trauma known as the bummer. At times this profound psychic distress was exacerbated by the intervention of frightened paramedics or frightening police. In today’s underground community we call a bummer a difficult experience. While a bummer or “bad trip” is presumed to be an episode of useless suffering, reframing it as simply a very difficult experience (often an encounter with one’s personal demons) can, along with the proper intervention, help turn the trip into a very useful and beneficial event. But that’s another story.

Imagine using alcohol, for example, before we knew that while under the influence one shouldn’t operate heavy machinery! Likewise, dropping something like acid to have a good time turned many of us into Mickey Mouse playing sorcerer’s apprentice. Too many of us had too little information and way too little respect for what we were getting ourselves into.

So for many, that last experience with psychedelics led to a realization they were playing with fire and could get burned. Such an unpleasant or even harrowing experience was usually followed, understandably, by swearing off the stuff. The pain of that last trip persisted and served as a “Danger! Keep out!” sign on these doors of perception—doors they closed and tossed away the key to. This was further compounded by the drug war, which resulted in the complete stigmatization of these compounds (lumping them together with heroin, cocaine, and the like) along with anyone who used them. Many of us therefore understandably wound up dismissing these experiences as youthful indulgence or indiscretion.

As mentioned, we hippies didn’t have MDMA at the time. We had pot and hash, acid and ’shrooms, mostly. The closest thing there was to MDMA was something called MDA, also known as the “love drug.” It was about half as good. (I had a conversation with it recently and it informed me I should revise this to about three-quarters as good.)

So we boomers who had been into psychedelics, for the most part, stopped. But not all of us. We who continued experimenting sometimes felt like we were keeping the faith, like monks up in the tower preserving esoteric knowledge through the Dark Ages.

MY TESTAMENT

Standing in sharp contrast to the official or societal view of MDMA is simply what it’s done for the two of us. Please understand that I’m sharing purely anecdotal information here. What has worked for us may or may not work for you or anyone else.

In addition, I can well appreciate people’s fundamental objections to having such experiences. Many have shared them with me over the years.

  1. “I don’t need it. I’m happy with my life.”
  2. “Frankly I’m afraid I’d like it too much!”
  3. “I did all that back in college; it was great at the time.”
  4. “I did all that back in college. My last trip/joint/roll was awful and I swore it off.”
  5. “I’m afraid I’ll lose control.”
  6. “It’s illegal; I could get busted!”
  7. “I don’t want to be known as some kind of druggie.”
  8. “God/Jesus/Allah/Buddha said not to.”
  9. “Isn’t it dangerous? Isn’t that what kids die from at dance concerts? Isn’t it addictive? Doesn’t it fry brain cells? I don’t know what to believe!”

All these fears and concerns are understandable to me, as I’ve had many of them myself at one time or another. But my own journey on the path toward responsible drug use has helped me overcome them.

Here are my responses to the concerns listed above, one by one:

  1. I’m happy with my life as well; MDMA has made me happier.
  2. I’ve learned how to control and moderate my usage and avoid the potential pitfalls. (See chapter 8.)
  3. They have much to say to me now that I wasn’t ready to hear when I was younger.
  4. I’ve learned how safe, gentle, and user-friendly MDMA can be when the guidelines are followed.
  5. Following guidelines helps me remain in control of my experience.
  6. It’s true! One could conceivably go to jail for carrying a capsule of MDMA. I myself am careful not to carry it with me, and I don’t keep it in the house.
  7. My fear of stigma and blots on my reputation are diminishing as word gets out in the media of its myriad benefits.
  8. MDMA and psychedelics have enhanced my appreciation of the divine and my connection to everyone and everything. They’ve increased my love of and protective feelings toward the good Lord’s creation and have strengthened my compassion and determination to treat others as I would like to be treated.
  9. I’ve educated myself through reading and through trial and error, and I now know how to use it safely.

What follows are the ways MDMA improves my life.

Brings Me Joy

MDMA is a sacrament of play and as such has helped me reconnect with joy, the most elusive of emotions. The felt experience it offers reminds me of what a luxurious privilege it is to be completely alive! And to inhabit a human body! It helps me to see how much there is to be grateful for, including being alive at a time in history when such experiences are available. I get to sense how touch is the poetry of the skin. And how I live to learn, yes, but also to get down and celebrate! My ego takes a rest at these moments, and my spirit bursts forth like sunlight through the clouds, and thanks me for the opportunity. This can also lead to the joy of being totally present in the moment (a rarity for me), as if I’ve just jumped headlong into the river of the perpetual present.

There have also been ways I’ve been able to weave these moments of joy into my life and feel more connected to the world.

Staves Off Addiction

MDMA keeps me far away from cocaine, which was a problem for me not too many years ago. The craving faded over time, as I found so much rejuvenation and hedonic pleasure in MDMA. I’ll go into this more later on.

Does Me Permanent Good

My best experiences leave me with the feeling that I’ve been to the mountain top and have seen the promised land. After I descend, I know the path to follow.

Prior to this, I might not have known the mountain was there at all. Afterward, I can find other ways to get there: I can dare to venture deeply into an intimate exchange with a friend or a stranger. I can be “unreasonably” generous. I can live a thankful life.

This is the best thing such a substance can do for me: open a new door and flip on a heretofore hidden switch, thereby doing me good whether or not I ever choose to use it again.

Alleviates My Anxiety Related to Aging and Death

MDMA has helped me navigate my way through the changes that come with age and also to better understand and be at peace with mortality. (For more on this, please see chapter 7.)

Connects Me with the Natural World

When we roll outdoors, we experience an increased connection to and appreciation of nature, especially when we’re physically participating in it (hiking, swimming, canoeing, etc.).

Plugs Me into a Thriving Cultural Underground

We enjoy being part of a secret society of outlaws and pill-carrying members of a culturally subversive cohort. It’s one with its own gatherings, mythology, and code (i.e., both a language all our own and a credo to live by). This is not exactly like being “in with the in crowd,” as it’s more the hidden crowd. It’s at once a tight-knit, inclusive, and sprawling tribe, and one in which I feel I’m being honored as a dude who carried the news and kept the faith through the dark decades of the ’80s and ’90s. And all the while enjoying the benefits of living a “normal” life as well . . . although I try not to get stuck there. This ongoing association affords Shelley and me a way to happily, even giddily play and bond with people. I just never imagined as a younger man that a couple our age could have so much fun!

Offers Me a Unique Way to Connect with Friends

Something shifts between friends old and new after sharing these discreet moments of vulnerable intimacy. We who spend hours at a time emotionally disrobing in this way—and seeing the world anew together—know a special bond.

Gets Me out of My Head, and in More Ways Than One

Younger people taught me something that neither I nor the first serious experimenters with MDMA knew: how the beat of some good music can pump fresh life into these old bones! My limbs pulse across the dance floor as if I’m being danced, while feeling years younger and pounds lighter.

In other words, the less I worry about the boogie man, the more I become the man who boogies. And the music that has evolved into EDM has been carefully calibrated to match the rhythms of the rolling bod. At times, it’s positively transcendent. And without Shelley’s interest, I’d probably never have known any of it.

In addition, the medicine lends me cerebral relief. My head must generate 10,000 thoughts a day as I flail about in a sea of details. (And as a workaholic I know how constantly drowning in such a sea can be an exhausting misery.) I’ve come to believe that if life truly lived can only be accessed through direct experience, then thinking is the mind’s version of virtual reality. Its constant judgments, evaluations, opinions, expectations, and ruminations are a sometimes compelling imitation of life. And I spend most of my time there. As Thich Nhat Hanh noted, “Life is only available in the moment.” When I’m lost in thought, I’m in the dugout and not at bat.

With MDMA I experience a temporary slowing of that constant torrent. It’s a simple relief that bestows a plethora of benefits. I feel like I’m being gently shaken awake from a long trance. Or like the proverbial fish that jumps a moment from the sea and then understands there’s more to the world than water. Once, while coming down from a roll, I realized what Lily Tomlin meant when she said, “Reality is nothing but a collective hunch!” The “reality” I’d actually been swimming in had been merely my limited conception of it. So my habitual way of looking at the world became just that—one way of looking at the world. With such a shift, this flying fish could then dive back into what Patti Smith called “the sea of possibilities.” And this way of life I’d constructed and kept justifying could then start loosening—and opening—up. My old I should think a lot more perspective shifts to I’m a lot more than I think. Beyond thoughts, I am also my body and its senses, my emotions and experiences, and my intuition, dreams, and spirit as well.

MDMA helped me realize that my default brain settings have had me lost in a doubt-drenched, worrywart existence. And I can become so constantly self-scrutinizing I don’t see how I am both inmate and warden in my own mental prison (thank you, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn).

When I realized with the help of MDMA that I simply don’t have to believe everything I think, it was such a relief! (And relief itself can be a profound pleasure!) It’s also a release from my slave-like devotion to all that mental chatter. There’ve been times it’s gotten so crowded in there, I haven’t had room to change my mind.

Sometimes I’m elevated over my existence as if in a hot air balloon (it’s right they call it getting high) and look out to see where I’ve been, where I am, and where I may be headed and all in a few hours. Some may call this “tripping,” but it shows me I’ve been on too many sober trips of my own making and perhaps just as hallucinatory: the head trip, the fear trip, the I’m-not-much trip. Not to mention the I’m-on-my-own trip. Come to think of it, all my worst trips have been sober!

Heals the Shame That Bound Me

MDMA has rescued me from the constant rain of shame that had drenched my days and that I’d believed to be as much a part of life as the sky.

I learned in time that there are essentially two types of shame: healthy and toxic.

Healthy shame is if you cheat on your romantic partner and you feel lousy as your gut informs you that you’ve violated your own integrity. But if, say, you’re single and lonely, and fantasize lustily about people you pass on the street, and then feel self-loathing for having such thoughts, that’s probably toxic shame kicking in.

Toxic shame tended to make me cower. Like a relentless, unforgiving bully, it would seek to justify its existence by making a big deal over my latest alleged sin. (And all the while telling me to pay no attention to the shamer behind the curtain.) Its message was always for me to go hide (because I’m just no good), therefore leaving me vulnerable to its attacks. Because like its descendent, addiction, shame thrives in the dark.

MDMA helped pry me loose from this grip of shame. It would feel like a loving flush of sunshine after a bitter snow. I feel sad when I think of how much more joyful and how less self-loathing my existence could have been without all this toxicity had MDMA and I found each other when I was younger.

Provides a Unique Way to Celebrate

We’ve found that MDMA can provide a way to mark or sacralize special occasions, like New Year’s Eve or our wedding anniversary.

Lends Me a Time Apart

Rabbi Michael Lerner once spoke of the Fourth Commandment—to observe the Sabbath—as the “first labor law.” And Oliver Sacks spoke of the psychedelic experience of enjoying “a stopped world.” Rolling is my chemical Sabbath, a time set apart to rest and replenish the spirit. It’s a break from a mundane, sober existence.

Provides the Ultimate Staycation

Getting “away” while staying at home was especially useful for Shelley when she was still working. Rolling, to paraphrase the Moody Blues, is the best way to travel: Experience-rich, luggage- and visa-free, and cheap. Potentially a journey of a lifetime condensed, like some science fiction story, into a few hours. (And if we ever need to quarantine ourselves during an epidemic, this option could come in handy.)

Gives a New Perspective to Vacations in General

Recently, Shelley and I splurged on two vacations, and we learned a valuable lesson. The first one was on her bucket list; she’d always wanted to go on a Viking river cruise in Europe. We spent eight days cruising up the Rhine, receiving superb service, and experiencing culinary delights along with an edifying historical education about parts of Switzerland, Germany, France, and Holland. The boatload of boomers on the cruise were quite friendly and nice, and it was all a pleasurable and wonderful experience. And it set us back thirteen grand.

A few months later, we attended the Peach Music Festival outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania. It’s a long-standing annual jam band, country rock, and bluegrass gathering whose lineage goes back to the Allman Brothers. We ate food from pop-up stands, splashed away in the onsite water park, and heard bands like Phil Lesh & Friends, String Cheese Incident, and the Trey Anastasio Band. And we people watched—the young and old, the Deadheads alongside folks who looked like they just came from the office, ZZ Top wannabees, families and children, and sprinklings of tripping hippies. And everyone grooving to some of the nation’s finest musicians. Being with friends helped. So did MDMA one of the four days. Total cost: Just under $800.

When it was over, Shelley turned to me and said, “I’ll take this over a river cruise any day!” We vowed to return the following year.

Provides the Ultimate (Sexual) Vacation

It was only on a recent sojourn that the two of us discovered what some others have long known: the value of rolling stoned. While at a resort, we spent the day with MDMA and sativa-laden marijuana and experienced what can only be called “sexstasy”—an orgy for two. It was a heightened, prolonged state of complete arousal, as if we were inhabiting two full-bodied orgiastic spheres of pleasure. We first luxuriated in bed, enjoying a tingling carnival of the senses. And then we enjoyed a long, hot shower. In time we sat spooning in the room’s Jacuzzi, sucking on the chocolate-covered strawberries room service had provided.

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Shelley at the Peach Music Festival

Gives Me Information

MDMA offers information that’s of use to me the next day. Indeed, it offers an entire curriculum, if I care to sit in on the class and pay attention (instead of just itching for recess and the playground). You might say I’m going for my masters in empathic attunement. Courses include Relationship 101: How to Relate to Your Own Body and Self, Relationship 201: How to Relate to Another Person, and Relationship 301: How to Relate to Everyone Else.

Teaches Me about Context

The use of substances like MDMA has taught me the importance of “set and setting” in my life as a whole. Context, it turns out, is everything when it comes to preparing for a work-related project, a vacation, or any game of life I want to play.

I believe it was Werner Erhard, consciousness guru of the ’70s and ’80s, who said one should first set the game up to win, and then play it. Establishing a proper set, meaning mindset, my mental game and intention, is crucial for success in anything I attempt. Then establishing the right setting (my surroundings), which can mean gathering all the proper tools and materials, all the ingredients and information, and anything else that bends the environment toward the desired result. These are the building blocks of success in life. I’m not saying anything new here but having learned from my MDMA experiences to carefully attend to these details has gotten me into the habit of properly preparing for life’s challenges as well as its pleasures.

Raises My Sights

In Lily Tomlin’s classic The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe she refers to experiences of awe as “the cosmic carrots that keep us going” and said that she “set aside time each day to do awe-robics.” MDMA is my awe-robics class. It doesn’t give me complete answers to all my larger questions, but it tends to melt away the distance between the sensual and the spiritual, the mundane and the sublime. And this provokes an arousal, from the erogenous zones of my heart, of a Yes! to everything in God’s creation. And what could be more awe-some than that?

Helps Me Heal from Our Collective Trauma

When I feel adrift in a world that I often experience as a traumatizing, isolating place, MDMA serves as an antidote to both. The alienating influence of technology and the sometimes bewildering, scary events unfolding before our eyes at breakneck speed are traumatizing for many of us, the COVID-19 crisis being a case in point. Rolling with others gives me the healing feeling of community, cohesiveness, and connection. It offers me a perspective that helps me not get sucked into the daily, media-induced fear-and-loathing trance. And the gratitude and generosity of spirit it sparks in me calms my nerves and gives me a sense of empowerment, for we are not alone at all but part of each other and the greater fabric of life. I can understand why one of the most promising treatments now for PTSD is MDMA.

Hints at a Larger Vision

MDMA teaches me the ways of peace. Its chemistry cuts the umbilical cord to the world’s mother lode of fear-fueled hate. It reveals the prize so I know what to keep my eyes on. And it leaves me with the inspiration to work my way to it—with others by my side. And what is this way? I’m just starting to envision this. I would walk a path of peace that sticks up for itself. That emphatically insists on prevailing. A radical and nonviolent revolution of ruthless compassion, meaning not only a love delivered sharp enough to cut through all the bullshit but also a compassion that’s tender, seductive, and subversive enough to upend all ruthlessness. After experiencing the peace and paradise that’s possible, how can I remain content with the warlike ways of this world? I’ve listened to Ecstasy. To then dismiss a good roll as a chemical fluke or a childish escape would betray the truth I’ve just been shown. It would be sacrilege, and a damned shame.

I’m reminded of a dinner we had with some old alumni of Shelley’s where my dear wife outed the both of us, right there over dessert. (This was years ago, way before I was ready, and I made sure that wouldn’t happen again for a long time.) I was embarrassed and found myself haltingly trying to justify our rolling.

Suddenly her friend’s husband interrupted. “We don’t need that stuff!” he declared with a dismissive wave of the hand.

That stuck and felt subtly shaming to me. Had I said we did? He seemed to imply as much. Ever since, I’ve had conversations in my head with this man, complete with defensive or offensive retorts.

But truth be told, I do need it. I need it like the medicine it is and for all the reasons I describe above. Plus, it helps me balance my gerbil-like, workaholic life with deep leisure and fun.

Of course, MDMA can do all this for me partly because I’ve done so much other work on myself over the years. This hard work has helped lay the groundwork (or cake) for the lofty magic (or icing) MDMA can bestow.

After the roll, I go back into the fray, thinking about all my chores and problems, and the cloud returns. This cloud can sometimes feel like depression to me, or like a heavy feeling of “waits” dragging me down: wait till I get a lot of money; wait till the weekend; wait till I retire; wait to fully live.

And then I remember with a start—Oh! I really don’t have to think this way anymore! I now know another way.

AM I EVER REALLY SOBER?

This may sound strange to some, but does abstaining for months at a time from rolling, or weeks at a time from any recreational substance, really mean I’m sober in the interim?

Am I sober if I do nothing to counter the constant onslaught of the technology that alters and rewires me? Or the sugared, caffeinated, and processed food, not to mention processed information, I’m constantly being fed?

Does being sober really mean doing nothing to rebalance myself after the impact of simply waking up in the morning and reading the front page of the newspaper? I mean, speaking of a mood-altering substance! My nervous system has just been bombarded with fret-inducing language and information, resulting in the release of the stress hormone cortisol. As it courses through my veins, my shoulders and jaw tighten, my stomach clenches, and my heart races as anger and dread well up inside me. This may induce a sobering state of mind, but is it a sober one? Compared to when I woke a few minutes prior, I’ve acquired a chemical imbalance and am already in an altered state. At the least, I am impaired, and it can feel toxic. How can this intoxication be called sobriety? And how can it not, in turn, call for a periodic detox?

So when I choose to roll, I practice not so much changing my body chemistry as reclaiming control over it. It’s a cleansing for my body and mind.

For me, then, the solution has been to follow the middle path between the two extremes of addiction and (so-called) sobriety. Because, I contend, each holds a great and similar danger, which is the trap of entrancement, be it chemical or cultural.

In other words, since I live in a chemical pool, I might as well learn how to swim in it. And if our culture has become inherently intoxicating, if I don’t take control over my personal chemistry, I forfeit that control to other forces with their own agendas. Because these days, it’s not a question of whether I’ll be altered but how, and by what and whom. Making wise and well-educated choices about how I re-alter my mind and body is a way of fully participating in my own life.

WHERE I DRAW THE LINE

When it comes to drugs, everyone draws the line somewhere. In time, I realized I needed to create some boundaries for myself. I have had to draw that line very conscientiously, as I’ve struggled with this issue for decades. The son of an alcoholic, I know I carry the A (as in addiction) gene, although my father, a daily, often heavy drinker, neither slurred nor stumbled. It just numbed him out. In the ’70s I struggled for a short time with amphetamine addiction, ultimately flushing them out of my life. In the ’80s and ’90s, I medicated myself from time to time with cocaine, a substance I would give to my worst enemy (at least when I’m feeling mean). I still can’t allow myself to be anywhere near it.

But if I decided to draw the line in a way that outsourced control of my body’s chemistry to the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration allowing myself only those substances they approve of, what in heaven’s name would I be doing? Would I really want to assign them agency over my personal chemistry and states of mind?

As psychedelic explorer and social critic Terence McKenna put it, “If the words ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.”

I am not the first to note that the mainstream culture is not against drugs, just independently produced ones. It often encourages us to use corporate-made, government-sanctioned substances. There are a few groups in America, like the Christian Scientists and certain others, who really do swear off all drugs. Apart from them, everyone in America does at least some of them.

Indeed, most American adults condone, if not enthusiastically embrace, drug use: just because we mostly prefer to drink our drugs, doesn’t mean we don’t do them. But since most people don’t want to be stigmatized by being associated with anything illegal, the line they often draw can allow for alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine, as well as the controversial chemical cornucopia known as pharmaceuticals.

Many other Americans, however, draw the line differently. For example, I know many pot smokers who draw the line there. And I once met a cocaine user who looked down his nose, you might say, at pot smoking: “So messy, with all that smoke and coughing, and then you can’t function so well and you forget things . . . ew!”

So, everyone draws the line somewhere.

The basic message our society tells us about which drugs are “good” and which ones are “bad” looks something like this:

Good Drugs

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All legal substances (including prescription medications, when properly prescribed)

All over-the-counter medications, as needed

Alcohol (under certain conditions and for adults only)

Caffeine

Nicotine (if the patch is prescribed)

Bad Drugs

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All illegal substances

Any legal substance obtained illegally

People categorize and conflate. We do it to handle all the information careening our way. People therefore usually lump all illegal drugs together the same way they tend not to distinguish between a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and a psychotherapist, even though they often have less in common than one might expect.

In time, I too came to draw a line between good drugs and bad. But where most have drawn the line at legality, I’ve drawn it at utility:

Good Drugs

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MDMA (with guidelines in place)

Certain psychedelics (ditto)

Marijuana and hashish

Alcohol (at times; with guidelines in place)

Chocolate

Certain sleep aids

Certain prescription drugs when ill (Shelley says, “Thank you, cardiac drugs!”)

Certain prescription drugs when well (Charley says, “Thank you, Viagra!”)

Ginseng

Certain energy pills from vitamin shops

Ma huang/ephedra (in moderation)

All over-the-counter medications, as needed

Bad Drugs

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Most painkillers (most of the time), especially opioids

Many, if not most, other prescription drugs (unless I’m ill)

Tobacco

Cocaine

Crack

Speed (most of the time; legal or not)

Heroin

MDMA tops the list of “good drugs” because, just on a personal and practical level, it costs me relatively little (usually ten to twenty dollars), the comedown is generally smooth, and I’m left satisfied and can function fine the next day (after a good night’s sleep.) I don’t have the urge to get high again for another month or more. There’s no addiction or dysfunction, at least not for me, nor, I dare say, for most.

So over time I’ve come to regard most legal drugs with the same wariness and suspicion the mainstream culture reserves for illegal drugs. Especially when the legal drug is the speed that’s overprescribed for kids (as is the case with Adderall and Ritalin) or the downers (like antianxiety drugs) that are overprescribed for adults. Not to mention the painkillers that killed forty-seven thousand Americans in 2017 alone.

I believe one can learn from many of the substances on my “good drugs” list. Alcohol, for example, can show you that you can loosen inhibitions, therefore giving you information about what those inhibitions are, so you can reevaluate them . . . after the hangover. A person who gets drunk and spills their guts to their best friend may wake up the next day embarrassed, but the experience could also teach them (if they know how to examine themselves) just how alone, repressed, and bottled-up they’ve been.

And cannabis can, much like a good stiff drink, give one a deeper appreciation of music or teach one how to relax or better appreciate sex and the senses.

NIGHT AND DAY

In time I’ve learned that the subculture around MDMA and the one around, say, cocaine are like night and day. The people I knew who were into coke usually felt like crap after giving into the urge. The whole thing had a compulsive feel to it. We slunk around dangerous East Village streets or Washington Square Park back in the day, often half-drunk late at night, dealing with dealers who would, to feed their own habit, often sell us talcum powder mixed with ground up aspirin . . . or God knows what. And the subculture around blow and the business world has always seemed rife with greed and predatory sex.

By contrast, the subculture around MDMA attracts people who go to a party to dance and then migrate over to the designated chill space to exchange massages with someone. Shelley and I would go to one of these underground parties in the city and, although we often would be the oldest there by, it seemed, about a century, we’d be embraced with open arms and welcomed. People would actually make a point of coming up to us and saying, “I’m so glad you’re here!” Actually, this happens without fail every time we go to such a party.

And then there are those who deal the drugs. Dealers of coke, speed, heroin, crack, painkillers, etc. are motivated primarily by greed, if only, as I’ve noted, to desperately feed their own habit. The dealers of MDMA—okay, at least the few I’ve known—have been of a different sort. Some have seemed to be true believers, motivated by more than profit, as they have kept theirs moderate. These few individuals actually believe in what they’re doing. These few qualify as true heroes in my opinion, putting their freedom on the line to spread the chemical wealth.

POTHOLES ON THE PATH

There are many detours off the healthy chemical path. Recently, I took a wrong turn. It was just after midnight one Saturday. Shelley wasn’t there, and I’d been drinking and before I knew it I was compulsively riffling through the fridge with one particular thing in mind: pills a fellow traveler had bestowed upon me four years earlier as a gift, albeit not without a warning: “This methedrone stuff is like a cross between MDMA and cocaine. It has caused deaths and big health problems in England because people love it and can’t stop doing it for days on end, which is what does them in.”

That said, he was only giving me enough to have fun with for a night, plus it’s near impossible to find here, so I could forget about the gross dangers. That’s why I kept it. Still it was a risky gambit.

I ended up getting to sleep at about 8:30 the next morning (though not before having a happily sexual and musical night) and woke up feeling like crap. I was hungover and completely spent. Before this, I hadn’t binged on anything in years.

So what did I do? I told my men’s team. They ordered me to a twelve-step meeting and to throw out the little bit of stash that remained. I did what I was told.

Two weeks later, I happened to have dinner with the dude who’d laid the stuff on me and told him what had occurred.

“Yeah, I threw the rest of it down the sink too!” he said. “I know a lot of psychonauts who’ve done the same with that one.”

And I guess that’s the point. In our community, we’ve got better games to play.

HOW CHOCOLATE CURED MY COCAINE HABIT

When I was caught in the long dark night of my first marriage, those waning years when we were faced with successive miscarriages and a slowly dying love and sex life, I did what any red-blooded American male boomer in my position did in the ’80s: cocaine.

I was doing it in little dribs and drabs. But one night, at the computer (at the time it was little more than a word processor), I did a line and then smoked a joint and then did another line, as I kept writing.

Suddenly this . . . feeling came over me. A wonderful feeling of warm energy and well-being. Ahhh! I’d found a new friend. Except that she wasn’t a friend at all. (I’m not the first to regard cocaine as female. I believe she’s been called the Lady in Red as well, for some reason. Perhaps it appeals to the part of me(n) that wants to be dominated.)

Soon after that, on a Saturday afternoon, I left the house on Ninth Street in Park Slope to do some shopping and just as I was walking down the stoop, I got taken over by the sense that she was calling to me from upstairs. But it was not a siren call.

“Stop right there!” she demanded, and stopped me in my tracks. “Just where do you think you’re going . . . without ME?”

She ordered me right back up those stairs that instant to snort a line or two before I went back outside. And that’s what I did, feeling my heart racing in anticipation. It was as if I’d been seduced by a female vampire. I knew then that I was quickly falling into a widening chasm and that I’d have to choose between it and me, and fast.

Exactly who was in charge here? Or, as Lily Tomlin asked, “What’s the point of being a hedonist if you’re not having a good time?”

I learned then that it’s a strength to acknowledge one’s weaknesses. I threw the rest of the stash in the toilet and blew the whistle on myself. First, I went over to my friend’s house and banged on the door and told him in no uncertain terms to never sell to me again. And he got the message! Then I told my wife to listen for my sniffles.

But that didn’t mean I was done forever with blow. I would revisit it every now and then for years (the last time was in 2011), which usually entailed having one too many drinks on a weekend night and running out of the house or the bar to the city to score. I’d take it home and do it and wake up the next morning feeling like dried manure, yet wanting more, but throwing the rest out anyway.

I still loved the elation, but cocaine was like getting high once and coming down two or three times. First, I’d feel down almost immediately upon becoming sober again and second, the next day I’d feel bad about myself. And then the craving would last for up to two weeks! From one night’s little binge! Doing coke was like going on vacation and returning home with no pictures, no souvenirs, nothing to show for it except a weary need to recuperate. I came to realize what Robin Williams meant when he dubbed it “the devil’s dandruff.”

But in trying to give it up, I didn’t want to give up all it gave me. First, on my own, I did some internal work around it. (Hey, I’m a therapist, and I’ve also been in therapy most of my adult life, as I believe a therapist should be.)

Sitting there one night, struggling over whether to do some lines I’d just laid out, I forced myself to first sit quietly for a minute, and used a Gestalt technique, dialoguing with my body:

ME: You’re starting to lose control over this, Charley!

MYSELF: I just like it!

ME: Oh yeah? Why?

MYSELF: It just soothes me, and it makes me feel confident.

ME: Hmmm. Where?

MYSELF: Huh?

ME: Where in your body do you feel soothed, confident?

MYSELF: (staring at the coke and anticipating the feeling) In my chest . . . and my solar plexus.

ME: Okay. Well, you’re sober at the moment. What does your chest and solar plexus feel like right now?

MYSELF: Empty and hollow. I feel like that Paul Simon song where he sings, “Why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard.” I feel weak and unsupported right where I should feel my strength. The coke buoys me up; it bolsters me!

I realized at that moment that the urge to do something to soothe or bolster myself wasn’t a bad thing in itself. It was a healthy impulse toward self-care that got diverted and perverted into a coke habit. So I made a deal with myself: if I stopped the cocaine, I would find another, healthier way to take care of me. I was already in therapy by that time, so I was on the road. But what about the pure chemistry of the matter? That empty, hollow feeling? My tendency to be downbeat and heavy? What would be a healthy way to soothe and bolster my body?

And that, children, is how Charley became a chocoholic.

I started experimenting with dark chocolate, including one night where I ate a couple of cubes of baker’s chocolate to see the effect. Yes, it tasted awful, but it worked! Much more subtly than coke, of course, yet its energizing and mildly antidepressant qualities came without all of those dreadful downsides. I was sold. I began to eat dark chocolate daily (and I’m talking cocoa content of at least 75 or 85 percent).

And all that from listening to my body instead of simply abstaining and depriving myself of any chemical relief. I’d found a middle path between addiction and abstention, between chemical slavery and chemical deprivation.

There have been times when I even wondered about chocolate—How is this stuff even legal? My thoughts were affirmed when I discovered Dr. Andrew Weil’s book about drugs called, From Chocolate to Morphine. And then there’s that cover of High Times magazine from long ago . . .

And take a really good look at that photo on the next page. Do enough chocolate at one time, and there may be another part of your body, below the chest and solar plexus, that may thank you. Whenever I worship at the Temple of the Sacred Slosh, dark chocolate helps me feel erotically luxurious. And hey, at my age I need all the help I can get!

Years later, upon rediscovering MDMA, I realized that this too would give me a similar feeling of being bolstered but in a gentle, non-addictive, and heart-centered way. Using it has all but eradicated my desire for blow.

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High Times magazine, October/November, 1975

So over time, my desire for ongoing pleasure and gratification (my hedonism) cured my cocaine habit. Coke for me was unsustainable. I hit right up against that A/A wall (between addiction and abstention). But eating an ounce or two of chocolate every day? Or doing MDMA four or five times a year? That’s quite doable—and sufficient! I would become neither addicted nor need to abstain. Plus it was the warm and embracing MDMA/EDM/Burner subculture that helped save me from bolting out of the house in the darkest hours and being swallowed up by the cold hard gutter of the New York night.

Throughout all this I’ve come to learn that for me, the essence of addiction isn’t so much about the simple urge to get high but the urge to stay there. It’s that voice of dread, as the arc of the high begins its inevitable descent, beseeching, Please don’t let me go back to that cage with all my demons!

With MDMA I get so much from the high that I’m okay to come down. And I’ve learned over time how to bring at least a piece of the peace back home. A roll with MDMA is like entering an oasis; a six-hour sabbatical from the battles inherent in a fleeting existence. And over time, MDMA has instilled this sense of serenity in me. It’s anchored in my body now, as a touchstone I can visit and from which I can engage the world.

As a result of this calm serenity, I can find myself peacefully editing a printed draft of this chapter standing on the Lexington Avenue express during rush hour. Unlike an addictive substance like cocaine, MDMA has helped me, over time, build a kind of chemical platform to which I don’t have to crave a return and from which I don’t have to crash-land.

These days I wonder if my shift in drugs of choice from cocaine to MDMA corresponds to a larger shift in the zeitgeist, one to a more feminine ethic. Consider the code names for these two drugs: blow and molly. Blow (the word is laden with male appeal) makes you want to fornicate. Molly (when it’s MDMA) makes you feel and want to embrace. Blow makes you feel invincible and ready to conquer. Molly makes you feel open and ready to connect. Blow is “I” candy. Molly is about all of us.