The outpouring of empathy you feel on MDMA is impossible to describe if you haven't experienced it. It not just about feeling good in yourself (although you do, very very much) but you feel so connected, as if the part of you that is a social animal is enormously magnified. Even if you do it alone that's true. You find yourself thinking intensely about people you know, and even people you don't know and trying to understand how they might think and feel. It's easy to see why it was used in therapy - particularly couples therapy - when it was first developed. Oh god the comedown though. All the residual stimulation once the euphoria is gone. Hellish. Not too bad if you don't redose, but that takes more willpower than I've ever had.

LSD, well. The line between the tangible and the abstract blurring out of focus. The half-smile of of being amused by your own confusion, and being confused by your own amusement. The constant surprise that you can not only withstand but even enjoy the staggering complexity inherent in every moment. Every sound like a word in a language you have long forgotten. Both dreamlike and hyperreal. Way out to sea, no land in sight, on a raft of your own consciousness.

For twelve fucking hours. I know there are shorter acting tryptamines but none of them are as good. LSD has the backbone of both tryptamine and phenethylamine. It is the ur-psychedelic. I haven't done mescaline (nor will I, I wouldn't have the stomach for it these days) so I can't say for sure LSD is the best of the serotonergic psychedelics, but it's as amazing as I'd ever need anything to be.

Now 5-MeO-DMT - remember that Yossarian? Round the Spike with Paul? When the whole entire universe collapsed and reconfigured itself within about six minutes? That scared the hell out of me and I loved it.

San Pedro?

DMT is the one tick I'm ever sorry I never collected and possibly the only thing of that sort I'd possibly still try.

One day, when I'm about fifty, I do plan to 'go all David Icke.' It just looks like so much fun.

A song that never made it on to any album unfortunately. But I jumped around a lot to this band at college.

A lot older than you think, yes. Pay attention to my wisdom.

Tis only rubbish to your young brain. When you're older you'll understand.

metascrawl wrote:

You would be strongly advised not to incriminate yourself, so only talk about illegal drugs you've done in the past, not illegal drugs you plan to do or are currently on.

How long has it been since this edit?

Nothing, unfortunately.

What? I can make out a word of that.

^ Good on you for having such self control. As much as I am attached to getting high on various things, I like to think that I'd step up to the plate in circumstances such as yours. No drug could possibly be good enough to jeopardize something like having a child, which I'm sure will give you an amazing buzz far in excess of anything drugs can offer. I wish you the very best of luck with the IVF.

Weed isn't an important factor in tv for me (although it certainly was at one time), but beer certainly is. I just can't settle down to watching a film or a show without a cold one to hand. But I'm sure I would do if I had good reason like you - one of the best reasons I could conceive of.

Conceive, geddit? Unintentional pun.

Better odds than you get in Vegas! I'm routing for you hard. Is it a case of just repeating the process if it doesn't work? Do you get as many shots at it as you want? Sorry, it's quite personal so you don't have to answer that, I'm being quite nosey now! 

I'm also interested in what you'll do when you're a father. Will you continue to smoke (when you get enough of a break from childcare to indulge) and if so, when your kid is old enough that the subject comes up will you be open about it? A friend of mine has two kids (oldest is six) and smokes every day. He doesn't smoke in front of them, but he keeps jars of weed in plain view around the flat. He's a terrific father from what I can see, and I respect his choice, but I don't think it's the path I would take frankly.

Actually my old man got busted for possession recently when he was sniffed out by police dog in Old Street Tube. Imagine that, a fifty-nine year old in a suit getting a dressing down from a cop half his age! My mum was with him and was utterly mortified. He's quit the weed and cigs since then, and gotten pretty fat as a result, much to the amusement of the whole family.

metascrawl wrote:

Now I'm out of prison, I got me a friend at last He don't steal or cheat or drink or lie His name's codeine, he's the nicest thing I've seen Together we're gonna wait around and die - Townes Van Zandt That's the last verse of the first song ol' Townes ever wrote. He used to intravenously inject whiskey, intentionally fell backwards out of a second story window to see how it would feel, and once - right in front of his good friend Steve Earle - loaded three rounds into a revolver, put it to his head and pulled the trigger three times. It took Earle a long old time to forgive him for that.

It's almost like you're insisting I repost this:

Moot - I didn't insist that you post it, but now you have I insist that everyone watches it. If you're not moved, at least a little, then you might like to give some serious thought to the proposition that you are dead inside.

Also, everyone should listen to the version of 'Pancho and Lefty' with which he opens his set on the 'Live a the Old Quarter' album - "thanks man, I don't think I ever heard it that quiet in here before." Working out how to play it was one of the most satisfying moments I've ever had as a musician, and it's one of very few songs that I will sing in front of people because it's so well written and moving that it sounds good even when I sing it with my shitty voice.

monkey - That seems very reasonable to me indeed. The fact that you have a kid shouldn't deny you the right to have a private life of your own, and as long as you kept your smoking within that sphere, it couldn't possibly be damaging to your family life. Except of course that there's always lung damage to consider, but not much if you were just smoking now and again - which is all that opportunity would allow for as you've indicated. And anyway, you could always switch to vaporization rather than smoking.

I have been thinking about what I would do if I caught a kid of mine with, for example, ketamine. From what moral high ground could I possible admonish them? And yet I would feel comfortable with condoning it. Tricky.

When I worked in HMV in the specialties department there was a regular who was well into his country and would talk to me about it a lot. Townes was his favourite, and he said that his music was like walking down a street on a hot day, and then turning a corner towards the wind and feeling a cool breeze hit your face. It was the only even vaguely poetic thing that guy ever said to me, which makes it stand out even more in my memory. I think it's a spot-on description of the experience of listening to that music.