Too many, too often, for too long (XTC)

[Stiney]

Ok so swim just thought he'd post one aspect of his use of ecstacy over the years as a semi-educational thread, to let you know what may happen if you take too many e too often for too long.

First a little backround. Swim took e for the first time when he was 14, before that he had smoked hash (the first time when he was 12) and taken speed (the first time when he was 14). The first time he took e he took 3 pills (speckled Mitsys) and it was probably the best night of his life to that point, words can't even describe it, but thats a different story. Over the next year or so he did e about 7 or 8 more times about once a month or so.

Then when he was 15 he began selling e aswell, first just buying twenty or so pills and selling them off to his freinds for a 100% profit. Soon he was buying pills two or three hundred at a time and selling them to everyone, and soon after that he was buying 1000 and selling them off in 50s and 100s. So as you can imagin he was never short of pills for his own use. Because he was selling so many he spent a lot of time at parties and in clubs. Not wanting to be the only one not rolling he did e most of the time he was out aswell.

Of course it wasn't long before he developed a very high tolerance and he was soon taking 6 or more pills everytime he did them and he was doing them about three nights a week, every week. He realised that it was a bad idea at the time to keep up that pace but he was just having too much fun to care and as he hadn't noticed any really seroius side effects he kept this up for around two months. The comedown and hangover never really bothered him because he always had valium set aside if he needed it.

Then one day it hit him. It was sunday and he had been out doing pills that Saturday and Friday the same as the last seven or 8 weeks. he was sitting in his siting room and the phone rang. he jumped up to awnser it and got a head rush, ye know, from when you stand up too fast. But then as he stood still to regain his composure his vision started to fade untill everything was black. He felt really dizzy so he fell back into the couch and closed his eyes. After about ten seconds everything returned to normal. That was the begining of it.

Over the next few days everytime he stood up too quick he got a head rush and the same diming of his vision and dizziness would acompany it. By the next saturday it hadn't happened for two days so he figured it was one of those weird things and went out to a club and did two pills. Everything seemed ok untill the next day. He was lying in bed awake and decided to get up. He stood up and started to walk across his room when he felt a head rush again, so he stopped walking, but this time aswell as the vision fading and dizziness his leg started to shake uncontrollably to the point where he fell to the ground, then he blacked out. He snapped out of it after about 5 mins and regained his composure, but not completely, he was totally freaked out.

He figured it would pass like it did the last time, he was wrong. For the next few days everytime he stood up quickly he would get a head rush and would start to shake and black out. He tried to be careful and stand up slowly everytime and stopped taking all drugs even alcohol and caffeine, as drink or hash seemed to make it worse. After two weeks he was still having the same effects. He'd get out of breath or stand up too quick or even just turn around too quickly and his whole body would shake, as he imagines soemone having an epileptic seizures would, his vision would tunnel out, he'd get this horrible taste of copper in his mouth, he'd be unable to catch his breath and would pass out. For the next month or two the condition refused to let up and was accompanied by increasing paranoia as all the warnings about ecstacy use the media had been trying to hammer into him since he was a little kid suddenly took on a far more real and immediate importance. Living his life became increasingly difficult as the activities he could engage in became fewer and fewer through fear of bringing on another "attack".




Thankfully after about another two months of abstaining from all drugs, it all subsided slowly, although he still got dizzy when he stood up too quickly it was tapering off, he was getting back to normal. He had never been so relieved in his life, he really thought he was going to end up as a vegetable or something, he thought he was going to die. After about three months he started drinking and smoking hash again, testing the water, the dizziness was gone, he was finally back too normal. Pills were still off the menu, he wasn't going to take the chance, he stopped selling alltogether and stayed out of the clubs for a while to avoid temptation. Eventually after two years he tried e again, just two pills, he was so fucking nervous but it went off without a hitch, no problems. But he set himself some very strict ground rules from that day on, never more than three pills, checked with a testing kit and from a reliable and well tested source at once and never more than once every two or three months, if even that.

This expierince isn't supossed to put people off doing ecstacy, he still fully believes that when used responsibly MDMA is a very safe drug. He guesses the moral of the story if you want to look for one is, if you think you are doing too many pills or if other people do, then cut back immediately or take a break, no second thoughts, because although in the end he was lucky, for alot of people there may be no second chances. It may still turn out that he didn't get away totally unscathed, he will just have to wait and see if there will be ramifications for his actions further down the line. Stay safe.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Interesting read, thanks.
	Fantastic account. Don't know why I didn't get to this sooner.