Prologue

I. Shots Fired + Push the Needle Forward

I’d wired $1,000 on Venmo for my first solo ounce. House empty, Mom in Europe. Parked curbside in the driveway, engine humming, Fred Durst thrashing on my phone—Limp Bizkit live “Nookie”, all that bottled rage spilling out, happy to see him still rocking and rolling, rolling, rolling. Excitement and nervousness overcoming me, edging me like foreplay in my gut. I felt like I was going to cum in my fucking pants with joy, each passing second and minute waiting for him to pull up and make the delivery. That pre-hit buzz of ego annihilation, waiting for me in ml’s of saltwater dissolve.

Tonight, tomorrow, the next few days: pure, unfiltered, raw.

He slides up to the window.

“Yo, what up my man?”

“Nothing, much. Thanks for this”

“Yeah, headed up north in a minute glad I was able to get you situated.”

“Figured. Don’t want to run dry, wanted a little extra.”

Fat sexy little bag of “Sands” my favorite synth and batch. Lyophilized S-isomer, probably swiped from some compounding pharmacy. The rods were such a bad dirty synth. We bullshit briefly and then shake hands. I bust out a little line for my 20 min drive home sharp kick, promise already humming.

50 mL Pyrex beaker flask on my desk lamp calling my name.

Box of 5/16-inch 1cc insulin syringes, stacked. Spray bottle of 91% isopropyl alcohol. Milligram scale with its gold pan and Mickey Mouse ears handles. I cue David Attenborough on the tv, tonight’s show, the world of whales and dolphins, put on an 8hr Whale songs deep underwater for sleep and relaxation track, put in AirPods, low gentle hum of whales singing fills my ears.

First shot: I taper, usually. But not tonight. Tap the bag’s edge—190mg plops heavy into the scale. Forefinger nudge. More falls out onto the scale. Why not? Smirk. 220mg it is. Knowing and feeling it in my heart and soul, that this is not the only one, but dozens and dozens of shots are right behind this one.

Dump it in the beaker. One ml bacteriostatic water from a fresh 10ml vial—five bottles lined up, no skimping. Pins too: nothing worse than rinsing the last one dry. Slowly start dissolving the sands until it runs clear. Hit it with a little flame or 25 seconds in front of the electric fireplace to accelerate the dissolve. Chemical tang sharp in the air when I pop the bottle and burp it, damn, too much heat, it needs 45 seconds to cool back down.

Syringe fills easy. Vein rising like a reluctant snake. Alcohol spray: cold sting. Needle bites, slight give as my knees become weak, just enough energy to do a flip onto the bed. The flood of the warm shot of ketamine rushes in, metallic bite on the tongue. World starts tilting sideways. Whale sounds start fracturing: “...into the deep...” colors bleeding at the edges. Eyelids heavy, body sinks into the bed 5 levels deeper with warming blanket giving me a cosmic hug, ethereal never-never land, where time stops like it never began. One hole opens. Another closes. Satori’s ghost: wordless, vast. No chase. Just this fucking feeling of being set free from my body and mind. Eternal dance, back to the void. Back to the liminal space of the home we had, before we were born.

What followed: hurricane. Shot after snort after shot. Nonstop, three days. Sleep in snatches. Food? Barely protein shakes gulped blind as an afterthought. Arms bruised purple and green by hour 48, veins mapped like bad roads. The ounce empties: mechanical more-more-more hungry ghosts banging at my door of my mind. Lady K, seductress, temptress whispering from the bag. Prolong the sedation, chase the float. All alone with her. We danced and danced, until I crashed from exhaustion and the bag went dry.

End of it: desk drawer littered with 94 dirty spent pins, blood-flecked. Bag anorexic, sexy no more. I stare at myself in the mirror. Did I really fucking just plow through the whole damn thing? Awe hits first then the hollow. Bruised, spent, echoing feeling, of the ride coming to an end.

Reminds me of that first LSD vial, two years back. Pure Cali 25—Marquis and Ehrlich reagents lit up clean, off the charts purity. What a lovely weekend indulgence that was for me: pop the first squirt, no brakes. Like a fat kid handed an ice cream cake for the first time ever. LSD surged through my brain, lit up like a Christmas tree, I spent the whole weekend in a blissful manic state mapping out the next steps in my life. Used all of that creative horsepower to build a company from the ground up. Such a clean and lovely buzz, no come down, every few hours, another squirt, and another, and another, and well before I knew it. My little amber glass vial was empty. Wow, I thought to myself. That was quick.

That’s the whisper of the memory now, sober many moons later. A return to natural mind. Not the highs, not the escapes. What fills the void when the bag’s empty?

This book: my map through it all. If you’re reading, maybe yours too?