I started using drugs and understandably, it has changed my life.
DISCLAIMER:THIS IS NOT FOR EVERYONE, THIS IS JUST MY STORY.
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Like many millennials, from a young age I was indoctrinated to believe that if I so much as glanced twice at a psychedelic substance, I would surely go insane, my life would fall apart and I would lose everything.
D.A.R.E. to resist drugs and violence
The program was called D.A.R.E. - Drug Abuse Resistance Education. It was taught by a lovable, local police officer. A sweet, big, bear of a man who lit up the lives of hundreds of kids in my relatively small hometown. And while I have come to disagree with some of the things I was taught, I am still grateful for the experience. Because of D.A.R.E. I never really experimented with any sort of illicit substances, including drinking alcohol, until I was in college and I would not have wanted it any other way. I was not mature enough to handle anything like that. However; eventually I did go to college and at that point I joined the time-old tradition of drinking more than necessary while attending a Big Ten school. And drinking is where it stopped in terms of recreational drug use. I absolutely wouldn’t try anything beyond marijuana, and even that I only tried 2 or 3 times, it just wasn’t my thing and honestly, I was a little afraid of it.
Fast forward to my mid 20s when I was hospitalized for an ectopic pregnancy and had to go through a round of chemotherapy. (There is a longer story there, but this is not it.) Once home and on the mend, I was insanely sick and given a bunch of medications to attempt to ease the side effects. I had lost too much weight, I could barely eat, had zero strength and I was consistently operating with a low to mid level amount of nausea. It wasn’t the best time in the world. After the first few days my now-husband suggested that I try smoking weed to see if it could help me eat and lessen the nausea. I was reluctant because again, D.A.R.E. totally worked on me, but I was also desperate for relief. Two days of smoking cannabis and sure enough, I was able to stop taking all of the unnecessary medications. (DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional. I continued to take anything that was necessary for my healing and consulted my doctor in regards to which medications I could stop taking and how. Always consult your doctor prior to starting or stopping any medications.) After I made the switch to weed my recovery was rapid and I became a believer in the medical use of cannabis.
I would continue to occasionally experiment with cannabis for other pain-related ailments such as cramps and the accompanying lower back pain. It didn’t always work, but it did often enough and it definitely never hurt. (This is where I would like to go into the history of medical cannabis however, it is very vast and I am no expert. If you would like to deep dive for yourself, which I highly recommend, please consider here, here, & here.) Medical cannabis is/was approved where I live and I was able to get a medical card for reasons well beyond the previously aforementioned cramps, which I am sincerely thankful for. Now it is also recreationally legal - WIN!
Fast forward about five years - at this point my cannabis use was nominal and only medicinal, but I was drinking more than I wanted to. I’m a midwestern millennial, alcohol is very much a part of the culture, but I wanted to draw it back. I decided to try Dry January and was harder than I would like to admit. Despite my best efforts, I found myself occasionally substituting alcohol with cannabis when it was particularly difficult to refrain from drinking. Thus, how I started occasionally smoking recreationally, without the intention of using it as a medicine. I quickly learned, to my great surprise, that I personally much prefer cannabis to alcohol - who knew?! Hangovers became a thing of the past - the worst I ever felt in the morning was slightly foggy until I had a cup of coffee or tea. There were no more arguments with my husband over dumb things that would irritate me more than normal because I had a few glasses of wine. No more impulsive decisions - goodbye late night online shopping and the accompanying guilt! My bloating started to vanish. My skin improved. I slept significantly more soundly which positively impacted literally everything. And most importantly; I was happier! I didn’t actually realize this until after my second Dry January but ultimately that was the sticking point. I can now say that I prefer marijuana over alcohol and it's become a regular part of my life.
And this is where I figured my relationship to drugs would end but to my surprise, it did not.
In September of last year our very close friends moved halfway across the country and as their parting gift I agreed to try MDMA (also known as molly or ecstasy) for the first time. Now, as I mentioned, it took a long time for me to come around to cannabis and I, in no way, had interest in any other “drugs”, but I did trust my intuition. The words of affirmation were out of my mouth before I even knew what I was saying. I had been particularly focused on strengthening my intuition at that time so I decided to just go with it. It took even my husband by surprise.
MDMA has been used as a party drug for ages and I soon learned why but the true takeaway for me was spiritual. It was the positive, lasting effect it has had on my life that changed everything. This one experience with my husband felt like the result of 2 years of couples' therapy that we never actually attended. (Which we absolutely would if/when we ever need to - I completely, 100% support all forms of talk therapy.) The only way I know how to describe it is that I felt my heart open and to this day, long after the psychoactive effects have faded, my heart has not re-closed.
This substance had actually impacted one of my Big 5, my openness. So when I watched Fantastic Fungi just a few weeks later, it was through a whole new lens. I started the documentary one evening having zero idea that it was in any way about what I knew to be called magic mushrooms. I thought it was a Planet Earth type thing, just an educational nature documentary, which in a way it is, I suppose. At this point I had heard a few mumblings regarding traditionally classified psychedelics being used in therapeutic settings and the potential benefits of microdosing, but for some reason I never gave any of it much thought. That is until after my MDMA experience & watching Fantastic Fungi. Post documentary, I was officially fascinated. That isn’t a strong enough word. Enthralled. Enamored. You get it. I don’t know exactly what it was, but once the switch fully flipped from D.A.R.E. to understanding that there are plants that can be used to help humans and sometimes even animals, live happier, healthier lives, I was hooked.
I immediately began seeking out podcasts, documentaries, books, studies, and everything else I could get my hands on that had anything to do with psychedelics. And then one day about a month later, I remembered someone had gifted us a jar of psilocybin microdoses. (Psilocybin is the hallucinogenic chemical in magic mushrooms & microdoses are sub perceptual amounts of a psychedelic substance.) It was sitting in the medicine cabinet, untouched. When they were given to us I had come around to cannabis but had not yet tried MDMA, and was not open to anything else so I had completely forgotten we had them. But now I was intrigued.
Like many people, since 2020 I have been taking a deep dive into learning who I am and what my values are, (for how I'm doing this, click here) and I have learned that what I am passionate about is total wellness, mental/emotional, physical and spiritual. So when I finally discovered that psychedelics can be, and have been used as tools to promote wellness, I was no longer afraid of them and in fact, very excited for the possibilities! I researched the proper protocols on how to use the microdoses safely and effectively, discussed it with my husband and decided to go for it. I plan to write a separate post going into the details of my microdosing experience, but for the purpose of this article I want to express that microdosing has been an overwhelmingly positive experience for me. So much so that after just one week of watching me microdose and witnessing all of the good it was doing, my husband started microdosing as well.
At the time of writing this, I have reduced my alcohol intake by about 90% (from its highest point 5 or 6 years ago) and what I have told you, kind reader, has been the extent of my illicit “drug” usage. I no longer believe that all drugs are bad drugs. I actually do not consider psychedelics or cannabis to be drugs at all anymore. I prefer the term “plant medicine” because that has truly been my experience. Cannabis helped heal my body, MDMA helped heal my heart, and microdosing psilocybin has been healing a whole host of things. And while I haven’t yet “tripped” on any substance, I know that I eventually will. And because I took one of the longer routes to get there, I’ll go on that journey with respect and reverence for Mother Nature, being open to guidance, growth, and healing, not just looking for a good time, and that's how I prefer it. So in a way, thank you, D.A.R.E. for making sure I didn’t arrive here too soon, but your services are no longer needed.
What have been your experiences (or lack thereof) with psychedelics? Have you been tuning into all the news surrounding the declassification of psilocybin and MDMA? Were you a part of the D.A.R.E. program? If so, do you feel like it's impacted your relationship to "drugs"?
Thanks for reading & I’m eager to hear from you!
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