I took a few drags on joints in my mid-teens, but to me cannabis was a drug for drop-outs and hippies. Took speed a few times around my late teens, but mostly to facilitate much heavier drinking than I otherwise would've been able to manage. :D
Then come eighteen, I'd dropped out of university (and life in general) and was drinking / starving myself till my teeth moved around in my gums and my hair would come out in clumps at the slightest pull. A mature student who took a liking to me because I listened to the music of his yoof encouraged me to smoke before I ended up in hospital (where I really should've been, but nobody was that bothered). Poor ol' me.
Cue two years of soapbar stonerism, interspersed with the odd tab of a acid. Then the life-changing event:
my first E.
Ecstasy was something I
never wanted to take - I associated it with shite music, idiot culture and overpaid, overweight, balding DJs (this was about 1999 / 2000, so you can see my point). I remember being pissed off that we couldn't score any acid, and taking this tablet in desultory fashion, thinking 'maybe it'll be a bit like speed. That'll be alright'.
Half an hour later, my life changed forever. Which isn't to say everything became rosy, but it sure felt like that for a while.
Not long after that, it was cocaine, heroin, ketamine and whatever came to hand. And all the anti-drug propaganda I'd been brought up with was the work of 'The Man', who was trying to stop me having a good time.
Of course, it wasn't as simple as that, but those few years of evangelism - oh my.
