Friend died a few months ago and still feel guilty about it

[boilingpoint]

He died while tripping on shrooms so I thought it'd be relevant to this topic.

I got close to a friend of a friend over the last few years since we both had very similar problems with careers and relationships. We definitely had an affinity because of that massive dissatisfaction and alienation we both felt.

He was an unusual character - not your average guy. He had a lot of pride mixed up with complete selflessness towards other as well as an intellectual side mixed with complete and utter death defying recklessness. I’ve never met anyone like that before so to be fair I wasn’t exactly experienced in the area.

Anyway when everyone else had sort of given up on us we kind of hung out and gave each other therapy and friendship. He definitely helped me out a lot but I feel like I missed my chance with the guy. I remember being completely amazed at some of the decisions he made but I was sort of focusing on my own psychological problems and just kind of came along for the ride.

He called me up 2 weeks before his death and asked me if I wanted to do magic mushrooms with him.... There were moments from this point that I believe I had an opportunity to express caution but never did. I had that ‘uh-oh’ sensation when he wanted to do shrooms but just said 'yeah sure’ without being sure at all. He suggested we do it indoors but I said 'let's just do in central London.' I ended up doing them with him outside and it was a cool trip/experience and conversation. Really cool experience that got me interested in psychedelics!

I did have a dodgy moment when we parted ways though since I started losing it on the train back home, getting paranoid and totally disorientated. I managed to pull myself together and get home ASAP. When he called the next day he asked what I thought about the mushrooms and I briefly alluded to the mental breakdown I had. But basically I just said it was ‘good’ and that we should do LSD bla bla bla without mentioning or giving any weight to a sense of danger.

Anyway a few days later I got a call saying that he was dead. He'd taken magic mushrooms on the way to the station, had apparently panicked on the platform, called 999 asked for help, then jumped onto the tracks before getting hit by a train coming in.

It's too late now obviously but I really think that I missed an opportunity by not telling him to ‘be careful with that stuff'. I really think he would have listened to me and it would probably have saved his life.

It would have been nice to save the guy from himself anyway - I think his life was worth a hell of a lot more than to end up as a cautionary tale. Anyway you don’t realise the stuff people are going through until it’s too late. He was genuinely a very nice chap with a unique take on things.

 

[herbavore]

I think when people die under circumstances like these that it is near impossible not to blame yourself for not "being there". But how could you have known what this particular trip would have brought to your friend? The most important lesson I take from this is that people should think twice about being alone unless they are in a very safe and familiar space. When you hear people speak of set and setting what they mean is where you are mentally and where you are physically when you ingest a psychedelic substance. It sounds like your friend may have been in a vulnerable place himself and going into chaotic crowds of strangers may not have been wise--this is where a trip-sitter could have prevented a fatality. But the person ingesting the substance would have had to arrange that. It is tragic that he died and certainly clear that was not his aim since he called for help.

I hope that you will continue to keep alive what was special about your friend and thus to make his life worth "more than a cautionary tale". He sounds like an intelligent free-thinker that made a fatal mistake. Most of us have made equally bad errors in judgment and were simply luckier. I also hope that you will not blame yourself. We are all ultimately in control of our own recklessness, though that sounds contradictory.