The First Taste

The first time I took a drug was when I was eighteen years old – and it didn’t have any effect on me at all. I had married the year after I left school and I was at a party with my husband, Desmond. He knew of my fear of drugs. As he was a few years older than me, he had always promised to never expose me to them, because he knew how dangerous they could be. So when he was the one to offer me small piece of paper – LSD – I was very angry at him! He was the one person who was meant to protect me and here he was, giving me drugs!

That night, after a huge fight and finally going home, I decided to try the acid (LSD) anyway. I took the paper and put it under my tongue just as Desmond instructed, then waited for it to take effect. Nothing. I eventually went to bed and woke up the next day feeling so thankful that nothing had happened!

The problem was, something inside of me had been woken up – a curiosity that I never had been able to control. So a few weekends later, I asked Desmond to get us some ecstasy (‘pills’, or ‘e’). He made a few calls and we decided to make a night of it. We went to the most popular rave club in Durban, which is where we lived at the time because of his job. Once we were at the club and I was looking curiously at all the peculiar people and the unfamiliar yet interesting vibe of the club, we took our first pill.

I was so caught up with how funny some people looked as they were tripping out, smiling and dancing to the overpowering house music, that I hardly noticed when the pill started to take effect. All of a sudden everything started to change around me. Sound became unusually sharp and everyone had become rather beautiful. The music started to speak to me and before I knew it I was on the dance floor in the strobe lights and it was the best place I had ever been in my whole life!

Every one of my senses was at its peak and time just slowed down. The night seemed to last forever. We ended up sitting on the roof of the club, where there were chairs and couches where people went to chill after a long night of non-stop dancing. Around me I noticed many people openly smoking joints and some were chatting incessantly while others just seemed to be enjoying some sort of trance-like state. It was all so surreal and as we drove home when the sun was coming up, I suddenly felt sad.

At the time I couldn’t understand why I was so depressed for the rest of that day. I had a hollow and empty feeling inside of me and I thought I was just sad because the great time we had was now over. Many years later I discovered that it was a typical ‘comedown’. This is the after effect of all drugs. Once the drug wears off and leaves your system, your emotions and your energy plummet to the ground and you feel so bad. This is often the reason people crave more drugs – just to feel good again.

***

Tell us what you think: Why do drugs hook you? Do you think other people can prevent you from taking drugs?