The Perfect Drug

how to get high on your own supply

When I was a kid, me and my best mate were fuckheads right from the start. Example: we discovered that if you hold your breath for long enough, you pass out. Right before you pass out, you get light-headed and kind of euphoric. We used to do it all the time. It probably caused us brain damage. One time I was doing it as I walked into the kitchen (no idea why I was walking. Into the kitchen. Hard lino floors) and I passed out right in front of my horrified mum, who was worried sick. I never told her why I fainted. I don’t really know myself why I was doing that, but I know we used to do it as a proto-high.

Needless to say, me and this mate of mine—let’s call him Ben—we ended up becoming “chemical brothers.”

My Chemical Brothers Era: A 90s Rave Retrospective

It was the 90s. Back then, I remember being dimly aware that how we felt about the 60s in the 90s is probably how people would think about the 90s in the future. In other words, drugs were good, high quality, widely available and socially acceptable, if not exactly legal. Raves and stuff were all happening. Music was a celebration of all that. Drug culture. Yeah, we got fucked. I remember the first time Ben told me he’d scored some e. I was nervous to try it, as some girl on the news had just had a heart attack or some shit… the government was using fear as a deterrent, saying you were likely to die or have an epileptic fit if you dropped ecstasy. I said to Ben I didn’t know, wasn’t sure. He called me up late at night and just announced he had these pills you know… he was supposed to be on a weed run. He would go on these weed runs and I’d be stuck at home, waiting for him to return. Of course due to weed etiquette, whenever he scored he’d need to hang around and smoke a few off, just to be social and polite. The deal was Ben had the connections and I had some money, though of course Ben had his own money. It always worked out well, but I would always be the one staying at home, waiting for Ben to show up again on his moped, stinking of skunk. The pills were a surprise, and I was tired and it was late. He called me on the phone (we had Nokias in those days) and I said I wasn’t sure. He threw a wobbly and basically hung up in a sulk. I went round to his place to fucking take the pills with him, just really to please him and assuage his guilt trip. Ended up having a blinder of a good time, though not without near-death experiences as we rode around on his moped and pulled out in front a massive truck on a quiet dark country lane.

But that wasn’t my first experience with drugs, by which I also include alcohol and other legal shit, though maybe not caffeine. And don’t tell me “alcohol isn’t a drug, it’s a drink.” I’ve heard that one before for reels and it’s bullshit. Magic mushrooms used to grow in the fields out back where I grew up. I got utterly fucked on mushrooms when I was 13. I think that pre-dated my first ever heavy drinking experience, though I first tried alcohol when I was only 8. This was all highly normalised where I grew up, with the kids around me. It was a boring little village in the Yorkshire Dales, and our excuse was “there’s nothing else to do”.

Peer Pressure and Neurochemistry

Many years later, I realised that peer-pressure isn’t as simple as it sounds. You need to be brave and overcome your fears to cave into peer pressure, it’s not a simple case of wanting to please your mates. It’s more like stepping over a canyon when you can’t see the other side. Both sides of the slope are steep with fear.

By the time I was as a student, drugs were the weekend and alcohol was a daily thing. Weed wasn’t even a drug, it was just normal. You’d blaze one up just because you were bored, or maybe you were trying to chill before you had to do something shitty—work, socialising, studying, watching some shite film your partner made you watch, all that stuff. I never imagined that I might have a problem, because I was young and it was fun.

I remember the first time I tried coke. Fuck me that stuff is baaaaaadddd news. I only ever bought it once, pissed up and newly moved to London. I felt dirty and I couldn’t afford it. I could see that shit was going to be the end of me. It was particularly scary when the guy I bought it off, some dealer who hawked me on the streets near a night bus stand, actually rang me up a few days later seeing if I “needed anything for the weekend”. That was scary shit, normally you have to suck up to dealers and play nice just to score a Henry. This guy came to me!

Later on, I moved to Japan. I was attracted to that country from a young age, but I remember one of the big factors was that Japan was a no drugs kinda place. I knew that going in, and I wanted it for the enforced detox. But I didn’t realise that booze slides in to fill those gaps, and it’s muuuuuch uglier than the “narcotics” like weed, e or shrooms. Because it’s normalised and because it’s legal, because it’s available everywhere and it’s macho. This is what is called “costly signalling.” Look it up. Apes even do it in the wild, doing dangerous shit like ingesting poison (fermented fruits) to signal how alpha they are. I’ve been doing that ever since I was a kid with the holding my breath thing and what have you. Fucking brain damage for kicks.

And so after I hit my 30s I was still used to getting fucked up a lot. It was normal to want to be fucked. Being fucked wasn’t about getting a new experience, it was about reclaiming your enjoyment of life. Normal life was boring. I was conditioned in my head to believe this. And my body agreed. By then, the dopamine receptors and all that other fancy shit you can read about on forums and self-help pages about how to quit drugs, they were all running on whatever stuff I could get, mostly booze but if I was depressed or feeling reckless I’d take just about anything.

As I rolled into my 40s I was more than dimly aware that I had a drinking problem at this stage. I also was experimenting with the idea of psychedelics again, though I’m not going to go into detail about this, that shit deserved another post. But, anyway, whatever. Drugs still. But this wasn’t funny anymore or novel. And it was worrying.

Then something amazing happened. I got into meditation.

How My Brain Found a Natural Dopamine Fix

I’ve always wanted to be able to get into meditation, and it took a lot of effort and a year of trying to do it every day. And then I realised that, after a few months my mind was changing. After a year, my whole life had changed. I could bore you with all the benefits, but that is also worthy of another post. Plus it’s hardly where you probably expected this post to go so, needless to say, it’s The Perfect Drug.

I find myself now wanting nothing more than to control my alcohol. I don’t need it like I used to, and I am aware of how it hijacks my mind like a God Parasite. So I have been taking steps to loosen its hold. I’m about to head off on some travels, and I may be seeing old friends and there may be stuff being passed around. But I’m HIGH pretty much ALL THE TIME now because with meditation, done right, you are HAPPY and feel good non-stop. You live in the moment, it’s like surfing your life constantly. Far from being boring, when you feel like this, every up and down in your life can be treated as part of a cosmic rollercoaster that you are personally extremely lucky to be riding. You feel the “right now” of everything. It’s a good feeling, and you don’t need intoxicants in the same way to enjoy it. In fact, if you take intoxicants you feel bad the next day, and you feel blunt in the moment.

Now, this is idealised a little… and I don’t want to be too cocky as I am still new to this. But, suffice it to say that being high all the time on cosmic awareness is pretty much what I’ve been searching my entire life. And meditation unlocked it for me, but it took a lot of time (a year) and it doesn’t come easy and it isn’t always 100% stable. But, so far, out of all the drugs I’ve tried, this one is the best. And it’s not a drug you need to score, as your body produces it naturally. After years of chasing highs, the one I found from meditation felt different. Meditation isn’t just about sitting still and emptying your mind; it’s a profound act of rewiring your brain.

From Chasing Dopamine to Creating It

The chemical buzz you get from meditation is what makes it so addictive in the best way possible. When you meditate regularly, you’re boosting your brain’s natural feel-good chemicals. You get a surge of dopamine—the same stuff that makes you feel good from a hit of a drug—but you’re creating it yourself, from the inside out. The best part is that this is a permanent drip that your brain is setting up. It’s like your brain starts learning how to keep the good feelings flowing, and “no money would change hands”. You don’t need a dealer if your brain is your tame quack or script doctor, writing out legit prescriptions.

At the same time, meditation cranks up your serotonin levels. That’s the stuff that regulates your mood and makes you feel happy and content. So instead of a rollercoaster of highs and lows, you get a solid, stable baseline of well-being. And you also get a nice hit of GABA, the brain’s natural tranquiliser, which is why you feel so chilled out and less anxious. This all works together to naturally lower your cortisol, the main stress hormone. So it’s winner winner chicken fucking dinner. In fact, the chicken is already baked on its own lack of stress, and feeling good. Chicken doesn’t give a fuck that it’s roasting away in a doomed apocalyptic planet of climate change denial and Trumpy pedo shit and piss scandals. To quote a famous chick, “If you dream of becoming an eagle, you follow your dreams and not the words of a bunch of chickens.” Penny Johnson Jerald said that.

Ram Dass and the Real High

This is exactly what old Ram Dass (aka Richard Alpert, Timothy Leary’s old buddy from Harvard—they got kicked out together) figured out years ago. He was a pioneer in the psychedelic scene, a guy who knew the chemical high better than most. He famously said that taking acid or shrooms was like getting a sneak peek behind the curtain. You’d glimpse this incredible state of consciousness, this feeling of pure unity and cosmic awareness. But the problem was, you’d always have to come back down. The high would fade, and you’d be left with the same old self, still stuck in the same old problems.

Ram Dass realised that this wasn’t true freedom. It was a temporary escape, a beautiful illusion. He said he didn’t want to be “high,” he wanted to be “free.”

Ram Dass found meditation was the real deal. It was a way to cultivate that state of freedom, not just visit it. It was all about cleaning out your own mental attic, one piece of junk at a time, until the room was so clean that the light could just pour in. He saw meditation as the work you had to do on yourself to make the good feelings permanent. The high wasn’t something you had to score or chase anymore, but you do have to cultivate within yourself. Well I’m feeling pretty good after a year and I only do it for about ten minutes a day. Every day though, you gotta do it as often as you can. But don’t do it for like 5 hours on one day and expect the results. It comes from building a slow and steady practice up over time.

So, when I say I’m high all the time, it’s not the same kind of high I was chasing with Ben. It’s not a rush that ends in a crash. Poor Ben, I’ve not seem him in a while now, but he had a lot of problems and ended up a meth head. He’s getting better now though, I’m happy to say. I hope he reads this. What I’m talking about here, it almost seems trite to call it a high. It’s more like a deep, abiding sense of peace and joy that comes from the inside. It’s the feeling of being truly present in my own life, surfing the cosmic rollercoaster without a single chemical crutch. Now I just have to try not to dwell on all the brain damage I inflicted on myself, and treat those experimental past selves with the compassion and understanding I now try to treat my current self.

Yeah, i know this was a preachy one. Fuck off, what can I say. I’m probably over it already, what’s your excuse? Anyway, after a lifetime of searching, I can tell you that the best ‘high’ is the one your brain makes all on its own. Meditation is the perfect drug.