A Really Good Day(49)
Sasha, who referred to the drug as his “low-calorie martini,” shared it with a friend, Leo Zeff, a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and psychotherapist who was so impressed with the drug’s potential that he came out of retirement to proselytize about MDMA’s therapeutic possibilities. Zeff trained hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of therapists around the country in how to use MDMA as a tool in their practices. Ann Shulgin, Sasha’s wife, who accompanied him when he lectured to my class, told us that she herself had used MDMA, and also administered it to couples. She said that in her couples counseling practice she could accomplish more in a single six-hour session with MDMA than in six years of traditional therapy. Her patients could plumb their most vulnerable depths, safely and even joyfully, with the kind of trust that even years of therapy couldn’t engender.
From about 1976 to 1981, MDMA remained a virtual secret among networks of psychotherapists who found it a profoundly important tool, especially in the treatment of couples, but who were hesitant to publicize or publish their findings for fear of hastening criminalization. Inevitably, however, word got out to recreational drug users. In 1981, a group of chemists in the Boston area—known, imaginatively, as the “Boston Group” rebranded the drug as “Ecstasy” or “XTC”—and increased the pace of production, stamping out thousands of little colorful pills decorated with characters reminiscent of SweeTarts candies. In 1983, one of their distributors, with the financial backing of investors from Texas, massively increased both production and distribution. The “Texas Group” held huge “Ecstasy parties” at bars and clubs, circulating posters and flyers, and aggressively marketing the drug. In 1985, as the psychotherapists had predicted would happen once use spread widely, the DEA placed MDMA on Schedule I, thus ending nearly a decade of successful therapeutic use.
Before the Shulgins first came to lecture to my class, the only thing I’d heard about MDMA was that it depleted spinal fluid (this turned out to be a legend of the drug war, with no basis in fact) and transformed users into sex fiends. (Another myth. Though it greatly heightens the senses, the drug actually impedes orgasm and, in men, the ability to sustain an erection.) Sasha and Ann referred to MDMA as an empathogen or entactogen, a drug that enhances feelings of emotional communion and empathy, allowing for an opening up of communication. This, they said, was what made it ideal for couples. It allowed them to discuss potentially painful or divisive issues without triggering feelings of fear and threat, but of love. A love drug!
When I first began considering following the Shulgins’ advice, my husband and I had four small children, busy careers, and sleep deficits that challenged the concept of empathy, let alone its reliable practice. We were stressed out, and though we would never have considered our marriage anything but happy, we were definitely communicating less than before we had children. We felt a little bit, we used to say, like foremen in a factory on swing shifts. We’d pass the children off to one another with sufficient instruction to ease the transition, and then head off to our own work. When we were alone together, we were spent and exhausted, encrusted with baby cereal and just a soup?on of puke, and though we still enjoyed one another’s company, at times we lost the sense of intense communion we had once had.
Still, as compelling as was the possibility of opening up the lines of communication in a circumstance that enhances feelings of empathy and love, it took years for my husband and me to work up the courage to try the drug. I was afraid of MDMA for the same reason I was afraid of LSD: I didn’t want to have a bad trip, and I didn’t want to die. It was only after I’d read everything I could find about the drug that I became convinced that it was not, in fact, hallucinogenic. The walls would not breathe or change color. Moreover, the drug is relatively safe so long as you’re not stupid enough to source your pills from a wild-eyed stranger wearing a pacifier around his neck.
Though MDMA in its pure form is not particularly dangerous, even at high doses, there have been fatalities, including among healthy young adults.*2 MDMA raises body temperature and inhibits natural thermoregulation, increasing the risk of heatstroke. For this reason, probably the worst thing to do under the influence of MDMA is dance wildly in a packed room or beneath the desert sun. MDMA can also increase heart rate and raise blood pressure, making it dangerous for those who suffer from high blood pressure or heart disease. Additionally, MDMA can cause water retention. So, for example, if one takes it at a rave, and then chugs water to counteract the possibility of dehydration, one can suffer from hyponatremia, or water toxicity.
Furthermore, MDMA certainly affects the brain. We know this because tolerance develops with repeated use, and can eventually become chronic. Heavy users don’t experience the positive effects of the drug, no matter how many pills they “stack,” or how much they ingest. Though there is no clear answer yet as to why this is so, it seems likely that some neuroadaptive process is going on. This means, in laymen’s terms, that MDMA changes your brain chemistry in some way, though we do not know whether these changes are destructive or problematic.
However, there has never been a fatality or even an injury when MDMA is used in a carefully monitored therapeutic setting. Moreover, with a single, moderate dose, there is no need to be concerned about neuroadaptive processes. My husband and I decided that if we modeled our MDMA experience on the one developed by therapists like Zeff, were careful to regulate temperature and water intake, and put in place an emergency plan, we could safely take the drug.