A Really Good Day(7)

From where did I order this testing kit, you might wonder? I already told you I’m too nervous for hand-to-hand purchases and too inept to log on to the dark web. I got my LSD testing kit from the Internet’s largest purveyor of toilet paper, half-hour dramas, and discounted books. That’s right, I bought it on Amazon. And it qualified for Prime two-day shipping!

Squinting at the fine print on the box through my reading glasses, I read through the directions twice—I didn’t want to make any mistakes. I delicately squeezed a single drop from the cobalt blue bottle into the opening at the top of the test kit and squeezed the rubber sleeve, which broke the thin glass barrier between the drop and the testing solution, allowing them to mix together. The solution was meant to turn bright lavender in the presence of LSD, but I saw only the faintest shade of purple. I reread the directions. Stared again at the solution. Was it even purple I was seeing so very faintly, or was it my imagination? Suddenly I realized what the problem was. LSD is effective at infinitesimal doses. A single drop of pure LSD would contain a massive amount of the drug. For this reason, LSD, even in its liquid form, is always diluted. “Blotter acid,” for example, the most common way LSD is sold, is a piece of paper, generally decorated with some kind of design, soaked in a diluted solution of LSD and perforated into little squares. One single confetti-sized square is designed to contain the standard dose—approximately one hundred to one hundred and fifty micrograms of LSD.*2 If a single drop of Lewis Carroll’s solution contained a mere five micrograms of LSD, it had to have been so vastly diluted that it would barely register on the testing kit. After an hour of Web surfing (there seem to be a limitless quantity of Web sites offering information about psychedelic drugs, including how to test them), I made a decision to have faith that the contents of Lewis Carroll’s bottle would not make me grow either very big or very small. Or kill me.

I took the drug, and went on to have a really good day.





* * *




*1 ?Stay tuned. You’ll read more about how and why I’ve used MDMA later on in the book.

*2 ?Or at least that’s what it says on the Web and in the thirty-two books about psychedelics I bought and neurotically pored over in anticipation of beginning this experiment because I am a good student and an anxious nerd and I like to do my research before taking anything resembling a risk. I haven’t ever actually seen a tab of acid in person. According to DEA data from confiscated samples, the actual range of LSD on blotter is from thirty micrograms (if your dealer’s a cheapskate) to a hundred and twenty.





Day 2


Transition Day

Physical Sensations: Normal. A little draggy because of lack of sleep.

Mood: Grumpy at beginning of day, but by end of day productive and content.

Conflict: Even when irritable, I didn’t argue with anyone.

Sleep: A sleepless night.

Work: Not pouring out like yesterday, but a solid day’s work.

Pain: Intense shoulder pain during the night.





This morning, when I woke up, I thought, “Oh, it’s you.” Not the new-and-improved me of yesterday, who was effortlessly cheerful and affectionate with her children and husband and who wrote more in a single day than she usually does in a week. Just plain old me. About the second day, Fadiman’s protocol notes, “Many people report that the second day effects are as positive or even better than the first day.” For once in my life, would it have killed me to be like everyone else?

Perhaps I did not immediately experience the typical positive second-day results because I was exhausted from a long night of sleeplessness and pain. I have been in pretty much constant pain since last spring, when I was felled with frozen shoulder, a disorder in which the capsule of the shoulder becomes inflamed and stiff, resulting in excruciating pain,*1 especially at night. Frozen shoulder comes on without warning and for no reason, and can last up to three years. It is debilitating and dispiriting, and it’s surely part of the reason for my current state of anhedonic desperation.

The symptoms of frozen shoulder are worst at night, and it has been a very long time since I got a decent night’s sleep. The pain keeps me from falling asleep, and wrenches me awake when I roll over. I have tried everything to relieve this pain, from physical therapy to acupuncture, ibuprofen to opioids.*2 In fact, nothing provided any relief until a doctor suggested I try medical marijuana. I resisted the idea at first. I have no interest in recreational drug use; I didn’t and don’t want to get “high.” But the doctor reassured me that I could purchase marijuana devoid of intoxicating effects. It is the chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in marijuana (or “cannabis,” as the bright young people at my local dispensary prefer to call it) that causes the feelings and mental effects we associate with the drug. Cannabis also contains a related but structurally different isomer, cannabidiol, or CBD. CBD has pain-relieving properties, and acts as an anti-seizure agent, but it doesn’t make you high. Since the decriminalization and popularization of medical marijuana, high-CBD strains have been engineered that all but eliminate THC.

I followed the doctor’s advice and tried the high-CBD cannabis; though the relief was by no means complete, it did substantially decrease my pain, if only at night, when I allowed myself to take it. How ironic. Addictive and dangerous opioids, fatal at high doses and yet freely prescribed by physicians,*3 did nothing to alleviate the pain of my frozen shoulder, but cannabis, still illegal under federal law and in many states, worked.