I took a pill in Ibiza… and it almost killed me. (Part 2)

La-da-da-da-dahh, it’s the next episode! Continuing from Part 1.

So finally, I’m going to tell you about that near-death experience I  alluded to on my previous post! (Or more like explicitly mentioned)  Circa fall 2003- spring 2004, I’m living in downtown Miami with three roommates. One was an “unofficial one”, you know, someone always brings in the boyfriend/ girlfriend that doesn’t pay rent and is only good at making messes. I probably at some point in the blog have talked about this apartment already, this was before we had real furniture at the next rental, which was a house. It was “minimalistic”, we had carpeted floors, air mattresses and my roommate’s Rubbermaid storage boxes to serve as tables or TV stands. Yep, we would just put on some fancy Indian silk cloths and candles over them and va va voom! College budget chic! In fact, why don’t I show you?

For the most part, we didn’t seem to mind our limited furnishings since we were on the 20-something floor of downtown Miami. Heck yaaas! Partial views of the bay to the left, run down Miami convention center and skyscrapers in the front, and the ghetto to the right. Sure, there were some downsides; nearby homeless shelter, a lot of drug dealers and shady characters walking around the building at night, and the blaring horn of an early morning passerby train. Back to the perks though, we were literally like 3 blocks away from all the downtown afterhours warehouse clubs. You know, the ones open from Saturday night till like 2pm on Sunday afternoons!

One night out I felt like a real rock star, more than the others. I danced for at least 10 hours on end. The place was called Club NV, next to world famous “Club Space”. Well we locals called it world famous at least. Another staple of that era was local DJ Oscar G’s track “ Dark Beat.” IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII feeel it deeeeep inside me, I wanna ride it, can’t fight it, I might as well rely on the drumbeat. DJ pump the low end frequency, can’t hide it, I won’t deny it, Cuz I’m addicted to drums and I’m a slave to the dark beat.”

And a slave to the dark beat for years I was: the hard thumping bass, the lights, lasers, fog, rolls; all provided an escape from reality; smiling and grooving individuals converged on the dance floor all united by the magical energy of the tracks spinning. Midway through songs the bass would drop, horns would go off, fog machine would erupt like a fire-breathing dragon and the adrenaline would be refueled. And each weekend I’d go back for more. There was a darkness to those beats, a certain addiction fed perfectly by the DJ that was helming the decks: the puppet master of the dancing souls. Those beats drove me to get high/drunk over and over each weekend, to recapture the euphoria of a night of bliss, that would become a distant memory the very next day. You never knew what you were going to get with ecstasy. Aka “MDMA, X’s , rolls, pepas, tachas, molly, skittles”. At least those are some of the alternate names my friends and I used. The list is endless I’m sure, I don’t keep up with all the slang terms the kids have for it now a days.

Now I’m no expert (Google is your friend), but this is what I learned back then. Ecstasy in its purest form is MDMA. It releases high levels of serotonin from the brain and produces a feeling of euphoria. You feel super elated, close to everyone around you in the club, just a feeling of happiness that I never experienced sober before. Occasionally, I would go up to strangers if I saw them feeling the vibe on the same song, smile, and hug them. And vice versa. There wasn’t a care in the world. You couldn’t wipe the grin off of your face; nor the crazy eyes look. (hence, I wore my sunglasses at night) Sometimes a warm soothing sensation would glaze over my whole body and it would be so strong at first that I’d have to sit down. With the thumping bass at clubs you’d be in utter bliss, it felt like you were getting a whole body chair massage. Or you’d give your friends a shoulder rub. I would prolong it’s effects by taking more pills or having energy drinks. One of the unspoken rules is that your party crew kept tabs on one another, making sure everyone stayed hydrated.( Maybe it was spoken, often.) It’s easy to lose track of time or your thirst level as you never want to leave the dance floor. It’s like you have superhuman energy for a long time.(if it was a good roll) Yea, there was usually glow sticks around that provided for an added visual trip plus vapor rub/anything menthol enhanced the effect as well. Someone often carried around a menthol stick or something and shared it with the group. And plenty of water was purchased. (Damn clubs charged like $5 for a bottle. They knew people needed it. Although often they would also put out a water jug for quick access) It was definitely a ‘family affair”. There had to be some level of trust established when I was a rolling with a group of people. Although, I was careless at times.

Some pics from my Miami party “daze”.   It was hard to find some where I liked how  I came out, you know, not totally wasted looking..lol

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Hmmm…if you look closely at one pic, sometimes I gave out the wrong signals with my at-times attention seeking clothing. Then go figure, I’d be annoyed by the propositions received  from the people  I least wanted them from.haha. Regarding that one shirt, no, I didn’t btw.  We’ve all had our fashion mistakes.lol”

For those of you that have never done drugs (I commend you), you may be wondering: Sounds like fun, what’s not to like? Well, it’s a mirage, an oasis in the desert that eventually bursts. Finding ecstasy or MDMA in its purest form was hard to get. Depending on the dealer you had a business relationship with, pills could be laced with something else. Most of the time I relied on a middleman getting them for me. Or worse, in a last minute bind, just buying them from someone in a club not knowing what was in them. So the physical reactions you would get differed by pill. Usually they had a design of some kind to distinguish them. Sure, once in a while, I heard tragic stories of the things that would happen to people. Like brain damage for one. This crazy chick we hung out for a bit with would take 20 pills in a night according to her. But I was different, my friends and I were smart about our use. So we all thought. After all, in your 20s, your invincible right?? Umm..not quite.

The come-down the next day or two. Not so pretty. It’s takes a while for your brain to restore all the depleted levels of serotonin. Everything that goes up , must go down. A mega depression/downer would hit me a day or two after doing ecstasy. The kind that I would be driving and one song lyric on the radio would provoke something that I would just start balling. Ughhhhhhh it totally sucked. Not smart for someone who struggled with depression already and suicidal thoughts at one point in life. We’d drink orange juice to elevate our serotonin, whether that worked or not who knows? The “cool junkies” all got tips from each other. (Come to think of it there was a music site I loved called cooljunkie.com) I don’t remember using Google much back then. I certainly wasn’t asking any doctors how to party effectively and safely.

So this particular rock star night the club wasn’t super full yet and I occupied a spot on top of one of the huge speakers on the dance floor. If you’re up there you better know how to dance! There’s a rush of adrenaline seeing the whole crowd from atop an elevated platform while doing your thing. Usually more than one person hopped up there at the same time. This was totally out of character for me, you won’t see me randomly jumping onstage and start dancing somewhere while sober. But again, being high is a different state of mind. Sans alcohol or drugs,  I have no rhythm or coordination for the most part. There I said it. ( I know, that Latin gene eluded me)Even today, ten plus years later, I still need a drop of alcohol to dance somewhat loosely and decently.  I’m just talking solo, free styling. ( Let’s not even talk about my salsa and two stepping attempts with girls. Although the one time I practiced waltzing it wasn’t that bad eh)  I took some hip hop and house music dance lessons last summer and that Wham song played in my head afterwards “I’m never gonna dance again, guilty feeling got no rhythm”. haha.  Still,  I’m not going to give up, I just have to practice, a lot. And then some. My goal is to one day dance decently without a drop of booze.

However,  I’ve never danced so free and uninhibited like I did that night! I recall a friend telling me at one point in the night “ man, you’re an awesome dancer”. And I felt it as I overlooked and riled up the packed dance floor. I felt like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever (minus the disco attire and dancing style hehe). Which leads me to believe I still have that dancer somewhere in me.

The problem was to bring him out I needed several pills (prob around 3, taken at different points throughout the night) and continual red bull/vodkas to keep my euphoria at a peak. After 10 hours of almost non-stop dancing; you know what happens besides euphoria and adrenaline? An elevated heart rate! Mind you, I was no rookie, so this I knew and had experienced before. But something was wrong on this occasion, around 10-11 in the morning , club wasn’t full anymore but there was still a faithful afterhours crew keeping the party going. Not everyone just stayed up the whole night. Some people would just wake up and go to the club early in the morning and start partying. My friends and I started at midnight. There was no sleeping beforehand, please. =)

I sat down realizing I had chest pain. I had little aches and pains here and there but they would usually pass after resting or burping myself. ha. Wasn’t happening this time, I was feeling nauseous, dizzy, and my chest pain grew steadily. At that point I only recall two girls left in my party crew (other people had slowly left throughout the morning); my roommate and a girl from Jersey named Melissa that had an accent like the Nanny( Cringing at times tbh) Mind you, they were still rolling also but were definitely in better shape than me. They weren’t hunched over in pain or feeling like death. They kept asking me if I needed to go to the hospital . I kept refusing and just told them to help me back home. They helped hold me up as I staggered the 3 blocks to get to our high-rise apartment. I figured if I could just get away from the madness and be in a quiet space I could lay down and bring my heart rate down. I guess if my friends were in a normal state of mind they would have forced me to go to a hospital. I wasn’t having any of it though. I told them to put me on the balcony of the apartment, close the sliding glass door, and leave me alone. I didn’t want to be pestered nor had the energy to speak. I just laid there on the cement looking up at the sky. I was scared out of my mind. I never had experienced such bad chest pain in my life. I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest. (And not in a Care Bear cute kind of way) My anxiety and pain only increased as my life flashed before me. Forget the cop experience I described in my last post, I was going through all the possible worse case scenarios in my head. I thought to myself:

 “I’m having a heart attack, I need medical attention, but if I go to the hospital right now the doctors will obviously know I’m on drugs. I’m no longer a minor but the word will get back to my parents. If not now, it’ll be when I have to pay the hospital bills. That would be the end of me. They’ll find out I do drugs, that I’m gay, that I’m wasting their money unnecessarily at a public school since I didn’t qualify for in-state tuition, that I’m not actually attending campus and that I’m just taking online classes because they’re cheaper. Goodbye Miami, goodbye Florida International University, goodbye freedom to be myself, etc, etc.”

As those fears were overwhelming me I unconsciously started praying.(a.k.a. communicating with the universe) I can’t remember if it was out loud or in my head. Basically I said:

“God, I don’t know if you’re out there or not, I know we don’t talk much anymore. But I feel like I’m dying, and I’m not ready to go yet. I have so much to do and experience. I don’t want to go like this. Please understand me, I can’t go to the hospital. There’s too much at stake. I can’t deal with those repercussions. If you help me feel better and recover right now I’ll never do ecstasy again. I promise! I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going to the hospital so the ball is in your court. Whatever your will is, either help me recover here on this balcony or take me with you”

Yea, not much time to beat around the bush with that request. Funny how feeling my mortality I called on a higher power despite my agnostic view of the universe at that point in my life. As you faithful readers of my blog know, wouldn’t be my last time making those heartfelt pleas. Although this one was literally a HEART- felt plea. I received an answer to the outcome of my dilemma. Almost immediately a thought came into my head that told me to breathe, and to do so slowly. It was so hard and painful. Slowly and maturely I did so, and as that happened the intensity of the pain subsided and my heart beat started slowing below roadrunner speed. I must have been out there at least a couple of hours when my roommate peaked out to check on me. In the corner of my eye I saw she and the other girl had been doing so way before, behind the glass door of the balcony. They probably wanted to make sure I hadn’t thrown myself off or was lying completely dead. She confirmed my suspicions later. I kid you out, it took several days for my chest pain to go away completely. That experience rocked me. I never did ecstasy again, I kept my promise. At least I did for three years…….

A year and a half later I started having pain and spasms in my chest area. (On the heart side) I got freaked out thinking it was damaged due to my drug use. I was 25 and going to see a cardiologist! Luckily I came out ok after several tests, ekg’s, and treadmill runs; the spasms turned out to be something more muscular-related,  and it was all due to stress. Although not exactly a good sign when you are having chest pains due to stress levels in your life. Let’s bounce forward to 2007, ah yes, quite the eventful year. It’s Winter Music Conference week in Miami. One of the biggest electronic music conferences in the world that has flocks of music lovers and junkies alike from all around the globe converging in Miami Beach and outlining areas. It’s basically every hotel, bar, and club having events/pool parties/DJ gigs throughout the days and nights for an entire week straight. It’s amazing and also something that had a broke college kid like me wishing he had an extra $1000 bucks to spend and just take a week off work/school to enjoy fully and go all out. A conference badge alone was hundreds of dollars. One day I will; although I’ll be much more subdued and drug free. It’ll just be about the music. Ok ok, just to clarify, not all electronica/EDM entices you get high, nor does everyone that listens to it automatically do drugs. But in Miami and most club scenes elsewhere I’ve been to, enjoying party favors happens to be the norm rather than the exception. No matter what famous DJ’s like Deadmau5 claim, who are they kidding? Their music is just enabling the euphoria, especially at raves. However, I just can’t blame them, one must take personal accountability.  I still listen to electronic music today, but my taste has shifted to a more indie pop/rock sound and beats that are accompanied by more lyrics. I also prefer lyrics with some substance. Not just mindless noise and computer bleeps without lyrics that required me to be on something to fully immerse myself and enjoy. Plus, I listen to more genres than just electronica nowadays. Living in  Austin will do that to you.

So WMC is capped off by the Ultra Music Festival. A two and a half day out door rave in a park next to the bay full of 50,000 junkies. Or crackers as my party peeps and I referred to everyone that week. (Short and endearing term for “crack heads” , calm down white folks reading this; it isn’t the demeaning racial slur version.) I’m pretty sure a good 99% of people that attend are high on something. Yea, I’m throwing everyone under the bus. Hell, my crew and I were intent on doing so. My roommate Lolita had some friends of hers visiting from London for the entire week. One was a Greek guy who I had previously met a few years back at Florida International University (In fact, I think I indirectly introduced them, although they won’t admit it) and the other a British girl with an actual legit British accent . We’ll call him Theo (short for Theodorakis; because what’s more Greek than that). His real name doesn’t sound that Greek for the purposes of my story. We’ll call the Brit, Adele.hehe. Theo was also very close friends with Lolita. I sensed there was some underlined animosity or tension from him. Perhaps because I would sometimes take his music off while he played it in the living room and replaced it with mine. (well, I did want to use my stereo to play my music; I wasn’t always so good at sharing hehe) I think he was into techno and minimal at the time while I liked house/electro/nu-disco more. It’s all electronic music but there’s different subgenres. Not to say I didn’t like some of the stuff he played. But basically the type he listened to wasn’t as dancey as mine; plus it required much more intense drugs to fully appreciate IMHO. LOL.

Another reason for the subtle hostility? He happened to be gay also; so I had some indications to believe he might have had a slight infatuation with me that week(Ok, I’m not even going there). Anyhow, it’s irrelevant now, but he was a bit bitchy towards me.( Plus, you needed some context for the forthcoming anecdote) That was almost a decade ago; if I saw him today,  I’m sure we’d get along great and laugh about our past cattiness towards one another. I had my moments too apparently, as I would soon discover. I had my friend Daisy visiting for a few days for the music festivities as well. Lolita for the most part hung out separately with her friends and I hung out with mine during the week. We’d all converge at night in the living room of our apartment sometimes and drink.  So that week, one of those WMC nights, it was the five of us hanging and a friend of mine Edgar came over as well. We were all smoking and drinking and Adele and Theo christened everybody with “cunt” names. (Don’t ask me why).  I forgot everyone else’s but my friend Edgar and I were labeled “flashy cunt” and “ condescending cunt” respectively. Edgar dressed well; usually wore fancy clothes and watch/bracelet accessories so it was appropriate and made for a bellowing laugh at the time. My nickname, while hilarious, it also simultaneously felt like a slap to the face. Besides being the first time I was given a female nether regions nickname, it was also the first time I realized that maybe I was a bit of an asshole to people; unbeknownst to me, a facade I had developed. But me?? Condescending? Couldn’t be. Naaaa. “What do they know” I thought to myself. According to them their brain “felt like a pancake” the whole week. haha.

I took Thursday and Friday off work, so Daisy and I went to a few gigs (Saw M.A.N.D.Y., Bookashade, Simian mobile disco, Gui Boratto to name a few) and house parties before going to Ultra on the weekend, the grand daddy of them all. There we hung out with the other “crackers’ from our group. Those Brits came prepared let me tell ya, they had their special K and lord knows what other party favors to have a good time. I was just smoking pot. I had given up ecstasy three years earlier. No really, I did. Although, I never promised I’d stop doing drugs completely, I’m pretty sure I was specific when I said ecstasy in my conversation with God the morning of the overdose.lol.

So after a fun and eventful week we got ourselves tickets to Ultra and attended one day. One was enough, even back then I could only do big crowds for so long. (It was a 5 minute cab ride away from my house; although cabs were impossible to find on the way back when the festival ended. Some of our trashed visiting friends were joyfully chatting and trying to strike friendships unknowingly with prostitutes on our 20 block walk back. The prostitutes were like stop wasting our time, we’re trying to work here. Wonderfully amusing. I always seemed to live near or have to traverse the ghettos of Miami. Good times) We chose the day that obviously had more of the DJ’s we all wanted to see. I remember Tiefschwarz, Sasha and Digweed, Benny Benassi to name a few.. well look what I found, a flyer!

The excitement was in the air, the day was beautiful, I had other friends that I knew would be going and that would meet up with us later , so we were slated for some fun right?? The first couple of hours were. So eventually,  it happened that someone offered me a roll. I’m pretty sure it was someone from my group. I decided to hold it for safe keeping. After all, it’s not every day I went to the biggest outdoor rave in the world right? The energy, the people, the music, all the ambience was there to create the impetus to take one more little step and possibly enjoy a magic carpet ride. I started rationalizing it in my mind. After all, I didn’t DO ecstasy anymore, it was just a one time thing. Right? What could happen with one pill? Unexpectedly, it started raining out of nowhere.

Mind you, this is Miami. Rain was a common occurrence. Normally if it rained, it would be brief and then the clouds would pass through and then it would be sunny again within 5 minutes as if nothing happened. The first time the clouds came over us it caught everyone off guard. All 50,000 crackers ran in all directions trying to find some shelter. There wasn’t any. There were vendor booths set up throughout the park, so people would try to huddle in along the edges underneath their tents, but other than that wasn’t much cover. It was funny seeing everyone yelling and running around like wet banshees. At least it was during the first rainfall drop since I found cover. Rain stopped and it was sunny. We thought that was it. Without mentioning it to anyone I decided to pop the pill.

Well what do you know, a short while later clouds came out of nowhere again and dropped another deluge on the festival. Obviously, the DJ decks had to be covered up and the shows stopped every time this happened. I remembered seeing some dj’s, that I was looking forward to hearing,  being driven off in carts because their set times had been washed out and cancelled. Mega bummer. There were huge container looking structures throughout the park. They looked like sea boxes, I think they were used for storage for festival equipment. Usually the smaller musical acts that didn’t have a huge stage would play up against these “sea boxes”.   I remember during one of the downpours a bunch of us squeezed in between two of those gigantic boxes and raised a huge plastic sheet to cover somewhat from the pelting rain. (Not sure where this sheet came from). Imagine 25 people packed in like sardines, holding up this plastic tarp trying to protect themselves from the rain, all while doobies were being passed around. Because you know, the party can’t be completely put to a standstill!

At one dry point in the day, there was an eerie moment were time seemed to freeze, the music seemed to lower, and a lump went down everyone’s throat.  A vehicle was driving through the crowd, whisking away a guy who was lying on an attached elevated platform bed, motionless. The platform was somehow attached to the back of this large SUV/truck, I can’t recall exactly what it was. It was shocking to see him in clear view on this platform, hoisted up in the air. It seemed like a warning shot in the middle of the sea of people, a sobering moment, and a zap of reality of the potential consequences of drug use. I don’t think he was dead, either he got severally dehydrated or overdosed, or maybe both. Everyone just hoped he was ok. Who knows what happened to him. Once he passed through our visibility, the focus went back to the musical stages. However, that image definitely stayed imprinted in my subconscious, till this day.

So yea, you’re probably wondering, what happened after you took the pill ? Well, much to my frustration it never really did hit me. The rain stifled it’s effects. No euphoria, no energy, no elation, nothing but a headache. My friends seemed to be enjoying their rolls( which came from the same batch).  I was basically sober besides the occasional toke I’d take from someone’s joint & the few drinks I had throughout the day. You had to be careful there, the place was teeming with undercover cops. It wasn’t legal to do drugs out in the open. I just followed my nose. There were seemingly 20-30 minute downpours every two hours or so. Miami is hot and humid. Imagine getting all soaked. Then the sun comes back out and dries you. Then you get this somewhat cold rain drench you again every time your clothes are starting to dry. Then you’re back to feeling cold, shivery, and sticky; then back to hot, then so on. Basically the weather ruined my trip. Oh yea, I tried a second pill later and again, didn’t hit me. I was much too irritated and physically disturbed by the elements.

At one point I looked up and realized what perhaps none of the other 50,000 people did. The stream of consciousness that followed had me grinding my wheels for the rest of that evening. There was not a single dark cloud in sight anywhere else in the city when it rained except over the park. At least as far as I could see. “ You’re shitting me.” I thought. When I came to that epiphany, my mind flashed back to my promise of 3 years earlier when I felt like I was dying on that balcony. This thought suddenly jolted my brain “ I thought you weren’t going to do ecstasy again?” I looked around and pondered “ Is no one else realizing that it ain’t raining anywhere else but in this particular rave spot? How weird is that?? Is God just messing a bit with all us 50,000 crackers by disrupting our party?”

He literally rained on my parade. Far-fetched? Perhaps. Me insane? Unlikely to scientifically prove. I’m not saying that the God of the universe decided to drop a continual rain storm only on Ultra Music Festival just to teach little old me a lesson. But what I am saying is that those precise train of thoughts in my head at those very particular moments came from somewhere .  And they sure as heck weren’t planned by me. You can believe what you will, I know for me, the message was loud and clear. He sure got my attention. (For an instant at least)

I realized that day to not make promises to God that I couldn’t keep. Because I sure as heck was going to be reminded about them when I broke them. That really was the last time I ever attempted to take ecstasy. Little did I know the events that would unfold later that year in 2007 where God would remind me of how many times he saved my rear end from my youthful follies …

 

Can anyone relate? Have you ever had any a-ha moment that you dismissed and perhaps didn’t understand the significance until later in life? Or have had inexplicably repeated “ good luck” to escape dire situations? I’d love to hear your comments ! =)

Classic electronic tune from 2007

 

What a beautiful life,

what a beautiful life,

what a beautiful world…