Never has a phrase like Fear and Loathing made so much sense to me as it did last weekend.  You see, I don't do drugs.  I never had.  Never even smoked weed.  The only time I have ever been drunk was on my 21st birthday.  This is not to say, however, that I am unfamiliar to the drug scene.  In fact its familiarity is probably what kept me sober all these years.  

A good friend of mine has been a Dextromethorphan Hydrobromide(DXM) addict for a few years now and he has spend much of that time trying to convince me that I should try DXM at least once.  DXM is the active ingredient in cough syrup and can be found in pure powder.  My friend orders the powder in bags of 50 grams over the internet.  DXM is legal and extremely powerful.  An average dose is 500mgs or about 15 times the amount in a dosage of cough syrup.  DXM is usually of higher quality and has less of a chance to make you vomit.  Anyway, I decided  I would try it one day because some bizarre twist of reason. 

Finally the time was right.  My friend had just gotten a new shipment of DXM and my parents had decided to go out of town. So god damnit it was time to party.  I had originally planed to only invite my friend over, but with him came his woman.  This creeped me out to no end so I demanded some female companionship.  I made some calls, but as the drug had already began to take hold I had some trouble convincing girls to come visit me.  On top of this, I have put on some weight, no doubt the result of some horrible fit of depression where I do nothing but eat and sleep.  Anyway, some people showed up just as I began to have some trouble walking.  It was this weird sense of out of body paralysis.  I mean I could trot around, and act reasonably normal, but at the same time I had no real control of my functions.  I itched madly and feared that some horrible rash was spreading all over my body.  I was assured that this was just a side effect of the drug and that if I took more it would go away.  I knew that they were probably lying, but who was I to argue.  I took the second pill, another 500mgs.  

The rash did go away, but it seemed by now time had stopped.  It had been just over an hour since I had taken the first pill and I seemed to be quite twisted.  I had a horrible realization that the drug hadn't even started peaking yet and I had already ingested the second pill.  I was told it would take serious hold of me in about 2 hours.  It was 10 o'clock. 

I had been reading Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail that morning and I decided I had to call Mr. Thompson immediately.  It was god damned important.  Every word I said was brilliant to me, and it seemed calling Thompson was the greatest idea ever dreamed up.  In retrospect, this idea was absolutely ludicrous, but who am I to fight the power of such a drug as DXM.  I called information: "I need to speak to Hunter S. Thompson in Seattle, Washington!"  No such luck.  There were no Hunter Thompson's in Seattle.  This probably had something to do with the fact that Mr. Thompson lives in an entirely different state.  I don't know why I tried Seattle, but it was the thing to do at the time.  A second call to the operator... "Hunter S. Thompson... Aspen, CO.  It's damned important!" "We are sorry, sir, but that number is unlisted."  Click.  Those swine!  I had to reach Thompson and explain to him how much guff these fiends were giving me!

After what seemed like hours I had finally gotten the number of information in Aspen.  I was mad as hell and on a mission.  I screamed into the phone "GOD DAMNIT WOMAN! I NEED YOUR HELP!! My good friend Hunter Thompson is some where outside of Aspen and I need to speak to him at once! It is of dire consequences that I speak to him!"  "Sorry.", she tells me, "That number is unlisted."  "But I need it!  I found his wallet!" "Okay then, what is his address..."  Click.  Foiled again... there had to be away to get through to this man.  I called back, this time demanding to speak to a supervisor.  "Damn this telephone bureaucracy! This red tape is maddening, just give me the fucking number!" "Sir what is your name?"  "Raul Duke!" I cried.  "And your number?"  In my intoxicated state, I gave him the number and then explained that it was my parents phone and gave them my dad's name.  The fascists, they would be on to me!  They had gotten my information, the police would be on to me!  Fuck! I should have never given them anything other than name, number and rank! I was doomed.  However, instead of calling the cops, the supervisor told me that he would personally call Mr. Thompson and tell him of my emergency.  I hung up.  I was ecstatic.  I turned to my friends and explained that Thompson would be calling me any second.  Thompson would understand my problems and sort everything out. 

By that time my house was crawling with people.  Many of them girls who I believed were there only to pleasure me.  As I would soon realize, this was not the case.   I spent some time hitting on a punk rock chick named Miranda.  I concluded that her boyfriend was a raver and needed to be "stomped" by us punk rockers.  I went up stairs and changed into what I thought was my steel toed "punk rock" boots.  I came down wearing one steel toe, and one cowboy boot.  Instead of being intimidated of me, everyone just laughed.  She wasn't really all about stomping her boyfriend anyway.  It was probably a mistake, because moments later the bastard surprised me with a kick to my skull.  God damned pinko swine.  

None of this really mattered though, my main concerns were making out with a girl and making sure my house was not destroyed.  This was a difficult thing to do.  It seemed to me that every little thing was a horrible tragedy.  This was the paranoia setting in.  To counter act this I was given a line of Ketamine(K).  Being as I don't do drugs I was not happy do be snorting K, but I really had no choice, the drug had taken hold.  Before I could even stop my eyes from watering and my nose from running I was in a different dimension.  The problem with K is that it only lasts a short time, but DXM delays time significantly.  The combination led to 5 hours (in reality about 2) of hitting myself in the face because it was so damned exciting.  Lifting my arm was a great achievement.  Before I knew it I was giving Naziesque salutes to everyone in site and stomping about like some demented robot.  I stumbled up my stairs to change out of these god forsaken boots and put on my straight edge t-shirt.  It said in big bold letters on the back, DRUGS ARE FOR LOSERS.  This seems ironic and funny now, but at the time, I had to show them that this was all a mistake and that I was not a drug user and that I wanted no part of what was happening to me.  What awful things had they given me.  I knew I was a dead man, and I wanted the cops to make sure who was at fault.  "Not me officer, I am straight edge, these commies drugged me and destroyed my house!"

The fear was beginning to develop. After doing another line of K I had begun to settle down.  The K was gone from my system and I was mad that I could still see.  I had been told that DXM would put me in some sort of other world and I would have no idea what was going on.  I wanted to reach this new dimension.  Had I known what was in store for me it wouldn't have been so easy for them to convince me to take another pill.  At this point it was probably midnight.  The first pill was going strong and the second was just about to peak.  God knows what a third pill would do to me.  1500 mgs.  The next 4 hours were a complete blur.  I remember going down in to my basement and sitting on the couch.  Then BAM!  I was in another universe.

I was in the deepest pits of hell.  Nothing made sense.  The realest most fantastic nightmare was upon me.  I wanted out.  All I could do was sit there and watch myself boil.  I was dead.  I knew the cops would arrest me, I knew I was destroying my life, I knew my house was going to be burned to the ground.  Horror was all around me.  The fear and loathing was at an all time high.  My life was so foul and terrifying that I wanted to kill myself just to make the damned trip end.  I would have done it to, only every time I stood up and tried to get a hold on reality I fell over and back in to a nightmare.  From the outside my friends could tell nothing.  All they could see was me sitting there, eyes open with a terrified look on my face.  Every now and then I would talk about killing myself or getting up.  I just wanted everyone to leave, so I could go to sleep and escape this misery.  

3 hours later I woke up, half naked in my bed.  Driven By Boredom stickers were all over me, on my chest, my sock, the back of my shirt.  I had no idea what had happened or where I was.  It was 4 am and everything in my body was numb.  My friend came into my room when he heard me fall over and knock everything over in my room.  He decided he would stay the night and that everyone but him and his girl were gone. It was probably for the best.  I actually dove in to bed and spent the next several hours flopping around, trying to get to sleep.  Every time I closed my eyes I saw amazing light shows inside my head.  It felt so weird to contort my body in to every shape imaginable.  I was like a god damned dolphin performing tricks at Sea World.  It would have been fun, but I was too tired to enjoy it.  I just wanted to sleep, but my body wouldn't have it.  The loathing was fierce.  

1 pm: I was standing up in my room.  I have no idea how I woke up, but my friend was standing there to asking me if I wanted some waffles for breakfast.  "YOU MOTHER FUCKER!  GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE! DIE YOU FIEND!  YOU COCK SUCKER!!"  I am sure my string of vulgarities continued in the the morning, but I can't really remember.  He ignored me and went on to cook himself breakfast.

5 pm:  I finally woke up, still numb all over.  I had trouble remembering things and had no feeling in my right arm till about 9 o'clock that night.  My harrowing experience was essentially over, but there were some things to clear up.  Hunter Thompson never called and I never made out with any girls. Evidently in those missing few hours my friends did everything from punching me in the face to building a fort around me.  I spent some time that evening laying in a closet, but I have no recollection of why I was in there.  I wouldn't respond to anything so they just tortured me and finally got bored and left.  Two of my friends carried me up to my bed.  At one point I fell on the floor and started swimming towards the stairs.  How I got naked is unknown.  Another mystery is the disappearance of my wallet.  I believe someone stole it, but everyone else seems to think I lost it in some drug induced rage. I just don't know.   I do know, however, that if I find the fucker who did it, I will light the mother fucker on fire.