confessions of a serial raver

***NO JUDGEMENT ALLOWED, READ WITH AN OPEN MIND***

well it's a topic i've touched on lightly during my blogging period, but something i've never really come completely clean with...interesting choice of words, since i've in fact become CLEAN after all those years...now don't get me wrong, we're not talking heroin or crack or anything...but there was a time when there definitely needed to be some cleaning involved.

it's something i've never really talked out loud about, and for good reason, as we'll soon find out! and there's details that even the closest people in my life don't know about! details that i've always been too ashamed to tell them.

we used to joke that everyone who we used to rave with would all be sitting around in a "reformed raver nursing home" some day, gabbing about "the good ol' days", now that we've all developed parkinsons disease, and can't hold a cup of coffee without spilling it all over ourselves!

now stop your giggling, i'm being completely serious!! well i guess you have to have a sense of humour about our sordid pasts, right? because in a sense they definitely make us who we are today! or is that just a lie that we tell ourselves to get by? i'll never know!

i think i started raving/doing drugs when i was 17...to some that may seem young, and to others that may seem almost too old. but considering that most people our age started drinking when they turned 16, i guess it could be deemed as a natural progression to continue further into the darkside shortly after.

it's funny, i remember everything about my first time. i remember where i was, what i was wearing, who i met (G.I. Joe, tee hee) and exactly how i felt. and take it from me kiddies, the way you feel the first time is like nothing you'll EVER experience again! (literally). everyone i talk to remembers their first time, not the second, or the third, just the first. kinda like sex!! that partner will always stand out in your mind when you think about sex, and with drugs it's that first time that you'll forever reference when you think/talk about it.

i could give you a step by step reinactment of that night that forever changed my life (jeez louise!! i'm sorry no more cheese) but i probably couldn't without heaving up my chicken ceaser salad i just had for lunch! so we'll skip that part. all i wanted to comment on was my age. 17. the beginning and the end of innocence.

when you start doing drugs there's a certain obsession that is born with that first time. obviously it's like nothing you've ever experienced thus far in life, and therefore a fascination developes as a result. and just like heroin addicts have been saying for years, with e it's the same thing; you'll spend the rest of your highs trying to achieve that feeling you felt your first time...and it never comes back...

thus how addictions are born, and trust me, i felt it! when you're 17/18 and on the verge of this whole new world (drinking, bars, university etc.) filled with new things and exciting new feelings, it's sooooo easy to fall prey to it. you think you're invincible, and you simply become overcome with the urge to over do it! you can't help it, and since your brain hasn't completely developed it's definition of what's right and what's wrong yet at that age, you can't seem to find anything wrong with it!

you tell yourself that you'll only 'indulge' once in a while...on that special occassion...once in a blue moon...well after a while, that special occassion that started out as someone's birthday or whatever, turns into every friday...and that 'celebration' you used as an excuse to dose, has turned into the fact that it's simply the end of the week!! why not? right? you'll only do one. it's just a little pill, right? WRONG. end of story.

it did start out fairly responsibly, i researched it quite extensively...i read the reports, studied the effects, knew what i was getting myself into...hell i even talked to my doctor about it! (ahh, sweet doctor pinsky!!) but no article, or doctor report or even blog can prepare you for what will be ahead!

but as most people do, i learned the hard way and had to feel it for myself to actually learn a lesson from the whole experience. and 6 years later, here i am!

so what started out as an occassional treat, developed...i actually blame the promoters who put on those parties we were going to every weekend, cause if it wasn't for them, then we wouldn't have been doing these bad things. but back then there were raves every weekend. they wouldn't ever reveal the location until 24 hrs ahead of time, to keep it all hush hush, and we would be sitting there in anticipation, biting our nails, waiting for the revealing of the grande locale! and we would go...and we would dance...and we would eat our pills...notice i said pillS...

i used to be terrified to take more than a half...period! the whole night, i would only take half, and still be the last one standing at the end of the night, bouncing around with a grin on my face and a pacifier in my mouth! but by the end of my craze, i was chomping down on AT THE VERY LEAST 2 a night...but by the end of the next day (when i was still up and grinding my teeth) i might have eaten 5 or 6...that was at my worst. melanie and france were soooo much worse off...i swear one new years i sat there and saw them swallow about 15 hits...can you imagine? and after a certain point there wasn't anywhere else for them to go but down...

but as time went on, things got progressively worse, not to the degree that melanie and france ever sunk to (no offense to them, but you know...) but i got deeper in my own way. there was a point where i found it hard to go out and NOT do it...it took almost every ounce of my being to say NO...every time i would have a drink, it would spring to mind...i'd get that butterfly feeling in my stomach and i'd start jonesin'...god, that makes me sick just thinkin' about it...i don't know why we all thought it was so innocent...oh, we'll just do a bit...nothin' wrong with that, right? WRONGO!!

during my worst, i'd probably be doing it at the very least, every weekend. sometimes twice in a weekend. sometimes i'd stay up for like two days straight! what is it again? you have to be up for three days in a row with no sleep to be declared legally insane? that sounds about right!!

hmmm, well...i started writing this on friday afternoon, and it's now tuesday morning...(yesterday was a snow day!) but i think this is all i really want to say about the whole deal.

what it all comes down to is where i am today! i've gotten my act cleaned up, i graduated from university, i have a fantastic job, fantastic friends and a fantastic boyfriend who i can't seem to get enough of. what's in the past should remain there, however we should never be ashamed of it. after all, it's what made us the person we are today, however painful it may have been.

growing up is all about mistakes. we have to make them to learn. we shouldn't regret the things we have done, but keep them in mind as life lessons we wish to not repeat. life would be pretty boring without them. i guess you can look at them like little chips on our shoulders that make us stronger!

i hope that you aren't reading this and judging me. it's probably the one thing in life that i fear from the people who love me. i guess it's just something i wanted to get off my chest, something that i can forget about finally after all these years. something that i now know is a part of who i USED to be, and something that without which i wouldn't be the person i am today!! (ie that person who you all love!!)