"But Rachel also has another hobby, one that makes her a bit different from the other moms in her Texas suburb—not that she talks about it with them. Once a month or so, after she and her husband put the kids to bed, Rachel texts her in-laws—who live just down the street—to make sure they’re home and available in the event of an emergency.

“And then, Rachel takes a generous dose of magic mushrooms, or sometimes MDMA, and—there’s really no other way to say this— spends the next several hours tripping balls.”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Slightly different view of this-

    My brother, almost 50, went to Jamaica and tried shrooms for the first time and thought it was the most amazing thing he’d ever done in his life (he doesn’t do things by half measures, everything he likes it the best thing ever). Then he went from microdosing shrooms to taking a massive dose within a month. He said that his wife was monitoring him when he took a massive dose, but, “she fell asleep. I was okay though.” Now he calls himself a psychonaut, participates on Erowid, tries every psychoactive substance he can get ahold of, and writes bad poetry and long philosophical screeds which he posts online. He’s basically high all the time. He’s called my mom and I (he never used to contact us unless he needed us) and made big apologies for things, clearly, as this article says, tripping balls. And he also clearly doesn’t remember it later.

    This is a guy who wouldn’t so much as take a hit off a joint in high school and college, so it’s sort of like he’s making up for lost time.

    I’m not saying it’s a huge problem in terms of ruining lives or anything, he doesn’t have any kids and his wife doesn’t do any psychoactive substances at all, so their pets get taken care of. But it’s been weird as fuck dealing with him and it was already weird as fuck dealing with him before this, so it’s like ten times worse now.

    My main concern, though, is that he doesn’t get something adulterated when he’s buying this stuff since most of it isn’t legal. He’s also in Atlanta and their cops aren’t exactly friendly, so I hope he’s not getting them in some super sketchy way where he could get arrested.

    • lousyd@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      1 month ago

      Your brother may need to hear what Alan Watts had to say about this:

      If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        My brother is 11 years older than me (I was planned and my parents were not on second marriages) and because of that, he has decided that I will never be old enough to tell him anything he doesn’t already know.

        Like I said, weird as fuck dealing with him.

        • Geist_@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          I was planned and my parents were not on second marriages why do you need to specify this --’

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Because every time I tell people that my brother and I are 11 years apart and I don’t say that, I usually have to explain it eventually. I was just saving time.