It was 1.30 am in September 1971.
I was 16, but already I had earned the nicknames ‘Drug Bear’ and ‘Iron Man’. I could do greater quantities of drugs than any of my friends.
But this time I went too far. I took enough mescaline for 30 people, and my friends put me on a bus alone, sending me home to fend for myself. They thought it was a big joke! Actually it was a matter of life and death.
‘I’m burning in hell!’
I became delirious on the bus and got off too soon, more than a mile from my family’s home on Long Island, New York. As I walked slowly towards the house, I thought the journey would never end. I became disoriented and got lost just two blocks from home. I sat down on the ground in mental torment. I thought I had died and gone to hell. Then, at that late hour, a friend of my parents came by, walking his dog. He looked at me with shock as I screamed, ‘I’m burning in hell!’ I was shocked too.
