Psychedelic Sexagenarian Serenade Part 1

In which I decide to change my mind

Harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding

No more falsehoods or derisions, golden living dreams of visions

Mystic crystal revelation, and the mind's true liberation

Aquarius!

“Aquarius” from Hair: the American Tribal Love-Rock Musical

by Rado, Ragni & MacDermot

The first birthday I recall is my fifth. Bagley Park, Atlanta. A sunny spring day, 1970. It’s a combo party for my big brother, Britt, and me. Thirteen months apart, we are almost Irish twins. We often walk barefoot to Bagley, roam its fetid creek, concrete-floored picnic sheds, and weed-thick cemetery. Fifty-five years on, I can still map the terrain in my mind.

Our hippie single mom is poor, so with her sons’ birthdays so close, combo parties are the norm. At this 1970 event, however, Mom’s extravagant streak shows. She somehow books ponies. PONIES. I don’t recall asking for ponies, but two ponies we get. Our father is not there, but… ponies.

Walking a hazy analog of Bagley Park, I envision five-year-old me, sitting blessedly clueless on a raggedy pony’s back, bound for adventure. That sweet kid’s soon-to-be-renowned memory is sparking. In the lifetime ahead, he will recall more than most, a mixed blessing.

RBW Jr. will come to learn he is a branch on a beautiful, blighted tree. An odd, gouged hardwood. Gnarled here, knotted there. Bent, but strong. Flourishing at this writing, with one fully-fledged generation now above. Those younguns – Warrens, Kellys, Parrys – are thankfully less vexed than our shared forebears. Much wild-n’-wooly DNA appears to have been leavened by wiser partner choices, better parenting, temperance, and, crucially, less shame.

As my family tree extends toward that same yellow star that shone over Bagley Park, a network of buried genealogical roots connects my story to countless other stories, told, untold, and half-told. I move now into the web of ancestors, intent on casting more light into those tangled depths.

My troubled kin exerted great effort to pass as “normal,” yet I believe they, like everyone, wished to be fully known. Clues to their true selves exist in the blood of their descendants, their wills, carbons of letters, and in unfinished, occasionally hellish stories that can only be furthered, perhaps even redeemed, by the living. Last I checked, I’m still a member of that fortunate group.

---

In late 2023 I decided to see if a combination of a “heroic dose” of psilocybin mixed with MDMA/Ecstasy/Molly would ameliorate issues with which I’ve wrestled intermittently for half my life. We’re talking depression, anxiety, PTSD, and a worsening tendency to ruminate. That aforementioned excellent memory creating toxic loops, even as it enables me to remember innumerable lyrics, poems, and melodies.

During lockdown, I read and loved Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. Among other things, the book documents the promising mid-20th-century legit scientific experiments in which psychedelics, both synthetic and organic, offered lasting relief to the mentally ill. For instance, Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson conceived of 12-step whilst being treated for alcoholism with LSD. Under a psychiatrist’s supervision, in the late 50s and early 60s, Cary Grant underwent over 100 LSD-assisted therapy sessions. He’d struggled with personal issues, including childhood trauma, failed marriages, and identity insecurity. After treatment, he said, “I have been born again. I have just been through a psychiatric experience that has completely changed me... I am through with the past.”

All was going swimmingly until the Nixon administration, fearing revolution, outlawed hallucinogens in the late 60s. Tricky Dick and Co. launched a devious, effective propaganda campaign that terrified young me, and halted some true medical progress. Meanwhile, I witnessed highly addictive alcohol and cigarettes sicken and kill folks left and right. (To this day, these over-the-counter drugs have done the most harm to people I know, with legal pharmaceuticals and social media gaining ground.)

About three decades after Nixon’s ban/smear campaign, much federally-funded research led to the era of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor drugs, i.e. ssri’s, i.e. antidepressants. These would be heavily promoted, often laden with side effects, and ineffective for about 1/3 of users, even harmful to some (I can vouch for both). Despite billions spent on advertising, and millions of folks with ‘scrips, cases of depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, et al, have only increased.

As Pollan’s book recounts, in an effort to help those for whom the meds don’t work, or for whom the side effects are untenable, the George W. Bush administration eased limitations on research using non-addictive hallucinogens to treat mental illness. Progress was restored, with significant breakthroughs in the 2010s. While these therapies are still technically illegal except in Oregon and Colorado, the strikingly positive results are gradually going mainstream. And the medicines, as ever, are not hard to find.

---

Prior to my “heroic dose,” I was not a total stranger to hallucinogens. I’d taken one deliriously fun mushroom trip in 1987. I’d dropped ecstasy with a young woman in ‘85, and we had a ball. I’d experienced synesthesia, intense sensual pleasure, lots of laughs, some mild hallucinating. No ill effects, no hangovers, no addiction. But these episodes were recreational, not therapeutic, the scattershot dabblings of a curious single guy in his early 20s.

A few years later, at 30, my mental health issues emerged. Why? Hard to say definitively. No drugs were involved, but I made some bad mistakes, and couldn’t let anything go. What had once rolled off my back now pinned me to the mat.

In the beginning, I thought if I could convince myself of the why(s), articulate the reason(s), I would get control, and vanquish the enemy within. So it came to pass that the ensuing three decades, the most eventful of my life – parenthood, heartbreak, success, failure, grief, joy, rage, disappointment, exhilaration – would see me on and off of various meds-with-side effects, and in and out of therapists’ offices, weaving narratives, waxing on about my DNA heritage and my trauma. All with mixed, unsatisfying results.

With the oft-unwelcome clarity brought on by covid lockdown, I saw my 60s looming, perhaps the last third of my life if I’m lucky, certainly featuring some decline no matter what. My son was out in the world, and the hands-on parenting that had been the center of my life was over.

Pollan’s book got me thinking seriously about going whole hog with psychedelics, while the getting was good. In fact, he posits that psychedelics are perfect for the middle-aged. We who are set in our ways of thinking, even when those ways do us a disservice. We who arguably need a reboot more than anyone.

Would these medicines, which I’d tasted in my youth, help me do more than just have fun? The prospect filled me with wonder and excitement, but also fear.

The fear surprised me. Even as I knew intellectually most of the lies have been debunked, and I’d experienced no ill effects in my youthful flirtations, evidently the propaganda of ye olden tymes had really sunk in. So powerful was the disinformation, I hesitated at the prospect of full-on, late-midlife “ego death” (not a great term). Yet my ego was the problem. Of this I was, and remain, certain.

Would I go ‘round the bend and not come back? Would I lose, rather than change, my mind? Would I go full-on Brian Wilson/Syd Barrett? The various types of madness that run on both sides of my family haunted me with new intensity. Would I be poking a sleeping bear?

Strangely, or maybe not, without my even mentioning the psychedelic alternative, an astute MD advised psilocybin for my mental health issues. Kismet! Emboldened, I dashed off a couple texts, and waded into serotonin-rich waters, microdosing and minidosing with very pleasant, mildly trippy results that did no damage. The medicine delivered me to the moment. Coyotes singing on the reservoir. Sentient plants. Music in the trees. Songs evoking tears. Irritating people becoming beautiful. I was less compulsively vigilant and ruminative. Energized. More fun to be around.

Despite all of the above, no one I asked – family, friends – wanted to be with me when I tripped for real. Ultimately, this was for the best, but initially, it hurt my feelings. More to the point, this told me a lot about how these folks view me in their life, and perhaps how they view their relationship with me. I mask my issues well, and I reckon people depend on that mask, that appearance of solidity. Whatever intimacy would come from me being a hallucinating hot mess, they weren’t ready for that version of RBW Jr. Was I?

Eventually, I found a reputable, experienced guide for the full monty. We immediately clicked. He was a stranger I somehow already knew. His enthusiasm and quiet confidence was contagious. A feeling of providence descended. He suggested I write down intentions. He and I had a lot in common, and he shared his own profound psychedelic experience, which, I now realize, affected mine, in a good way.

We set aside an autumn day when, under his expert supervision, I would override my apprehensions, do a shot of liquified MDMA to insure against a “bad trip,” imbibe some strong psilocybin tea, a “heroic dose” (also not a great term), and maybe see what’s under the hood. Would accessing that deeper stratum grant me some visceral, lasting insight? Relief from the crippling chatter? Peace of mind?

Strangely, or maybe not, the night before my journey, I slept well, which I hadn’t expected. I am a notorious insomniac, especially the night before something important. But not this night. More surprises, courtesy my mind, were in store.

NEXT WEEK: Psychedelic Sexagenarian Serenade Part 2: In which I change my mind

---