| HN Mirror

There's some amount of social stigma associated with LSD and other psychedelics, but it seems to have faded away quite a bit since I used it in the late 1970s. Back then, and for some years afterward, the stigma was pretty strong. Admitting that you had used psychedelics was tantamount to admitting that you were crazy and possibly dangerous in many social circles. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be so much the case anymore.

I've personally never minded admitting that I used psychedelics in the late 70s, but at that time I was accustomed to be seen as a weirdo and an outsider. Indeed, I was so accustomed to it that I didn't even realize that's what was happening. I didn't find out what it was like to be treated as someone ordinary until I took a job with Apple and moved to the SF Bay Area.

I liked LSD and other psychedelics a lot in the late 70s, and used them a lot--enough to find out how often I could take them without tolerance reducing their effects noticeably. I gave up psychedelics and pretty much all other mind-altering substances in the first half of the 1980s. I never liked anything other than psychedelics as much as I liked them.

Of the other substances I experimented with, I liked cannabis best, but I gave it up, too. The best reason I can articulate is that I was no longer getting anything new from them and, as the fellow said, when you've gotten the message, it's time to hang up the phone.

I do still drink the odd glass of whiskey or port or champagne once or twice a year, but that's because I like the sensations of drinking them. I try to avoid drinking enough to get tipsy.

I never cared all that much for drugs that are supposed to make you feel good.