Dateline: 2000. Do you have a savant friend? Someone off the charts smart but also limited or suffering in social skills? A good example is Bobby Fisher, the chess champion. Not just talented but historically superior, even at a young age. However, he started going off the rails in his 20s. After winning the world title in 1972, basically disappeared. Re-appeared years later, clearly a paranoid schizophrenic. Also, he hosted a radio show from I Philippines where he ranted against everyone (especially Jews, of which he was one).
Anyhoots. I used to have a savant friend, Chris. He excelled at basically everything difficult. School, chess, board games, anything involving strategy. When I was in college, I went to Fargo for a drunken weekend of fraternities gathering. He was in grad school there getting an advanced electrical engineering degree. I visited his apartment. He was growing magic mushrooms under his bed. Not sure how that's possible, esp. pre-web, but if there's a way, he would figure it out on his own. Unstoppable. We lost touch for about 10 years, during which time he would get hired for extreme software programming temp onsite gigs. He's spend 6 months onsite around the country.
He bought a condo in the Mpls burbs. We reconnected somehow, in the late 90s. He started telling me about GHB. Never heard of it. He was going on and on about it; how the gubment outlawed what is actually an excellent therapeutic drug. He learned about it from bodybuilding and it's helpful effects there re muscle growth & whatnot. Actually, I came to realize this was becoming a habit of his. I also recall him going on & on about flossing your teeth. About how extraordinary flossing is for our dental health. About how we could abandon brushing & just floss. Flossing is the key. He would go on these soapbox speeches about stuff like that.
One eve he came to my house to make the 1st batch. Not sure why my place, maybe as he had a condo with a tiny kitchen? Anyhoots, he brought over a hockey duffel bag. These are immense duffel bags, 5 feet long. The inside was packed tight with raw ingredients and a chemistry set. Gallon jugs of who knows what. Where he acquired this stuff escapes me.
Here's what I recall about that night: a chemistry set, right out of Breaking Bad, with a pellet sized magnet spinning furiously at the bottom of a quart sized beaker filled with various liquids. He was carefully monitoring the temp of the liquid & precisely timing the spinning duration. Yeah all this happening in my kitchen.
He poured the liquid into a cake pan, which cooled into a solid. He put those chunks into something like a salad spinner, which converted into powder. He had several trays for creating pill capsules. Like mini-ice cube trays, 10 rows square. We put one half of a plastic capsule in the bottom part, he spread powder into the tray, then we capped the capsule, so now we/he had regular looking pill capsules. A lot of them. A hundred? Two hundred? But most of the powder stayed powdered, into baggies.
So, you're wondering, what is taking GHB like? Here are my experiences. My interest in this stuff was for one reason only: to reduce my drinking. Maybe also to help me sleep (I'm an insomniac) but mainly to reduce the boozing.
Rule #1 of GHB: never ever take it with booze. It feels a bit like being drunk, way better though. No hangovers. No calories. Much better sleep.
Rule #2: don't mess around with the dosages. Only take a wee amount, sprinkled into water or juice or whatnot.
Rule #3: don't abuse this stuff, it's extremely powerful, e.g., give it unknowingly to others. That's not just cruel but also dangerous.
Rule #4: this stuff is illegal so actually, don't take it at all. Don't make it, don't buy it, don't take it. Live without it.
I don't recall what happened my 1st time taking it other than I probably dug the body glow effect. Also that for a day at least I wouldn't be abusing alcohol, which became an increasingly alarming habit in my adult life. I do, however, recall what happened the 1st time I shared it. I went to my buddy's house, he was there w/his ladyfriend & her female friend. Maybe we were going out on the town, don't recall. But I do recall asking them if they wanted to try it. They said sure, so they put some in water and drank it. Within 20 minutes, all 3 were passed out. They were out cold. I recall getting increasingly nervous, but just waited. After about 10 minutes, they all woke up, and were fine. Alarmed, but fine. In hindsight I reckon they had a drink prior to my arrival, but maybe they took a wee bit too much.
I had a few drinking buddies back then. We would go out to bars with a small amount, buy club soda, and add to our own drink. We thought we were pretty clever. Saved a bunch of dough on booze drinks, that's for certain. And unlike booze, we kept our wits. Mainly a body glow feeling.
There was this one time, however, I took waaaay too much. It was at a Luna concert, at First Avenue. Guess I had a higher tolerance by then, but not high enough. I was in between my 2 buddies, arm around shoulders so I could stand. I stayed awake, barely, but it was too much & too stupid.
A year or two later I lost track of Chris. Well, he became increasingly weird, and agitated in general. I dug deep into my career and we totally lost touch. Around 10 years ago I was near his hometown and drove an hour to lunch w/his older brother who I knew well from my youth. He reminded me that Chris was adamantly opposed to health insurance. This was one of the 'scams' he would get agitated about. He told me Chris moved into a house in that hometown and drunkenly walked out a 2nd floor patio door that had no patio. For real. Hurt himself bad, had big big hospital bills. I thought: sweet jebus dude. That's why it's called insurance.
Is there a moral here? One might be: have health insurance. Or how about: don't walk out of 2nd floors into thin air. But regarding GHB, best to just stay away. Stay alive, stay healthy, stay legal.