Sunday, September 6, 2015

How My 1983 Magic Mushroom Experiences Led to Homelessness, Etc.

Did you know that according to an article on Huff Post that a recent 2014 study placed magic mushrooms in the top 10 of popular recreational drugs?  This is why I felt this blog post's quite appropriate for the times we're living in. See This Is What Magic Mushrooms Do To Your Brain - HuffPost.com

Never forget this piece of wisdom from someone who grew up as a teen in the 1970's.  The mark of an enemy is anyone who shares drugs with you, even on a social level. The moment you accept a hit off a joint with that person or even influences the alleged benefit of trying hallucinogenic mushrooms, what you've really done is accepted a temptation to sin against God. You can't really blame that person who tripped you up because it's your own decision to accept or reject the offer.  This is why it's always important to forgive anyone who influenced you to take drugs because it was your own choice to give into that temptation.

Think back to every single person who offered you a hit from a joint for recreation purposes. What change in your life took place thereafter?  Back in the 1970's and 80's I viewed such offers as innocent, just a social thing. The last time I had marijuana was back in 1997, hits off a couple of joints offered to me by two separate dates relaxing prior to going to a jazz concert or my just being there to talk. I believe men use this drug as a means to loosen up women to possibly have sexual relations with them but it didn't work on me.  I always distracted them away from such desires with interesting conversation I'm really good at. The downside of having just a few hits of marijuana is it most always caused my behavior to change to one of paranoia and delusion.



If marijuana could change me so radically to lose a job I had worked hard to maintain at Williams-
Sonoma Corporation back in 1997, think of what magic mushrooms did to my brain in the 1980's!  For some reason the marijuana had stayed in my system for weeks as I worked causing me great trouble and distraction. I became delusional and paranoid leaving little notes and a book for a female employee viewed as an attractive guy who I thought was flirting that led to my termination.

Back in 1983, when a very handsome former Palos Verdes H.S. classmate Kim Linnett (a guy) offered mushrooms to me after a dinner date at his home, I didn't feel any effects until I got home and went to sleep listening to music. I felt I had experienced something truly divine that evening and it wasn't Kim.

My brain had been changed forever with that mushroom experience that caused me to make poor decisions having placed me in the category of someone who fell into the trap of drug use that damaged their future.  It's no surprise I wanted to try the shrooms again with Kim so he agreed to take me to a local park one day, crazy as it sounds.  I once again went home and saw exciting light shows listening to music and felt great peace and happiness of divine origin. I was so hooked on the shrooms I drove past Kim's rented home in Redondo Beach a few times but never heard from him again.
Though magic mushrooms are not habit-forming, and don't create physical dependence, the users could become psychologically dependent and crave to experience the psychedelic state again. Some users might experience heightened emotional awareness or have experiences that they might perceive to be spiritually significant, which is why they might be tempted to use it more often. Effects of Shrooms on the Body - Buzzle.com
I have good reason to believe that date with Kim Linnett, who I had met at the Nautilus Gym in Redondo Beach, was entirely fake that someone was working behind the scenes to set me up for disappointment because I later learned this man already had a girlfriend. When I entered his home after leaving a few minutes, the door was left open and I overheard him say to someone over the phone "I'm trying, I'm trying!" Someone was clearly behind this date.  At the time I ignored what I heard and just continued on to have dinner with him that evening.

What was equally strange was how Kim led me to believe he was looking for a woman to live with him. Over dinner he mentioned "this house could use a woman's touch" and continued as though I was being interviewed to live with him. The idea sounded good to me, I was living a few blocks away temporarily with a guy roommate who I didn't really want to live with.

After the mushroom date,  I naturally became suspicious of Kim and wondered who the hidden person was. Was it Carolyn, another PVHS classmate who just wanted me to have a good time? Was it Sheila, another PVHS classmate who I saw driving one day near the Nautilus gym who acted like she wanted to speak with me?  Sheila was the first person who offered me a hit on a joint back in 1974 at a break in orchestra rehearsal. Coincidentally, I later learned Kim and Sheila lived within 1/2 mile radius in Palos Verdes in the 70's who both drove Spitfires. In fact, I had seen an old spitfire parked in Kim's driveway.  It seemed to me Sheila was the likely suspect of setting me up on a fake date with mushrooms.


Video from ASAPScience

This video on magic mushrooms explains after the drug's taken it changes the human brain. ". . . .inhibiting normal brain activity, making it harder to determine reality from and fantasy making self awareness impossible." even months after the drug's worn off.
"My experience within a year of taking magic mushrooms twice in 1983 was my brain activity was very low (e.g. inhibited) that I felt as if I was in a coma conscious of being in a dream world that was real life.  I didn't care about the dream I viewed as insignificant compared to the mushroom experience of joy, peace and happiness." - Cheryl Meril
The main problem with drugs is the tend to make me paranoid, even too much caffeine tends to do this. (Yes, I had a few cups of caffeine tea prior to writing this!)   People don't know you tried these drugs so they just think you're unwell not knowing the reasons for the changed behavior. In 1983 I lost my first really good job, the best job opportunity I had ever been given at Epson America in Torrance, CA.  After taking this drug I really changed dramatically being paranoid not even trusting my boss Bob Adams who hired me in spite of my crying during the interview. He had been so good to me at Epson America and I was giving him a headache after mushrooms.

The Outcome of Homelesslness 
After mushrooms, I didn't care about the material world feeling everything was getting in my way of being in that place of eternal love and joy.  I just wanted to be free so I let everything go in a self-destructive way because I didn't have God's Word in my life at that time. I became homeless due to being behind in bills. I made a really bad decision to sleep in my car a month to pay back the money and find another place to live but it didn't work out that way. Instead I became homeless for 1.5 years!  Satan was stripping me of everything setting me up for eternal hell. I had no wisdom of God, just some drug experience, no spiritual foundation at all.  Satan's strategy was to lead me into hell while believing I was heading for heaven letting go of this life.

Drugs clearly can't be a replacement for God and obedience to His Word, it's the wrong way to go that leads to hell.  Just because both the saved and unsaved are under God's grace that we all can choose to enjoy freely doesn't mean we all go to heaven.  Jesus is the only way to heaven, not via any drug experience.

Sheila Rogers, 1975 PVHS yearbook
I figured out years later based on the foregoing that Sheila Rogers from our PVHS orchestra class was likely the person behind this mushroom date being my enemy. What else can one expect from a psychiatrist's daughter? Sheila went on in 1985 to become a writer for Rolling Stone Magazine, then to be a producer for the David Letterman Show for many years who now works for comedian James Corden on the Late Late Show.

It's true what's been written about me in a petty little blog that way back in 1989 before personal computers existed for the masses, Sheila's parents, a brain surgeon and psychiatrist, sent me to jail for violating a restraining order writing them letters. I was a shroom head zombie pumping out letters who got in trouble for it. They had much patience but eventually wanted revenge long after the intensity of letters stopped, for disturbing their family's lives.  I ultimately went to jail two weeks on a misdemeanor charge for violating my two year probation I was given for sending a fax to Rolling Stone Magazine to Sheila because I didn't believe she was involved in the restraining order. What triggered the probation violation was when I left Los Angeles for San Francisco that was prohibited by law during my probation.

After my fall from grace from drugs, God was working through others' lives who eventually came to my aide as recently reborn Christians to provide me with shelter and spiritual support.  I was also introduced to a key Christian lady who helped me enormously including sending me to a deliverance conference in Phoenix AZ.  Through Christians, God helped me recover from jail and the stigma associated with having been there, not to mention the two police officers who went to my former high school who were in the department that facilitated me going there.

I want to interject here that the Los Angeles jail back in 1989 wasn't that bad an experience. They served good food, believe it or not, and I had a nice rest there with very little stress.  In my cell I sang to pop tunes they played over the stereo system. I was given free food, rest and good music to listen to. While jail wasn't a resort, it also wasn't the kind of punishment I anticipated because no one was harassing me there.  I could also feel Christians praying for me. The toughest part was leaving with my wrinkled professionally dry cleaned beautiful deep blue dress suit and catching a bus home in downtown L.A.. At that time I felt I had been unfairly treated so I had no shame being sent to jail.

Moral of this story is never accept drugs from anyone, they're not your friends! Just forgive and pray for God's forgiveness if you accepted drugs.  Drugs aren't the way to God, only an escape from our responsibility to obey Him that's necessary to enter heaven avoiding eternal hell where everyone's headed without Jesus.

No matter who offers you drugs, we're ultimately responsible for the consequences having only ourselves to blame. Don't forget to pray for your enemies and forgive them.  Hold no grudges against anyone.  Ultimately everything falls on our own shoulders in this life. We can work it out with God by following His Word, accepting Jesus forgiveness and obeying Him. Otherwise eternal hell awaits, believe me!

Effects of Shrooms on the Body - Buzzle.com

This Is What Magic Mushrooms Do To Your Brain - HuffPost.com