As people across generations come together to observe the holidays, the celebrations can feel cruelly imbalanced. The best parts of the season are for babies (no school, presents from the North Pole, eight nights of presents, matching pajamas), and the rest of us have to do all the work, laboring like indentured elves behind the scenes. But there is, in fact, a way for us to achieve that special Christmas spirit we crave, even if it’s all in our heads (like Santa).
It’s Christmastime, and we need to know: What’s the best drug? 🫠
Gateway Drugs
Many people start trying to drown out the world pretty early. I’m all for it! Teens have reached an age where they’re sentient, but not independent—and existing within that gap requires a mental buffer from reality. I feel sorry for them the way I feel sorry for a dog, who has no control over anything in its daily existence. I give my dog treats to mitigate the cruel reality of her life, and I would give any high schooler a lite, entry-level substance for the same reason.
Its technology isn’t the only thing changing. Cannabis culture has the most rapidly evolving terminology of any drug. Be careful out there. Nothing makes me blush like a boomer talking about Mary Jane. We all know not to say “reefer” (lol), but could “pot” be the stoner’s version of the millennial pause?
As a dog rebels within its domestic confines by chewing up a pillow, a teen picks up a vape pen. Weed: people love it! Sadly, I hold a grudge from the time I overdid it on homemade edibles. My eyes swelled shut, I couldn’t stop vomiting, and I was convinced I felt sections of my brain dying (lol, that actually might be true 😵💫). My friends had to call my dad to come get me. Since I was blind, my memories of the evening are primarily auditory: a rich soundscape that includes the screeching of minivan tires, my dad yelling at my friends, and a nurse at urgent care greeting us with, “Somebody had fun tonight!” (Bitch.)
I like when other people get high, though. Nothing makes me laugh like stoner hijinks. Officially, however, I would personally recommend simply using nicotine, whether Juul or Marlboro. It’s a great way to sexily indulge an oral fixation, you don’t risk a psychotic break, and in our modern age, you can google how to do things. This means you don’t have to put your cigarette in your mouth backwards the first time. There is truly no downside.
“Gateway” drug sounds so full of promise! Have fun with it, and godspeed.
Its technology isn’t the only thing changing. Cannabis culture has the most rapidly evolving terminology of any drug. Be careful out there. Nothing makes me blush like a boomer talking about Mary Jane. We all know not to say “reefer” (lol), but could “pot” be the stoner’s version of the millennial pause?
Alcohol
Possibly the dumbest case of envy since Edward Hopper.
When I was well under drinking age, I had a boyfriend with an abusive father. His moods, his outbursts, his legendary punishments and the anticipation of them—it all consumed so much of my boyfriend’s energy that his father essentially functioned as my romantic rival. I was jealous!
Possibly the dumbest case of envy since Edward Hopper.
He was a good boyfriend, although I did set the bar low. I felt flattered when we were driving around and he’d stop at a red light, as if he were actively saving my life. Heroic!
However, his father did provide us with all the alcohol we could handle. And I loved the attention and focus from my boyfriend, who for some reason couldn’t wait to start drinking most days. He’d fire up the blender and make me a milkshake generously laced with vodka. He even used a measuring cup, as if he were a mixologist (a handlebar-mustache of a term that in and of itself disqualifies alcohol from being the best). In return, I deployed the spice-up-your-marriage sex tips I’d read in magazines like Redbook and Good Housekeeping while babysitting.
And today, the charm of drinking for me still lies in being served, in being so-carefully catered to. You’re going to ritualistically shave an orange peel on my behalf and fetch me a coaster? I feel like a lady!
He was a good boyfriend, although I did set the bar low. I felt flattered when we were driving around and he’d stop at a red light, as if he were actively saving my life. Heroic!
I feel that punctuation is a key personality lever, but that lever fluctuates wildly depending on substance intake. Sober, I’m pathologically incapable of ending an email without a groveling exclamation point! When I’m cruising around mean and powerful on uppers (one iced coffee), I feel like . . . maybe I don’t need to. 🖕 When I’ve been overserved (a useful term for “drunk” that reframes me as a victim), I want to add a couple extra, and maybe a smiley!!!!! 🙃 But at least I’m not as bad as this.
But sadly, that’s about it in terms of pros for drinking. There are too many cons to list, but I particularly hate tasting wine while the server stands there feigning supportive anticipation. That, and the personality changes. Like my boyfriend’s father, alcohol drastically alters my behavior. Drinking antagonized him into violent tantrums, and my tipsiness takes me on an equally extreme journey, although in the other direction. I become loving, tender, grateful; I’m overwhelmed by the miracle it is that we’re sitting here together as a society—no, a community. As reported by Karl Ove Knausgård, the morning after one of these lovefests is brutal.
I had talked. To total strangers, I had babbled away. With no dignity whatsoever, happy and enthusiastic over every little thing. I had given compliments! My eyes had filled up with tears at my own human warmth and goodness. Oh, Jesus, was I an idiot.
Beyond being mortifying, this dopamine blast is dangerous. My brother was caught drinking in high school because he came home one night and felt compelled to pop his head into our parents’ room and wish them goodnight. “I love you,” he told them, his voice shaking with earnest emotion. Since the angsty teen rebel hadn’t otherwise spoken a word of affection to them in years, they knew something was up. Busted!
I feel that punctuation is a key personality lever, but that lever fluctuates wildly depending on substance intake. Sober, I’m pathologically incapable of ending an email without a groveling exclamation point! When I’m cruising around mean and powerful on uppers (one iced coffee), I feel like . . . maybe I don’t need to. 🖕 When I’ve been overserved (a useful term for “drunk” that reframes me as a victim), I want to add a couple extra, and maybe a smiley!!!!! 🙃 But at least I’m not as bad as this.
Hallucinogenics 🍄
Our friend Nietzsche called alcohol one of “the great narcotics” of history, disapproving of the way it distances the user from reality. He considered hallucinogens to be a more intellectual choice, believing that they expand the psyche. Hundreds of years later, people are still using psilocybin in hopes that there’s some secret spiritual genius or eternal truth waiting to be unlocked in their brain. There isn’t . . . sorry.
Still, whether you’re an English opium-eater or a toad-licker, trips do something undefinable to your brain. Like a benign version of someone thinking they actually drive better when they’re a tiny bit drunk, my friend Dani turned out to be a gemstone savant, but only under the influence of acid. This was something we discovered on a Saturday-night visit to the mall, when a bored salesman at Jared (who was also named Jared!!!) cajoled us into a lesson about tam. Apparently tam means appeal, specialness: when experts are comparing diamonds, they can instinctively sense which one has the greater tam. He put it into what he thought was our language: “You know, the vibe.”
I couldn’t wait to read Confessions of an English Opium Eater, but it turned out to be boring. The best drug memoir is How to Murder Your Life.
Jared held up pairs of diamonds and asked us to declare which was best, like an eye exam. Dani, deliriously high, got every single one right. Jared couldn’t believe it; he said it was unheard of. He tried to offer her a job application.
Dani returned to the mall a few weeks later, sober, and popped in to say hello. Jared was thrilled to see her, and had her take another tam test so his coworker could witness the magic. But Dani had lost her talent. She only got one right. Jared was crushed.
This is surely a special skill, to access a plane of subtle geological revelations. But if you go overboard, you can end up fried. After long-term use (HEAVY use, I really don’t want to talk about microdosing, god, please), things tend to feel a little off. My friend’s ex-stepmother, an LSD queen in her day, once moved her house to a new location on a tractor-trailer. Unfortunately, like a taxidermied pet, the result was unsettling. Sunlight came through the windows in a new and disorienting way, and the stepmother was almost driven mad by the mirrors. She was convinced that something had happened to them; she thought she looked older. Her anxiety triggered acid flashbacks, and she ended up selling the house.
Off-label
Post–junior high, I’ve only known one person who was into the creative abuse of everyday household products. Nick was inherently resourceful. He once copied down the phone number from a sign our sexy neighbor had stuck to his door for FedEx and started a rich sext relationship. And he took an every-part-of-the-buffalo approach to drugs, asking for cans of whipped cream for his birthday; he enjoyed it for eating and nitrous oxide depersonalization breaks. (He disapproved of his ex, who had bad whippet etiquette: he drained the nitrous from cans in the grocery store, then put them back on the shelf.)
Once Nick got enough money to buy real drugs, he graduated to Adderall. He took enough to hallucinate haptic feedback when he touched anything—and, as a result, developed a case of TMJ, which was never something they warned us about in DARE. He later learned he’d bought movie-grade placebos.
A placebo counts as a drug, but it’s difficult to use recreationally because you have to be tricked into taking it, like a benevolent roofie.
Fun Drugs
One summer I took an anatomy-for-artists class that was largely populated by upbeat goth girls. They drank Starbucks (smearing black lipstick all over the lid) and asked lots of questions. Our teacher, trying to capitalize on the popularity of CSI by assigning us reading on forensic arts, had accidentally designed a curriculum heaven-sent for goths. They enthusiastically misconstrued the autopsy notes as romantic, dreamily doodling quotations on their desks. A coroner advising us that a bruise on a corpse means a heart was beating at the time of injury became their version of Tennyson: 🥀𝒜 𝒷𝓇𝓊𝒾𝓈𝑒 𝓂𝑒𝒶𝓃𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝒶𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔🥀
We were in the exciting era when “ecstasy” rightfully became “molly.” The linguistic coincidence (as a reminder, this is my name) is possibly what led the goths to invite me to party with them, and I found out that MDMA really did feel as great as I always imagined. Most first-time drug experiences don’t live up to expectations. They taste bad or you feel paranoid or just tired. But not molly. Whether I spent it joyfully wetting my pants in a haunted house, dancing like Taran, or unraveling an afghan to access the delicious texture of the loose yarn, the MDMA high never let me down.
But what happens after is worse than a hangover. MDMA is like racking up fifty grand in Faustian debt, and you pay for it during the comedown. The sensation of norepinephrine levels plummeting is a spiritual black hole of every bleakness you’ve ever endured, added together:
Finding your mom’s Word doc will on the shared family PC
+
Sitting in a dark Champps on a hot sunny day while the backs of your thighs stick to the vinyl booth . . . you forgot your pants . . . (jk you’re wearing shorts, but it’s still uncomfortable)
+
Refreshing your inbox while you await a job offer or sexual proposition; something pops up. It’s an email from Crocs asking you to review your recent purchase you corny hag
+
Enduring a Sunday night in January, PMS in full effect, phone silent, laundry unfolded, homework undone, and a commercial about animal or elder abuse playing on TV
=
🙁
Apparently it doesn’t bother some people, though.
Hard(ish) Drugs
Allegedly these come right after gateway drugs. A lot of people outgrow drugs as they age, which is bizarre. It’s more important to self-medicate once you’re older, as it becomes apparent that there’s no grand plan (or Santa) and that none of this adds up to anything! But these drugs aren’t good ones to use.
There are some pluses. Leo gives us another gif(t) from his wasted Wolf of Wall Street scene, and the darling bags are highly collectible, like you’re picking up a Barbie accessory for your collection.
Bad things in this realm of drugs include death—and white girls who’ve never taken anything stronger than SlimFast calling caloric foods “crack.”
Supposedly the parrots in the Monaco royal palace imitated the sound of champagne corks popping. Initially this concept seems festive, but in reality the startling noises and bird poop everywhere would be torture. This false glamor is similar to that of heroin or cocaine. You think it’s all chicly moping à la The Velvet Underground or partying with Andrew Rannells, but it’s usually just a bro explaining at 300 WPM (and that bro might be you . . . no offense). Snorting stuff is embarrassing (when it comes to intake orifices, I would even rather use a vodka tampon), heroin is best enjoyed with needles (veins are disgusting), and even the ones that seem cute (ketamine is for horses! 🥺) can kill you.
Just 💪🏼 Relax: the Best
There are two primary motivations for drug use: to get comfortable, or to cause excitement. I like to be comfortable! And therefore I crown muscle relaxers to be the best drug. Quaintly old-fashioned, medicinal, and semi-sporty—yum. Taking them gives me the feeling that I once expected all drugs would provide: a body-melting embrace, cozy and safe. Like a faux Duraflame campfire alongside the sleeping bags display at REI. They technically don’t do anything to your brain (I think), but it’s impossible not to feel mentally relaxed along with your muscles. It’s the perfect treat to look forward to, whether weekly, monthly, or annually. Btw, the end of daylight savings in November is the muscle relaxer fan’s 4/20. Mark your calendar for next year.
Alternative Medicine: Honorable Mentions
Caffeine: Coffee is gross. Too boring to really talk about.
Whippets: I appreciate that the effects are so brief. Usually embarking upon a chemical experience is so time consuming.
A drug you’d never heard of: It’s so satisfying to simultaneously learn of a problem along with its solution, like an already-done crossword puzzle. Someone figured it out! I can relax. The world functions while I rot and watch TV. Recently a friend informed me of the existence of Wakix, a medication for cataplexy. Love the name, very breakfast cereal, worthy of the fake pharma brands in modern fiction.
Superiority: According to the premier punk authority, study.com, “The straight edge movement is a hardcore punk subculture dedicated to great music, a rejection of authority, and abstinence from drugs and alcohol. The basic idea is that rebellion should not require self-destructive behavior. You can be angry and sober.” (Why suffer though, imho.)
The opiate of the masses: Religion is mostly a bummer, but if you truly believe, it can smooth over those tricky existential inconveniences for you.
Bonus Activity: things to think about when 〰️ altered 〰️
- 💊 Kris Kardashian’s jar of marbles that represents how many weekends she has left in her life, based on if she lives to be 88. She currently has about 1,000 left. It’s got to feel weird to get down into three digits, then two . . . eeeek.
- 🥦 Old embryos (including this one, who’s just a year younger than the mother who birthed her).
- 🍸 Terminal cancer patient Phyllis Olrich, who asked her husband Vernal to put her out of her misery. He reluctantly killed her in her hospital bed and then was charged with murder…and then Phyllis’s autopsy revealed she didn’t have cancer at all, just some back problem. She’d been misdiagnosed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- 🍄 How Kim Kardashian blow-dries her jewelry to warm it up before she puts it on.
- 😮💨 That Kit-Kats contain crushed-up Kit-Kats that didn’t pass inspection. 🐔🥚
- 🍥 Beluga whale heads.
