Adam stopped and I was grateful. The road was a worrying place to be - no town nearby, full-speed traffic. I was standing on the verge on a small square of concrete that protruded from the curb like a helipad, surrounded by hawthorn throbbing in a fierce wind.
Adam wore a toothpaste-coloured sweatshirt. We shook hands warmly. He had big hands. His eyes were honest and kind, beneath a tuft of strawberry-blond hair.
“So what are you doing hitchhiking?” He asked curiously. I explained. “Have you been mushroom picking?” I said I hadn’t but that he wasn’t the first to ask. It turned out Adam had been, in the mountains of Connemara so we got talking about psychedelics.
I said I’d have to do a bit of prep beforehand, referring to my lack of mushroom-identifying skills, “Wouldn’t want to die,” I laughed.
“Oh yep,” he replied, “You gotta do lots of prep… I did ayahuasca in Amsterdam and I hadn’t done enough prep.” It’s not what I meant but I didn’t interrupt, “Well… to be honest,” he continued, “I had a drink problem at the time and I went over to sort myself out. But the first time…” he shook his head, “I wasn’t ready for it, I hadn’t prepared at all. It was hell.”
He told me about it. Though he had nothing but words and a single hand to communicate it was vivid nonetheless. “I was standing on the edge of this huge black hole,” he said, “and there was this grating music. Have you ever seen 2001 Space Odyssey? It was the music from that, and it was getting louder and louder and louder. I was screaming at myself to jump but I…I couldn’t do it!”
He was in a special clinic, in a group with other people, all in their own realities. The two ladies next to him were screaming and crying and waving their arms which only made the hole deeper and blacker and the music louder, more piercing, lancing into his brain.
“The second time I did it though,” his expression opened, “It changed my life.
“They say you get what you need from ayahuasca and I did, both times. I needed the bad trip to make me realise I had to sort myself out. I was drinking myself mad. On my own. Not even my wife knew about it. You know, whiskey at lunchtime from bottles I kept hidden kinda stuff.”
He’d been drinking since he was 12 and was using it as an escape from depression and anxiety. Ayahuasca and cannabis got him past it: the ayahuasca to recalibrate, the cannabis to replace it. “Cannabis to an alcoholic is a godsend,” he said, “ It saved me.”
Cannabis is less addictive and the effects on the body are far less. When he desperately needed a drink he’d take some. Slowly he weened himself off alcohol until eventually he became sick and tired of needing anything at all. He still smokes occasionally but he never drinks. The craving sometimes shows a beguiling face, but he knows he can’t. It’s as simple as that.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “some of the best moments of my life were drinking. All my mates did it. Part of what was so hard about it was coming out to them and saying I’m an alcoholic or that I’ll have to never drink again. I thought they’d hate me! But of course, that didn’t happen. They’ve been so sound.”
Adam said Ireland had a big cocaine problem too, not that that had been his vice. “We consume the most per capita in Europe. Something like that.”
Much like Britain, I added, and we talked about how people slip into it slowly. Because it’s not allowed there’s a sense that it’s kind of naughty. It’s glamorous and cool. That’s a dangerous thing for an addictive drug.
“I’d never judge anyone for doing a substance,” he assured me honestly, “And I’d never tell someone they’re doing too many drugs, or drinking too much. That’s not my place. I think they have to work it out themselves because that’s the only way they can beat it. It has to come from within themselves.”
Not everyone slips into abuse though. Some people can drink perfectly happily and never become reliant, others can do cocaine at the weekend just fine. But when issues arise, the drugs become an escape and that’s when the abuse starts.
Adam said there’s a neuroscientist at NYU who does heroine at the weekends. The neighbourhood he grew up in was so bad that he devoted his life to researching drugs. He discovered that the issue was not the drugs. If you’re perfectly stable, mentally, socially, economically, you can do heroin on the weekends and you won’t have a problem.
“It’s to do with pain,” Adam surmised, “If you find the pain, you’ll cure the addiction. People will do anything to get themselves out of dreadful situations.”
Unsurprisingly, Adam was in favour of legalising drugs. Definitely the safe drugs: cannabis, ketamine, MDMA, drugs like that. “They’re all available anyway. So they should be legalised and managed, and kept pure. I could go down to the local pub and within half an hour have any drug I wanted. I could get crack if I wanted.”
“Irish pubs are famous for their craic,” I said, unable to resist, but I agreed wholeheartedly.
Nevertheless, there’d probably always be an illicit trade. When I was in California I was picked up by an interstate weed dealer. He had me to stay and showed me his crop out back. He told me there would always be a market for non-government marijuana. “But then,” I countered myself, “I suppose there’s a lot more government suspicion in America.”
“Governments have been involved in these conspiracy-type things though,” Adam replied as the conversation meandered on, “Look at the Opium Wars in China - the British government got China hooked on Opium on purpose. And the CIA caused the crack epidemic in the 80s. There’s solid, documented evidence for that. I can’t remember the details exactly, I’ll have to look into it again. You know, I’m not normally one for those tin hat kinda theories, but that one is definitely true.”
“And the Sacklers. Though I suppose they’re not the government.”
“Oh god, and the Sacklers.”
We’d been driving for nearly an hour by now. As we’d gone east the roads had got busier and we were part of a long serpent of cars. We passed a sign to Dublin.
“Do you like Dublin?” I asked. I found the subject increasingly interesting for some reason, hearing what people thought.
“Dublin’s a great city!” Adam replied, “I’ve got a lot of time for Dublin.”
“You’re the first person that’s said that!” I told him, surprised, “Most say they hate it.”
“Oh Dublin now is awful! It’s absolutely terrible!”
“That sounds more familiar,” I laughed.
“There are gangs attacking kids and everything. So many people on the streets. I mean I’d never judge anyone who was using, but you see people shooting up on the streets, it’s not good. No Dublin’s not good at the moment.”
We pulled off the main road in a town called Edgeworthstown and stopped in front of the dark facade of a gothic church.
“I was raised a catholic,” he contemplated once we’d stopped, “but I was never a religious man. I was an atheist, a Stephen Fry, Christopher Hitchens kind of atheist,” we looked at the red wooden doors, closed, “But after what I’ve seen… I believe there’s something. Not a god looking down and telling us we’re all sinners, but an energy that unites us all. Unites the universe.”
He looked up at the road and I broke the silence, “Well, thank you very much. It was inspiring talking to you.”
“Good luck getting to Dublin.”
“Thanks, sounds like I’ll need it.”
“Ah you’ll be alright,” he grinned, “People are good!”
And with that, we shook a warm handshake and went our separate ways.