Set, setting and substance
In my formative years we dilly dallied with Albert Hofmann's finest, and on this particular evening I was hosting.

I didn't really understand the more salient points of the above and had liberally bedecked my room with pictures and postcards mostly torn from Kerrang, neanderthals drinking blood from faux skulls etc. Loud metal music, bright lights, parents out till midnight.

One of the chaps we were with had never tripped before as the above 'setting' was not particularly conducive to a cosy evening in, he freaked. i.e. standing at the front door 10 mins before my parents were due back dressed only socks and pants planning to walk home (10 miles) "because his parents loved him".

We talked him down ATC style and just about got away with it.. put our jigsaw heads back together and he went on to get a degree and looked externatlly at least, relatively stable.

Fast forward three years and he gets arrested for trying to bring an illegal mexican immigrant back into the UK and marry her, apparently he thought he was the son of god, all sorts of weird shit. He then started to get waking nightmares of a post apocaplyptic nature, all alone, everyone else vapourised. A day before he was due to be sectioned he cut his wrists and threw himself in the river.

Hmm not as cathartic as I'd hoped for, that.
(Countryslicker, Fri 31 Aug 2007, 15:31, Reply)