Photo by leyre del rio on Unsplash

Lucy in the Sky (at the Ball) Diamond

We boarded the yellow school bus and headed for the back seats. Our bus was one of two that would be leaving our high school parking lot to travel the highways from Peterborough to Toronto to catch a Blue Jay’s baseball game.

We giggled as my girlfriends passed around a mickey (13 oz bottle) of vodka. I didn’t drink any as I’d already taken LSD — lysergic acid diethylamide — also known as acid.

Acid was my drug of choice because it provided a “feel-good” sensation similar to the serotonin chemical in the brain. Being odourless, teachers couldn’t smell it on my breath and I wouldn’t get caught carrying around a bottle.

It was also easy to buy. My boyfriend, Donnie, knew when Rory would be driving up to the Becker’s Convenience store in his pea-green pickup truck. Rory would ask how many hits (pills) we wanted and charged $5.00 a pill.

This fit my pocketbook, as I earned a wage of $3.25/hour as a part-time employee in the Bake Shop of Food City grocery store. I’d split the pill in two and only take half at a time.

I never took a full hit because I wanted to get high twice. But also because the pill scared me.

Although I loved how it altered my mood, it also produced hallucinations and psychedelic effects that sometimes frightened me. One night at a party, I watched an image of the devil talking to me on a television set. When I turned to ask if my friend could see it too, I realized the television was not on.

In those first few moments after placing the pill under my tongue, I experienced both excitement and dread about what would be coming ahead. The pill lasted up to 15 hours, so I knew I was in for a long, unpredictable night.

The bus ride to Toronto took a couple of hours, but it passed quickly as we talked, laughed, and played games. We stopped only once, at Mcdonald’s, for a washroom break.

We arrived at Exhibition Stadium in plenty of time to find our seats. Although I was excited to watch the Jays play, I took more delight in watching the birds flying in the sky above us.

On the ride home, most of my classmates passed out. But I couldn’t sleep. My heart beat fast, and even if I closed my eyes, I saw brightly coloured shapes dancing in the air.

Once home, I quickly said goodnight to my parents and crawled into bed. But I knew sleep would be elusive. I decided to watch the images before my eyes and try to enjoy the trip.

But the atmosphere in my room felt heavy, oppressive. The images so real. One such grotesque image was Medusa. This monster had writhing serpents for hair, and I backed away and squeezed my eyes shut as she came closer. I covered my mouth to hold back my scream.

When I slowly reopened my eyes, she was gone.

But there was an arrow floating in my room. It had all the rainbow colours and twirled about the room from side to side. I followed with my eyes until it turned and, in a blast of speed, headed straight for me. I screwed up my eyes and felt it smack into my forehead, jerking my neck back.

Lying supine on my bed, I reopened my eyes. The room was quiet. The air lighter. The demon presence was gone.

Shaking in my bedsheets, I experienced firsthand how drugs can open one up to the demonic realm. I had heard that mind-expanding drugs could transport people into the realm of demonism and the Bible warns about intoxication and making choices that lead to giving up control of our body and mind.

1 Peter 5:8 (ESV) says, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

We are to live under the control of God’s Spirit and not provide a portal for a demonic spirit to enter our bodies.

Just as I believed in God, I believed in the devil. I believed we have a spiritual enemy who wants to steal, kill, and destroy. But to experience it in such a personal way shook me to my core.

From that moment forward, I vowed never to do psychedelic drugs again.

You may also like Prayers of the Saints

If you like compelling, heart-wrenching, and nostalgic stories like this one then you’ll love this memoir of young life experiences that take you down memory lane. Buy Through Trials to Triumph: A Memoir of a Catholic Girl’s High School Years to learn how your faith and trust in God can root you through troubled times today!