DOSE:

2 oz

inhaled

Inhalants

(liquid)

BODY WEIGHT:

100 lb

[Erowid Note: Our understanding of the literature is that there is no such thing as safe recreational use of volatile solvents, aerosols and other street inhalants : their psychoactive effects are inseparable from nerve and organ damage. We have chosen to include these reports to help document the real world use of inhalants, but their inclusion is not intended to imply that they are anything but dangerous.]
Once when I was 15, I was hanging out with some people and someone pulled out a silver spray can. The brand label on it said 'Ethyl Jaz' and in smaller letters it said 'Ethyl Cloride.' Someone said it was like poppers, which I had never done. They took turns spraying it on a towel and then holding it to their faces. One girl actually put the sprayed part of the towel in her mouth, because she said it was better that way. I tried it, and started giggling immediately after I inhaled it. Then I wanted another huff, and another and another and another, but soon someone took it away from me.

I learned it was sold at a certain bar. I went to the bar, which was well-known as a hangout for gay men who liked leather & motorcycles. There was a boutique upstairs that sold leather accessories & sex toys. They had little bottles of 'VCR head cleaner' and cans of Ethyl Jaz in a glass case. I bought a can of Ethyl Jaz. It was very expensive for me, something like $25 for 2 ounces.

I took it home and started huffing it. At first it seemed like it was just something fun, it made me feel giddy. As soon as a hit wore off, I wanted to do another one. Then instead of just sniffing a sprayed rag, I started putting the rag inside my mouth and inhaling through it, like I had seen the girl at the party do. This method was incredibly more intense.

After taking a huff, I would immediately lose my vision. All was grey except for an oval-shaped pulsating green colored light ahead of me, and a little above me, and I would hear noises that sounded like the video game Pac-Man. I felt conscious, and yet I was completely engulfed by these sensations. I felt that I was elevating, and getting closer to the green oval, which held a wonderful mystic truth for me, if I could only get there.

Then I would regain consciousness. I had felt a sense of awareness during the huffing, but I fell off my chair and fell on the floor. So despite my feelings of being aware, bodily it was like passing out. When I came to, I felt numb and confused, and I immediately wanted to do another hit. Partly I wanted more to keep being 'high,' but I also felt that if I could just do a big enough hit, I would understand the secret message of the green light and be cosmically enlightened. The notion of 'cosmic' or 'mystic' truth did not occur to me at the time. This is just the best way I can explain it.

I kept huffing, and at one point I believe I lost all consciousness for a period of time. I was confused, so I don't know how long I passed out for. I had a bad headache, but I wanted to keep huffing, and attain the elusive universal truth that seemed so close at hand. Finally, I reached it. I received the holy message and it clicked in my head with an awesome understanding. It wasn't in words, but in pure thought that I felt had been delivered to me by a higher power. The message was that I was destroying my brain and I needed to stop.

I pondered this for a bit. Then I finished huffing the remainder of the can, which was almost gone by then. I did not get anywhere close to the previous feelings. I felt compelled to keep huffing, but I didn't feel like I was doing something enlightening anymore. I didn't use ethyl chloride again. Partly because it was an intense scary experience (and I thought, maybe dreadfully wrong, because of the message I got), and partly because it was expensive. Alcohol & LSD were so much cheaper, and a lot of times people would smoke their pot with me so it was free for me.

I tried poppers a couple times after that, and it was sort of a 'head rush,' but it came nowhere near the intense feelings of imminent spiritual awakening I had felt with the ethyl chloride. I thought that whoever had said that the Ethyl Jaz was 'like poppers' was a fool. I didn't use inhalents at any other time.

I kept using drugs for 5 more years. Sometimes, after smoking a lot of pot, I would get a little glimmer of that feeling of knowing a cosmic message -- the same message that I was destroying my brain, and I needed to stop. But the desire to get high was strong, and I chose not to heed the message. When I was 20, I got clean. I felt that my ability to stop using substances, despite the seemingly uncontrollable urges to use them, was a spiritual intervention. I felt some of the 'message' feelings during my early days and weeks of being clean, but this time it was that I was finally heeding the message 5 years after first hearing it.

I'm now 30 and have been completely abstinent from drugs and alcohol for 10 years. I still look back at Ethyl Jaz as a spiritual experience. 'Stop getting high' may seem like an improbable spiritual message to get from getting high. But if I hadn't stopped, I believe there's a strong chance I would have permanently damaged my brain or liver, or died. So it was an important message for me.

Exp Year: 1987	ExpID: 18279
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 15
Published: Aug 29, 2007	Views: 29,176
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Inhalants (29) : Alone (16), Mystical Experiences (9), Retrospective / Summary (11)