DOSE:

repeated

inhaled

Inhalants

BODY WEIGHT:

155 lb

I finally found an apt physical representation for what happened to me so many years ago. As I was hiking in an old-growth forest, I spotted a massive Douglas fir that has obviously been hit by a falling boulder during a landslide when it was a bit younger.

The base of the tree was shattered - the immense scar of the impact was still not fully healed over, and this tree was certainly on the order of 150+ years old. The trunk lay perpendicular to the ground for about 20 feet before it started to reach for the sky again. It was the largest tree around, a pretty clear indication that the other younger, weaker trees around it had been wiped off the slope by the same catastrophe.

This is how I feel about how huffing (and very specifically, gasoline) very nearly destroyed my life. I'm still occasionally plagued by the twisted reality that huffing gas caused me so very long ago , so I'm finally sharing my experience in the hopes that others won't screw up so severely.

I learned about getting high off inhalants from a couple 'friends'. I'd hit some aerosol cans of various stuff my parents had around (cross-country ski wax was the only one I specifically remember), and had gotten a tingly buzz off that. Gas had seemed pretty extreme to me when I'd heard it described the first time, but eventually I thought I'd give it a shot.

The first couple times, I'd pour a bit into a baggie, put that around my nose, and pull a few sniffs. I'd get the tingly buzz and the feeling that there were things around me that I couldn't quite see, but that was about it.

So, I pulled out a siphon hose, stuck it down into the gas tank of my car, sat down in the drivers seat, turned on the radio, and started taking some pulls off the hose. The first two times, the effect went a little farther than the baggie experience - the sky got a light checkerboard appearance to it, and some ill-defined visuals would appear at the corners of the checkerboard squares. Everything else was kind of pixelated (this, before I even knew what the hell a pixel was). I'd jog around the yard a little, as the physical rush was kind of lifting.

The third time, a few days later, oh fuck.

I had turned on the radio (it was an old car, so it was a.m. radio only, and the sound quality sucked). Music got a little deeper and much less sucky, and the checkerboard stuff was happening again. Someone rode by on a bike on the road (about 300 feet away), the low evening sun made their shadow 10 times bigger than they were, and an impossibly HUGE wave of deja vu hit me. I looked down at myself, glanced in the mirror, and said to myself, 'Wow, I'm a PERSON'.

There was a slight gap of time then, really very blank. Somewhere along the lines Joe Walsh's 'Life's been good to me so far' started playing on the radio.

All of a sudden, I was turning into the complete physically opposite of what I was. This is impossible to describe, but I'll try. I felt like I was passing through a wringer (like on those old time washing machines). As near as I can figure, I was turning the steering wheel of the car to the left, pulling myself (or being pulled from the other side and strongly resisting) into the anti-me. The gravel under the tires made this hugely disturbing sound that I could feel in my teeth, the music was IMPOSSIBLY loud, and there were strings of blinking lights surrounding my totally surreal outline - something like a giant frog, crossed with a car, with a human veneer smeared very thinly over it. (Damn, even writing this I can feel just how bad this was.)

It came to me that this anti-me and me had to take turns being in the pleasant world, and I had just given up my turn by doing something really stupid. I was trapped in this alternate reality until the flip side of me died or I somehow forced my way back into the appropriate reality.

Another blank time, and I slid back up through the wringer. I ran back into the house, lay down on the couch, curled up into a ball, and freaked totally. It felt like I was still getting pulled back into that crappy reality.

I've fought the feeling ever since. It's gotten much better over the years, but for the ages of 17 - 23 or so, I couldn't touch anything 'psychoactive' without feeling like I was going to be pulled back into that shitty place. Even now, 30 years later, I can't get more than a little buzzed without feeling uncomfortable that the bad crap will come back.

The resulting depression and blow to my self confidence has undoubtedly prevented me from being all that I could have been. I'm doing quite well by the normal measures of society, but I feel completely certain that by doing this particular piece of idiocy I am much less than I could have been.

So, don't huff gas, or anything else. If you do, you've got only yourself to blame for the consequences. If you've got the need to bend reality, look for something that is much less stupid and destructive.

Exp Year: 1978	ExpID: 74986
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 17
Published: May 11, 2026	Views: Not Supported
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Inhalants (29) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Hangover / Days After (46), Post Trip Problems (8), General (1), Alone (16)