Edward Guglielmino

I have a BA in Creative Industries. In my last year I decided to buckle down hard. I didn’t party very hard and was saving money. There was an option to do your last semester of University in New York. I signed up for the opportunity . It was my first trip overseas without Mummy and Daddy, so I saved every penny I had. At the time I was studying so I got youth allowance, plus I was working door to door, and running a music night at the now deceased alley bar.  I was a good video store member ship salesman, and the Alley Bar at the time was breaking records for mid week gigs, regularly pulling 100 plus people.  I lived in an apartment on Brunswick Street before the area went posh so my rent was only $100 a week.  To cut a long story short I saved $10,000 before I went to America.

As my parents saw me off, Mum handed me an American Express card and said “happy graduation, you worked so hard, use this if you need it overseas, have a good time you deserve it”

I think since most of my school teachers told my parents I was going to be a bum, they were surprised to be sending their son over to New York to study.

I stayed in a hotel next which also doubled as welfare housing. After one week in New York, I realized that I wasn’t going to need $10,000 to last 3 months. The people I had met had shown me how to live for around $20 US a day.  Once I finished my degree I still had 1 1/2 months left and lots of free time and money. I went on the biggest drug binge of my entire life.

It all started when I was walking into times square, and a drug dealer handed me his business card.  Very fast he said ‘coke,weed,pills,pot,smack’ and walked off.  I was at first kind of afraid to score drugs off a very tall african Amercian guy.  However later that night I was alone in my hotel room, and thought “well I’ll only live once”.

I rang the number.

Pick up “coke,weed,pills,pot,lsd”.  I had never tried coke, and I had never had a good pill so I asked for 2 pills and 2 grams of coke. He delivered it to my hotel door, the baggies all had the drug dealers number and logo on them.  I did a line and went out to party.

Two days later I woke up and got ready to head to Canada. I had done all my gear so I packed my bags and went to the airport the whole time feeling a piece of lint in my top pocket but not thinking much of it.  Landing in Canada, Billy and his girlfriend picked me up from the airport. Bill was a touring musician that had played the Alley Bar when I was running it and told me to come check out Toronto when I was in Canada.  On the way home from the airport Bill and his girl started sucking down bongs in the car. It wasn’t just weed, but weed mixed with a strong hallucinogen called saliva.  I took a toke and sunk back into the chair. Feeling the lint in my top pocket.

I don’t really remember that month, other than having a huge paranoid drug freak out on New Years Eve, we had been hitting these laced bongs, (the weed was also hydro, and so strong that Bill told me they would trade it, pound for pound for coke in the US, BC bud, its true, google it) and I decided to take two pills, and do a line, it was a very bad idea.

Leaving Canada I was still on another planet, I had dried up but was still Brain mashed, I left behind nearly half my stuff by accident. I flew down to Miami, to spend 4 days at Disney world.

Checking into the hotel, the owner said to me “You look fucked up”.

“I had a big New Year’s Eve” I said reaching for my wallet, feeling a piece of lint in my pocket.  I handed him my parents AMEX. He scanned it and handed it back to me, plus a zanax.

“Take this”, he said “It will give you a good nights sleep”

I took the sleeping pill and feel asleep, but woke soon after, the room was full of light, I was levitating above my bed. Green goo was coming out of the celling. I couldn’t move. I stayed like this for 8 hours, till I woke up.  It was of course some amazingly fucked up drug induced nightmare.  I was still having flash backs as I had my shower, and got ready to head out .

On the way out, the owner said  “Sleep well?”

It said (no bullshit) ” I just had the most fucked up dream of my entire life! I am going to Disney world!”

“Wanna do a line before you go?”

Disney World is the size of Brisbane, no shit, its massive. When you having four types of come downs, and your high at the same time, its like some apocalyptic nightmare.  Occasionally a cartoon would run up to me, I’d double take and it would be a dude in a mickey outfit. The roller coasters nearly killed me, I left an awesome 3D movie where you didn’t have to wear glasses only to find out it wasn’t 3D off the other patrons.  The four days were all the same. Zanax, Coke, Disney, Zanax, Coke, Disney.

Well, I thanked the hotel owner, and flew to New York. One night there, then four nights in Tokyo, then home.

Coming down in Japan was made harder by the obvious  language barrier and the fact that the Japanese don’t name there streets. On the third and last day I decided to repack everything, and empty my pockets. Then and there in my hotel room, a gram of coke dropped out of one of my shirt pockets, with the New York drug dealers logo on it.

So I managed to smuggled coke, in and out of America and into Japan undetected, while having trouble deciphering reality at the same time. It was easy. Although this is a cautionary tale, as upon my return to Australia I needed to take Anti Depressants for three months. If I could do it again I wouldn’t. I’ve never really 100% returned to normal.