What happens if it all becomes too much, and I literally cannot take it anymore?
This is the question I’ve been pondering for the last twenty minutes and I’m terrified of what the answer might be. I’m surrounded by 65,000 screaming soccer fans. It’s my first ever World Cup match and to say it’s a stimulating environment would be an understatement.
I try to focus on the match. Traumatic visions from my childhood flash before my eyes. The crowd roars like a 747 on takeoff. Everyone is standing and screaming. I feel like if I’m required to stand with them, I’ll lose it.
Breathe. Each breath gets me a little closer to the 60-minute mark. At 60 minutes I should be okay, right? The THC should have peaked by then and then it will get easier.
It’s not even half time yet. How has so little time passed?
Breathe. In, out.
I should be nearly at the peak now, but it’s still getting worse. What exactly did I take?
My friend asks if I’m okay. It takes everything in me to reply with, “Yeah.”
I’m not.
I’m at about 90% of my limit. Everything is just… So much.
But how do I even know what my limit is if I’ve never hit it before? Somehow, in this moment, I just know that I’m close.
The nausea is building. I think I might puke. That would be bad. Really bad. Pretty sure that would take me to the limit and then I’d have to learn what happens on the other side. In the most public possible setting.
I tell myself that if I hit 95%, I’m going to tell my friend that I’m not okay. Maybe he’ll know what to do. I won’t.
I’m rehearsing telling him “I’m not okay” in my head. I need to be ready. I can’t wait too long or I won’t be able to communicate.
I’m not sure how I know this if I’ve never been there, but once again, I just know.
It’s still getting worse. How is that even possible? I only took half a gummy. Isn’t this stuff regulated? How did I get here?
…
It’s a Thursday morning and I’m walking to a smoke shop in a questionable neighborhood in Kansas City. It seems like every other shop in this neighborhood is a smoke shop. How many could you possibly need?
This place is impossible to label accurately. There’s a pristine package sitting on the street which recently housed what I can only describe as an ambitious sex toy. Down the street are several unlabeled establishments which I suspect might be strip clubs. Multiple g-strings are strewn about the parking lot.
A team of police are sweeping through an overgrown area. Maybe they lost their dildo.
This is a place caught mid-gentrification. Just down the road is a trendy corner with all sorts of trendy bars and restaurants, the flagship being a rare Taco Bell Cantina. They serve alcohol, but at the expense of not serving breakfast.
Honestly, probably not a fair trade.
I enter the smoke shop. It’s larger than its modest, old-brick exterior would have you believe.
Like all smoke shops, it’s clear the person who designed it was high at the time.
It’s just a giant square room lined with glass display cases lining the edges. The 3000 square feet in the center are completely empty.
Surely these places are laundering money, right?
The store is also completely devoid of life, save the one employee standing behind the farthest counter.
I had just discovered that Missouri not only has legal recreational cannabis, but that its laws were some of the most lax in the country.
I would come to believe that there was no regulation of any kind.
After experiencing the long lines and overpriced beers of the Fan Fest the night before, I was not thrilled about the idea of trying to drink at the match later this evening.
THC seemed like a great alternative. I could take a single small gummy, relax a bit throughout the match, and not need to buy anything or leave my seat at all.
I informed the employee that I was looking for gummies, and that by the standards of a smoke shop employee, I probably didn’t consume very much and so I didn’t need anything very strong.
He immediately recommends I buy a pack with two giant gummies, each one 2,000mg of THC.
Now, at this point I realize I’m out of my element. Surely these cannot be the same measurements as what we have back home, where 10mg is considered a relatively high dose.
I ask him about it and he confirms it’s different. He seems like he knows what he’s talking about, so I defer to his experience and expertise for recommendations. This man is an experienced professional, I tell myself.
I tell him that I’d prefer something with more numerous, smaller pieces. So that I don’t have to whip out my milligram scale just to make sure I don’t die.
What he presents to me is something called “Dome Wrecker”.
Perhaps to a more cautious (or smarter) person, this would have been a time to take a step back and question life choices.
I shrugged it off. They all have names like that here. It would seem that Missouri weed culture is a celebration of excess. Could also be a sign that regulation is nearly non-existent.
You’d think if they named a liquor product “Heart Puker” or “Galactic Blackout” it would get pulled off the shelves immediately. But apparently anything goes for weed here. Nobody is worried about coming off as glamourizing overconsumption.
Dome Wrecker has twenty-one individual gummies, totaling 11,000mg. Still seems high, but I remind myself that it’s not measuring the same thing. Probably.
I reiterate to him that my tolerance is not particularly high and I don’t want to be out of my mind. I’m trying to enjoy myself at a soccer match, not meet God.
He recommends taking one gummy. Half if I want it to be more mellow.
I’m a responsible adult. I don’t need to push it. Half sounds good.
…
We’re at Arrowhead Kansas City Stadium. We had to take an Uber to the shuttle pickup location, wait in line for forty-five minutes, then ride to the stadium.
Door-to-door was probably less than two hours. Honestly, I was expecting worse. Maybe I’m just spoiled by being from Minneapolis, but I question the logic of building your biggest stadium dozens of miles from the city center and not even connecting it to any of your transit lines.
It seems… Exceedingly foolish.
After getting off the bus, we had to navigate what felt like miles of steel barricades. We joked that someone at FIFA must have owed a serious favor to the local steel barricade supplier, because it was egregious.
I assumed that our interactions with these barricades would be just as limited coming back. I was wrong.
Finally, we reached the security checkpoint to enter the stadium. It was now or never.
I pulled out my ziploc with a half-gummy in it and didn’t hesitate in taking the whole thing.
The responsible choice. I didn’t even bring the whole thing just in case I felt like having more. I praise myself for my mature decision, befitting for an almost-40-year-old like myself.
Immediately, we encountered a stand selling beers. Might as well grab one. With tip, the total for two beers between me and my friend was around $50.
Acceptable. This is the World Cup, after all. Ironically, the high price we paid for the tickets makes us willing to spend more on drinks, too.
We’re a little early for the match and assume the stadium would still be largely empty. That illusion was dispelled the moment we stepped onto the concourse.
The sound was deafening.
As we approached the entrance to our section we saw that the stadium was nearly 100% full already, and the crowd was already cheering and chanting at maximum volume.
The match was Netherlands vs. Tunisia, and it was clear at a glance who was the crowd favorite. The stands were a sea of orange in support of the Dutch national team. Earlier that day, we witnessed a crowd 35,000 strong flooding through downtown Kansas City in support of the team.
How many of them were actually Dutch? Hard to say. I’m positive quite a few were, and to be honest I felt bad for them that their international trip to the United States featured Kansas City prominently.
Nothing against Kansas City, it’s just that I can’t imagine such a city would live up to European standards of city planning and public transit.
Again, this is a city that chose to build their largest stadium dozens of miles from their population center in the middle of nowhere. There isn’t even a rail connection or transit hub of any kind nearby. It belies genuine disdain towards those unable to afford a car.
Sports fandom has been officially gentrified. But I digress.
We trudged through the dense crowd down to our assigned seats: just a few rows from the front near a corner. The perfect view.
Once seated, we were quickly caught up in the energy of the place. It had been rapidly building as the start of the match approached. Flags requiring hundreds of people to wield were unfurled across the pitch. National anthems were played and the crowd roared.
Our hopes that the weather would hold out were quickly dashed as the rain picked up shortly after arrival. I’m initially grateful for something to drown out the oppressive, wet Kansas City heat that has been beating down on us all day.
The three of us don the bright orange rain ponchos my friend bought specifically for this match. This is actually ideal. I’m wearing a faded, pale-orange tank top that really is not at all the right color. It’s the only orange thing I own.
An enthusiastic young man a section over from us tried his best to get a wave started. He’d organize with nearby fans, do a countdown, and then launch into a war cry and raise his hands up to the sky like a Dragon Ball Z character summoning an energy blast.
This small wave had enough steam to reach our section before fizzling out shortly after.
He tried a handful of times, but after a while people started to see that it wasn’t going to work, and enthusiasm dried up.
There just wasn’t enough crowd energy.
…Yet.
By the time the match actually started, everyone in the stadium was on their feet, and most were cheering or chanting nearly constantly.
I’m starting to feel the effects of my gummy now. Which is slightly concerning because it’s only been maybe forty-five minutes since I took it. Typically I don’t feel them until much later.
Regardless, I’m vibing now. I’m getting caught up in the incredible energy and am just taking everything in with a child-like enthusiasm.
Netherlands scores two early goals and the crowd is losing their minds. The energy has just been building and building and I truly understand what people mean when they describe an atmosphere as “electric”.
It’s as if a literal charge is building up.
What happens when it’s too much? Surely it can’t build forever.
I get my answer.
Something is approaching. From a single direction, we hear a growing roar. There’s some confusion as to what’s happening, and our section momentarily grows quiet in anticipation.
That’s when we see it.
Still several sections away, a massive wave has formed, the whole height of the stadium. It’s hurtling towards us like a stampede.
I feel my pulse quicken. My body tenses up. Prepared.
I think about tenth grade biology class. I remember learning about action potential. If the electrical signal from the previous neuron is powerful enough, this neuron will fire, too, and a brain wave will be formed.
The neuron has no choice in the matter. If the signal is strong enough, it will fire.
What’s coming towards me is a brain wave, played out in human scale.
The electricity in the arena has reached its limit, and the resulting wave appears to have occurred spontaneously. The inevitable consequence of so much energy.
The roar becomes truly deafening. I see bodies launching towards the sky with arms flailing. By the time it hits me, I realize I’m already in the air, and I hear myself screaming. There is no thought involved, only action.
I’m a neuron. Passing along a signal.
We are all united in a single brain-like system. We are one. We cease to be individuals and instead exist only to keep the wave going.
The first wave passes and I’m feeling euphoric. This type of connection with humanity is a scarce resource and I’m loving it.
I see the wave round the far corner and now we can actually see it in all its glory. Two-hundred feet tall, at least fifty feet wide, and moving faster than the players on the pitch can run, I’m awe-struck at its consistency and form.
It looks unnatural. To see that many people moving in unison genuinely looks wrong. Like in a movie with bad CGI where crowds just seem to be the same four people copied and pasted at scale, I’m seeing hundreds of people wearing the same shade of orange move the same way simultaneously.
Or at least at a distance, the wave appears to be perfectly formed and it’s easy to think that each individual moves the same.
But I look closer and realize it’s not true at all.
Individuals rise up at totally different times. Some require different amounts of energy to stand up, meaning that some will rise relatively early, and some will rise relatively late.
I think about creating a graph of when people tend to stand up relative to the center. I suspect it would be a perfectly normal distribution.
A wave.
Then I realize there’s no need: what I’m seeing is quite literally that exact graph, and you can see the resulting wave. A gaussian demonstration of statistics and humanity playing out before my eyes.
I’m here in a massive stadium, itself a literal monument to our collective capabilities when we work together towards a common goal. Individuals are often chaos, but it all evens out when we work together.
The wave cannot exist without the individuals, of course. But more than that, it’s the differences in the individuals that make a wave what it is. Without those differences, it would just be…
A line.
That wouldn’t be cool at all.
Man, I’m high.
I’m still manageable and enjoying everything, but I need to keep an eye on how things are going and make sure I don’t get too bad.
The wave continues for what feels like thirty minutes. It probably passes over us at least a dozen times.
I don’t even notice when it stops.
Isn’t that true of everything great in life? You never really notice when it’s over. One day you just realize it’s gone.
“Don’t get too introspective,” I tell myself. “You’re not here for that.”
As if willing yourself out of a hole is ever a successful strategy, I continue doing everything I can to pay attention to the match and what’s going on around me.
I notice that the THC’s effect seems to increase rapidly before remaining static or even retreating.
Waves again.
Everything is connected.
I wish I were sober so I could really appreciate it.
Oh, wait… I wouldn’t have noticed sober, probably.
Yin and Yang. Catch-22. You gotta take the good with the bad. Etc.
Another wave, and this time it’s really hitting me hard. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to avoid completely retreating inside myself.
I’m nestled in my poncho like a cocoon. In here I am safe and dry. It stopped raining a while ago but I don’t dare take it off. Who knows if I’ll be able to get it back on again later if it starts raining again.
Alright, the game clock is at about forty minutes. Based on the most precise calculations my addled mind can muster, if I can make it to sixty minutes, I’ll probably be past the peak and it will all be downhill from there.
Halftime comes and goes. Was there a show? Anything? I honestly can’t remember.
Time is moving at a snail’s pace. I keep looking up expecting that twenty minutes have passed only to be horrified that it has only been three.
The stranger next to me, evidently unaware that she is sitting next to a zombie, asks me a technical question about a penalty, or… Something. Apparently the match has been paused for a while. I didn’t notice.
To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have known the answer even sober since I don’t actually know anything about soccer, so with the help of a well-timed hit of adrenaline, I summon all my mental faculties and manage to respond coolly with, “I’m actually not sure, I didn’t catch it”.
Or at least that’s what I think happened.
The stranger, either satisfied with my response or – more likely – now keenly aware that I’m not all there, does not press further and turns back to the match.
This has long since stopped being fun and I’m now the only one in the crowd sitting. My gameplan has remained consistent: just pay attention to the match, don’t retreat.
How exactly I could manage that when I can’t see over the people standing in front of me, I’m not sure. But one problem at a time.
Periodically, fans in my row need to pass in front of me to get to the bathroom or buy snacks. The possibility of needing to stand weighs constantly on my mind, and when it actually happens I’m as ready as I can possibly be.
My balance is completely shot at this point. I slowly rise like a ninety-year-old arthritis sufferer. I brace myself carefully with both hands on my seat behind me.
Based on their reactions, I’ve barely risen and am still so much in the way that they suspect I’m being intentionally disruptive.
They say nothing and carefully slide past me. The Dutch are an intractably polite people.
It’s still getting worse. I’m starting to get worried.
…
It’s the 75th minute. The last half hour has been excruciating. I’ve done everything in my power to get through it. Deep, slow breathing and a lot of effort to focus on positive things.
With a normal high dose of THC, I’ve found my mind will sometimes wander to various things, good and bad, that maybe I really need to think about or deal with emotionally. That’s great.
With an aggressively high dose of THC, it just goes wherever it wants, and it’s usually bad.
The thoughts that pop into your head are often not only irrelevant but also not grounded in reality. You worry about things that you didn’t even know existed (and probably don’t). You imagine problems in your life that aren’t there.
While it’s likely true all the time, anxiety causes thoughts and not the other way around. The mind seeks to explain and justify the feeling.
And extreme anxiety calls for extreme thoughts.
That’s what I’ve been battling.
Fortunately, this is not my first rodeo. While I certainly don’t make a habit of getting anywhere near such a state, I am experienced enough to know that I can’t take every thought seriously right now. They are caused by the drug, nothing more.
Deep down I know that I’m okay, that I’m safe, and that I’m not alone and my friends are with me.
I just need to wait.
It’s with a tempered sense of relief that I realize things haven’t gotten any worse for at least twenty minutes. They aren’t getting better yet but this realization tells me they will soon.
All I need is to sit quietly for another thirty to sixty minutes and everything will be okay.
Just thirty to sixty minutes.
My friend taps me on the shoulder and asks hesitantly, “Are you okay to leave?”
Oh… Oh no.
I hadn’t considered the possibility that they’d want to leave before the match was even over. Doesn’t all the action happen right at the end?
No, I’m not okay to leave. Far from it. There’s no way I can get up and walk around in a crowd yet.
I do expect to be improving soon, though.
I tell him I’m not ready yet and need more time. He asks how much.
I run more numbers in my head. I figure in thirty minutes I can probably stand and walk. It’s really a gut reaction more than anything.
“Fifteen minutes,” I say.
It’s going to take a monumental effort to be able to leave in fifteen minutes, but the last thing I want is to be disruptive to my friends’ experience. I have to balance keeping them here longer with the possibility that I could cause a scene if I get up.
Fifteen minutes might work.
I sit as still as possible, as if giving my body all of its faculties to process the toxin as quickly as possible. I’m aware that’s not how it works but the desperate cling to desperate ideas.
Earlier I wanted time to pass as quickly as possible so I could be sober. Now I want it to pass as slowly as possible… So I have time to be sober.
As a result, fifteen minutes fly by and he’s once again asking me if I’m okay to leave.
“I have to be,” I think to myself.
I know that once I’m up and moving, I’ll just keep going, so I summon all the focus and concentration I have to stand up and follow him up the stairs. His wife isn’t with him. Either she left immediately without waiting for me to get myself together, or maybe she just went to the bathroom. I’m not sure.
My friend also proceeds quickly up the stairs without looking behind him. I’m sure it was a combination of wanting to motivate me to get moving quickly, and fear that when he looked behind himself I wouldn’t be there.
I am relieved to discover that my legs work and that I’m capable of walking up stairs. I find him again among the throngs of fans exiting the stadium and we reunite with his wife to begin the arduous journey back.
…
I’m feeling better. The THC has receded to manageable levels. Walking has given my mind focus. I’m noticing things around me again.
The fiery electricity from the early portions of the match has been replaced with a solemn, communal satisfaction. The connection is still there but it has taken on an entirely different form.
We all work our way out of the stadium in unison, every body proceeding in the exact same direction. There is no chatting or conversation. Instead, there’s just chanting.
I don’t recognize the chants but they appear to be coming from every direction. They seem to almost drone on as they echo throughout the flat, unadorned concrete surfaces of the stadium.
We are funneled down a spiral ramp that’s open in the middle, allowing me to see several stories of people clad in orange, all filtering the same direction together, solemnly pushing forward and chanting. They are all rhythmically slapping the wall as they march along. I picture leaf cutter ants traveling along a vine en masse.
The gods themselves seem to be smiling upon us. The clouds have opened up and with its last breath before setting, the sun is casting a magical golden glow over us.
I genuinely feel as though I’m in a real-life scene from a musical. Everyone is coordinated together perfectly and the sounds only grow as we proceed along the track.
Once again, I feel as though we are all one. Instead of a brain, we now form a circulatory system. We are blood being pumped through arteries, providing oxygen and nutrients as we go.
We share the same purpose.
Keep moving forward.
I’m completely transfixed by the scene and am also a part of it. I feel an incredible sense of meaning and connectedness. There is nothing beyond these halls. Everything I need is right here.
Once again, however, I am reminded that nothing great sticks around forever.
At some point, I realize that our pace has slowed to a crawl. The crowd is barely moving.
My heart drops as I realize what all the barriers were for. Snaking around and folding in on itself, it’s a line. A line meant to maintain order as the tens of thousands of attendees clamor to get on one of the busses going back to the city.
There is no train. Walking would take a full day. There’s not even driving, because the whole parking lot seems to have been used to create this monstrosity of a line.
The sun has set now and darkness is falling. For lighting, they appear to have borrowed the lighting towers from around the prison in Shawshank Redemption.
Soulless, 30-foot towers cast a sterile, blueish light on us. The kind of light that blinds without illuminating our way.
This light isn’t meant for our benefit. We’re meant to be watched.
Hundreds of armed police and security guards monitor our progress and are prepared to step in if order breaks down.
The stable purpose and connectedness from before has morphed into something far more dystopian.
Discordant sounds are coming from everywhere. My friends and I are still proceeding grimly through the gauntlet at whatever speed we’re able, rarely speaking.
We pass a group going the other way still chanting like before.
A child is screaming. Is he alone? Who would even bring a child here?
A man far behind us in line has had enough and jumps a barrier to skip ahead. A rather surly female officer screams at him with all the authority she can muster, “DO NOT JUMP THE BARRIER! GET BACK!”
Unphased, the man continues along his way and jumps another barrier to get farther ahead. The officer does nothing.
The atmosphere is tense, and it feels more dystopian by the minute. The officer likely sensed the growing frustration and resentment of the crowd and decided to cut her losses before a full-blown riot broke out.
Nice to see that they’ve actually had at least some training.
While my state is at least manageable by this point, I’m still very far from normal. I catch my friends glancing at each other and shaking their heads. I know they are upset because it’s taking way longer than expected, and I know it’s mostly my fault because I couldn’t leave when they wanted to. We would have beaten the crowds.
I ponder when the appropriate time is to apologize for my actions and their consequences. “Not yet,” I say to myself. It would be better to let things cool off and for me to be way more in control so I can actually word it correctly.
It feels like we are in line for several hours, and we very well may have been. Every few minutes something wild happens.
A bus, guided by a baton-wielding worker, backs out of its parking spot straight into a Shawshank light pole. The whole thing rocks at the impact.
The bus driver speeds off without hesitation.
I suspect neither he nor his accomplice are even aware of the collision. Kansas City’s finest.
After what seems like an eternity, we finally board a bus back to the city. I honestly don’t remember anything from the bus ride.
We finally found ourselves… Somewhere for dinner. I don’t remember where or what I ate. But I do remember apologizing to my friends for the delay I caused. They were in better spirits now that we were eating, and did me the kindness of downplaying the severity of the issue and my contribution towards it.
“We might have had to wait that long anyway,” one of them says.
I doubt that very much but it’s sweet of you to say.
I wake up the next morning after a lengthy night of sleep. My Oura ring reports an incredible night of sleep.
The secret to good sleep is getting mind-numbingly high, apparently.
My dome was efficiently wrecked. For once, the marketing wasn’t exaggerating.
I still feel high. It’s been at least sixteen hours. I contemplate walking back to the smoke shop and giving them a piece of my mind.
It would take another twelve or so hours before I’d finally feel normal again. The high from a single half gummy lasted over twenty-four hours. I shudder to think what would have happened had I taken the full gummy.
Our little group is understandably lower-energy today. I have plenty of time for reflection in the lulls between conversation.
I should have been more careful. I didn’t understand what I was consuming, and the advice of probably potheads should not be taken as gospel. If I were alone at home, it may not have been a problem. But the risks were much greater in public, and the enjoyment of my friends was also at stake.
I looked up reviews for the Dome Wrecker product, which ranged from, “This stuff is extremely strong” to “I didn’t feel anything.”
One reviewer said that he and his girlfriend started by doing a half gummy each, but that after a week they needed a full gummy for the full effect.
It is absolutely wild to me that there are people living normal lives and consuming an entire one of these things every single day. I find myself wondering what kind of lives these people have that any part of that would be reasonable.
As for my experience, I want to make it clear that I don’t condone this type of overconsumption and certainly don’t mean to glamorize it. It wasn’t planned, but it was still my fault.
With that being said, it might surprise you to hear that some great things did come from it.
First, I feel that there is always value in facing a very difficult situation and persevering through it. It was challenging but I did it.
Now obviously the “challenge” here was entirely self-imposed and served no real purpose. That is not lost on me.
At the end of the day, I think many if not most of our greatest challenges are entirely self-imposed. It doesn’t make it meaningless when we overcome them.
The second great thing that came out of this situation is that I have some all-time favorite memories as a direct result. Like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun, but the view was nice while it lasted.
Experiencing the electric energy in the stadium early in the match and then later the organized chanting and march to the exit was honestly incredible. I will never forget them. I suspect I will view them as some of the best memories of my life.
I certainly won’t be attempting to recreate any of this ever again. The lows were… Quite low. And could have been considerably worse. I can’t risk that.
But you can’t have the highs without the lows, and they often come one after the other. Many of the best experiences in life build up slowly to an incredible crescendo before crashing back down into the deepest lows.
If you’re lucky, the process will then start up again and you’ll be on your way back up.
Just like a wave.