When I realized that I would not be able to start college that fall of 1975, I decided that drinking to excess was over for me (a policy I've maintained to this day). In order to support myself, I quickly secured employment at the hospital next door as a surgical orderly where, for six months, I worked alongside many pre-med graduates who had been unable, at that point, to get into medical school. Most were biding time, applying to various schools around the world. This was fortuitous, since, about two years earlier, I had adopted a sort of "subscript" to the effect of Gonna Be a Doctor, mainly as a defense against the "whatcha gonna be when ya grow up?" question. Having surveyed everyone willing to offer an opinion, the consensus seemed to be that medicine was the logical choice for anyone whose strengths lie in math and science and I had scored in the top 5 percentile nationwide on the ACT). Totally devoted to (and completely dependent upon) intellect, I, of course, intended to be logically perfect.

      I got my car repaired and was accepted to Memphis State University for the spring semester of 1975. From the older guys I'd worked with, I got the message that the key to medical school was to be a serious student from day one, therefore I applied myself to a rigorously regimented study program, taking full loads all semesters, including interim and summer. Later that year, I found a full-time evening job as a surgeon's assistant at a suburban hospital and, for recreation, I collected poisonous snakes and high-powered guns. Off into the woods I'd go, each weekend, to pound the ammunition I had manufactured during the week through my elephant rifle, and to gather the venomous reptiles that I traded with collectors across the globe. The academics came easy for me and, that first spring, I was chosen for membership in Phi Eta Sigma, National Freshman Honor Society.

     Having met a young phlebotomist at the hospital who seemed attracted to me, I initiated a relationship that would continue for the next five years. We moved into an apartment together and the following two years were pretty much without incident. I had a full-time job that was interesting, near 4.0 GPA, a lover, hobbies, modest but adequate cash flow, and leisure time. For our vacation, Cyndy and I drove to Disney World, in Orlando Florida, during the summer of 1976, playing the tourist role for all it was worth.

     The next year, I joined a group of coworkers in applying to UCE medical school in the Dominican Republic. Being impulsive, impatient, and naive, I was easily seduced by the fact that one only needed two years of undergraduate school versus the four required in the United States. When accepted, I made a $5000 loan, and departed in time for the summer 1977 semesters. The Criculo San Esteban, student housing in a converted monastery, became my residence in the tiny pueblo of San Pedro de Macorix, forty miles from the capital of Santo Domingo. Classes entirely in Spanish (in which I'd only had one year of instruction) made the coursework quite difficult intially. In addition, I had never been confrontated with the appalling spectacle of abject poverty on such a scale. This, along with the absence of the familiar trappings of American life, coalesced into a profound and disturbing culture shock.

     I did reasonably well through winter of 1978 but, by then, I had come to realize that the education was so inferior that I might not pass the required tests to practice in the U.S. Deciding to cut my losses, I returned home to finish my undergraduate work and apply to an American medical school. This was the first major overt act upon a theme of always almost succeed that could have been a sweatshirt logo a few years later.

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     My brother, younger by two years, was attending college at a small and secluded campus of the University of Tennessee that boasted an all-PhD faculty and the highest rate of acceptance to professional school for its students in the mid-southern area. I registered late and got into the winter 1978 quarter, moving to the rural farming town of Martin, TN with Cyndy, who had waited for me while I was overseas. Two events occurred that year that would profoundly impact my future.

     I found myself having difficulty staying awake in class and at home in the evenings as I studied for the next day's classes. My brother told me that he had experienced similar symptoms the year before and that his doctor had diagnosed him as suffering from Narcolepsy, prescribing dextroamphetamine. Knowing that this condition was suspected of being genetic, I accepted a sample of the medication. I remember describing the experience with something akin to religious awe, and arranged for a small supply from him. It seemed to furnish something for me which had been missing. My stamina and concentration seemed to be increased by 500% and I accomplished a week's work in a day.

     Always observing the recommended dosage, I never suffered any ill effects over the following two years. Quite the contrary, my work at that school became something of a legend during this period of time. I took monstrous loads of up to 21 hours of heavy, upper-division science and math, scything through the course work like the proverbial hot knife and acing every class. I set and completed double majors in both chemistry and biology and a minor in math. My professors were amazed and they made arrangements to take me to Vanderbilt University, where the faculty there tried to sell me on their school for my postgrad work. However, I stubbornly clung to my hopes for an MD.

     Early in my senior year, I was given a research appointment in drug chemistry for which it soon appeared that I possessed an intuitive gift. The following spring, I was asked to present my work at the 1979 regional American Chemical Society meeting, during a visit by the ACS president, Gardner Stacey, who, it turned out, chose my presentation as the best of those given that day. Also that spring, the school awarded me its highest honor when I was inducted into the national scholastic honor society. I felt that my star had reached its zenith when my application to the medical school at the UT Center for Health Sciences in Memphis was accepted for the fall class of 1979.

     Cyndy had worked for those two academic years in a local clothing factory to supplement my scholarships and it seemed that all our hard work was about to pay off in spades as we prepared for my triumphant march into the halls of medicine. I would not have to attend my final quarter of undergraduate school because it was customary for students who were accepted to professional school during their senior year to have their degree awarded automatically after 90 hours of graduate work.

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     In the mean time I had become fascinated with the chemistry and physiology of the brain and the pharmacology of substances affecting the central nervous system. Of specific interest were agents which boosted memory and mental performance, along with developments in the new field of anti-aging drugs. I also possessed a strong curiosity about the alleged spiritual aspects of certain hallucinogenic substances. Many hundreds of hours of my spare time were spent exploring the accumulated literature of these fields in technical libraries, absorbing the scientific journals like a sponge. With three research projects going simultaneously at school, in addition to my regular course work, my ego and arrogance had swollen to enormous proportions and I felt like some irresistible force of nature with a seemingly insatiable appetite for challenge. It was around this time that a fateful vision began to take shape in my mind and as a result, I was soon spending every cent we could spare to order chemicals and equipment. I got my instructors to donate things considered no-longer useful and quickly put together a laboratory of considerable sophistication in our living room.

     I subscribed to the theory that the key to controlling the aging process lie in stopping the age-related degenerative changes within the brain, since it is the master control center for all bodily processes, including, presumably, aging and death. Branching off from the work of Hayflick at the University of California and some Russian scientists who had described extending the maximum life span in lower mammals by 50% with the drug deanol, I conceived that a significant breakthrough could be achieved by increasing the potency of these and similar agents. As a result of my interest in another area, it occurred to me that derivatives of the indole-based (LSD, DMT) and amphetamine-based (MDA, DOM) hallucinogens (a class of drugs for which I had coined the new term perceptatropics to better describe their perception-altering effects) owed their incredible potency to chemical structures, called neurophiles, which possessed very high affinity for brain tissue. It appeared to me that some composite structural moiety, combining the deanol group with one of these larger neurophilic configurations, might yield an agent with very high activity.

     My research at school had taught me that I would need to find the parts of each of the precursor molecules responsible for its action, design a composite molecule to be my prototype drug, synthesize it in my lab, and present it for testing. I am sure that, somewhere within, I must have sensed that a license might be required for such work but, in my youthful enthusiasm, I believed that the results would justify the means. My noble purpose would certainly satisfy any questions that might be raised. After exhaustive study of the chemistry of these drugs, I worked through several of the synthetic routes in my lab to familiarize myself with the techniques involved, refining, purifying, and rigorously testing the products which included MDA, DMT, and amphetamine. By late spring 1979, I felt ready to begin the attempt to create my new molecule.

     During this time, and tangent to this work, my brother and I decided to each take a dose of the MDA and record any unusual or spiritual effects. I had such stunted emotional growth at that time, that I had been unable, through many attempts, to get the words, "I love you" out to my brother. MDA was known as the love drug and, under its influence, I first breeched the barrier to my Emotional Self, and have been able to freely express love to this day. It appeared that a source of true spritual insight had been revealed and that a fascinaing new frontier awaited exploration. Life seemed exciting and full of promise during these final halcyon days of innocent happiness.

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     We were hardly a week into May of 1979 when, as I worked in the lab in which I taught the lower division students, I was surrounded by agents of five state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies. Local police, TBI, DEA, and a young assistant U.S. Attorney overran my home and were waiting there with my brother and our terrified girlfriends. Suspected of making cocaine for a three-state drug racket, I learned that I had been under high-tech surveillance for nearly a year. In shock, I tried to explain what I had been doing to agents Griggs and Lawrence and the chemist that they had flown in from Florida. They were as mortified as I when it became apparent to them that all they had was a kid with an overblown chemistry set who had gotten carried away with his own importance. I had only milligram quantities of anything controlled and had no idea how to make cocaine.

     After hours of questions and explanations, the DEA agents (one of whom shortly thereafter went to federal prison for trafficking in confiscated cocaine) called the U.S. Attorney into a nearby hall to ask him if, given the circumstances, they could just walk away from the situation. I will never forget the reply for, though certainly I had erred in judgement, it was that man's callous and perverse ambition that murdered all my dreams and started me upon the road to self-destruction. He said that they had spent too much time and money investigating the case and, therefore, could not leave with nothing to show for it. I was arrested and taken to Memphis and charged with violation of federal drug manufacture laws.

     After a weekend in jail, I was released and immediately went to my undergrad professors and to the Dean of Medicine at UTCHS to explain what I had actually been doing. My colleagues and instructors understood and wrote letters to the court and to the medical school, explaining that my work had been legitimate, though unlicensed, and asked that I not be prosecuted because of the great potential I had to make significant contributions to the betterment of the human condition through my future work. As a result, the dean agreed to hold my place in the fall class if I could get the charges dropped. In desperation, and at expense beyond his means, my father hired the famous lawyer, Lucius Burch, to defend me. All efforts came to naught, however, because the young assistant DA refused all pleas to drop the charges and I eventually had to plead guilty to the charge of drug manufacture.

      I received six years of probation, fines, forced unpaid labor, and a useless promise that, in ten years, I could have the record expunged. This resulted in my immediate and permanent expulsion from medical school. With the single overriding focus of my life for half a decade, now placed forever beyond my reach, the fabric of my existence began slowly to unravel and I found myself sliding inexorably downward into the tenacious grip of a viscid and stygian melancholia. Drained and dispirited, Cyndy and I packed up our furniture and the lab which I had built at such expense for the inevitable move back to Memphis. Once there, with a growing attitude of indifference, I accepted an unsuitable position with a struggling chemical company where, to my consternation, I discovered exploitation, manipulation, and treachery to be the status quo. Having come from the rarefied atmosphere of academia and pure research, I was woefully unprepared for the ugly reality of corporate industry, and the net effect of this move was to cure me of any desire to work as a chemist for years to come.

     The gradual emergence of a specter from the past proved the final blow to the fragile equilibrium that we were fighting to maintain. Cyndy had gotten pregnant a couple of years back and, in the blind and selfish ignorance of youth, we had opted for abortion because, we rationalized, we had nothing to offer a child at that point and should avoid such commitments until I finished school. This, as one might imagine, had been a terrible mistake, and she had been having an increasingly difficult time coping with the guilt. It all eventually became more than she could bare as she watched me lose hope and go into a tailspin.

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