I had just come from the Grateful Dead concert and was having so much fun I wasn’t ready to come down yet. Ever! If you’ve ever been to a Dead show, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

The thing is, I drink too much. Always have. In fact, back when I was growing up it was the thing to do. Quite simply: you weren’t a man if you didn’t drink. Not so much smoking. Drinking.

We did other things, too. In college. Mostly weed, but sometimes mushrooms, hash, and on occasion, LSD. We certainly weren’t shy about trying new things, but mostly it was booze. Why not? It’s legal. In fact, back when I was growing up the drinking age was eighteen.

Don’t get me wrong; I love drinking. I love everything about it, from the smooth taste going in to the burning sensation going down. Of course, I get all the good parts. Anything negative, my brain just blacks it out. I have heard, on occasion, that I drink too much. My apologies in advance.

Drinking was fine when I was young, Cool, even. But now that I’m on the down side of middle age, it’s kind of pathetic. Old drunks, like old rock ‘n roll stars, just don’t look very good.

Still, I had no plans on quitting. So when my brother from another mother Ted Handsome called me to go to the Grateful Dead show, I was on the next flight out. I always fly first class. Not because I’m loaded or that I think I’m too good to fly coach. No, it’s because I drink so much. It just makes financial sense, flying first class. Free food, and you get your own bathroom.

So there we were at the Grateful Dead concert, the old gang together again. What was left of it, anyway. It was me, Ted Handsome and another brother from a another mother, I.M. Fletcher. His real name is Irwin, but we all call him Fletch.

Fletch is from California. And not just anywhere in California, but Carmel-By-the-Sea. It doesn’t get any more California than that.

So when Fletch proposed that we not drink, I thought it was just another one of his crazy California ideas. It was!

Not drink? You mean not at all?

He called it California Sober, and it’s an actual thing. Only in this instance, Fletch put his own twist on it, calling it San Francisco Sober because instead of smoking weed, the diet consists mainly of dropping acid. I hadn’t done LSD in years.

At my age, just the thought of taking acid made me tired. There’s no way I got the energy to go through all that. “Oh, I don’t know,” I told them. “I mean, I’ve got enough problems with the booze and all.”

Then, like they always do, they talked me into it.

“That didn’t take too much convincing,” said Ted. It never did.

What the hell, I thought. Why not? I like trying new things, and like I said, my drinking, while not out of control, was definitely becoming a burden. More and more these days, there were black eyes and dented fenders. I was running out of excuses to tell my wife.

California sober, huh? With a San Francisco twist? Let’s do it.

So we gave it a whirl and I’m happy to report that the whole weekend was a resounding victory . Great success! I hadn’t done acid since college but I got right back up on that horse. It was amazing, and it didn’t make me tired at all. My first acid trip in years was a bonafide triumph. Even Ted agreed.

Fletch said while he’d love to take credit for California Sober, and even San Francisco Sober, they were both already a thing. In some instances, he said, you can switch out LSD for mushrooms, or mescaline, or dimethyltryptamine, or ololiuqui, or any other hallucinogen. You can even smoke a little weed, but no alcohol. NO BOOZE!!! Okay, I get it.

I was a new man. The whole flight home, I spread the word. And since I wouldn’t be drinking anymore, I traded in my first class ticket for coach and the people sitting next to me wished I hadn’t because I didn’t shut up the whole flight. I went on and on like some kind of tweaker, all about California Sober with a San Francisco twist. Maybe it wasn’t so much the booze, after all.

I didn’t want the good times to end. Who does? So I brought home what was left of the acid—at TSA, they let the LSD go through, but they confiscated my shampoo—and the first thing I did when I got home was call up my good friend Chemise Lacoste. It’s not enough just to go California Sober, you’ve got to spread the word as well.

So I call up Chemise Lacoste because A) we were long overdue, and B) he had just been dumped by his girlfriend. Making matters worse, they were living together. And, his car broke down. Fuck!

Lacoste had never been to a Dead show, so that part of the experience I would have to recreate. We had done acid together in college, but for him, like me, it had been a long time. When I mentioned it to him, however, he was totally in. “I’ll try just about anything right now,” he said. Poor guy.

But this was going to be good for him. Chemise Lacoste drinks too much. We all do. Not only was this the perfect opportunity for him to try something that didn’t involve alcohol, but it was a great chance to extend my spiritual journey, as well as bring somebody new along the way. Because after all, isn’t that what it’s all about? Spreading the word? Sending out the love?

So we came up with this plan. “It’s called California Sober,” I told him. “That means there is no alcohol allowed.”

“No alcohol?”

That’s right, I told him. None. Not even a drop.

“Okay,” he said. “If you say so.”

I do say so.

“You’re just going to have to trust me,” I told him.

So we made a plan to go out to his family’s cabin. Seclusion, in this instance, was key.

The house used to be his grandmothers and it was falling apart all over the place. Good. That’s just how we liked it. Truth is, this house was built cheap even for a hundred years ago.

But it was perfect because nobody went there anymore. Nobody. Besides seclusion, to go California Sober you need privacy. That means making sure nobody from the sober world suddenly shows up and throws the whole thing into disarray. No chance of that here; the whole Lacoste family was pretty much dead and gone.

Besides peace and quiet, the seclusion makes it possible to get as loud as you want, another key factor in going California Sober.

We stocked up on water and sodas and fresh fruit. Anything cold and refreshing. We had steaks and coffee for after. It was going to be a great weekend seeing my old friend Chemise Lacoste, and rocking out to some great tunes. And no, this was not any kind of detox. This was a fun weekend, plain and simple.

I told Lacoste to bring his guitar. Maybe he’d get inspired.

“I don’t know,” he said, “I’ve never played on acid before.”

We got there and everything was going according to plan. We set up the stereo system—I got this Bose multimedia system that will simply blow you away. Even out in the country you can hear it for miles. And that’s what we had: miles. The nearest neighbor wasn’t even in the same state.

We got everything set up. I brought my portable projection TV system where you can show it in 4K on the wall up to a hundred inches in diameter. I even brought my astronaut galaxy star projector. That’s the little spaceman-looking thingy that makes stars shine all over the ceiling. This was going to be a great trip.

So we got everything set up. EVERYTHING. I reiterate that because it is so important. The last thing you want to do when tripping on acid is have to follow instructions. It’s just not even possible.

As T-minus and counting was about to strike, Lacoste made a rambling speech about life and such. He kept it short, thank God. He was just as ready to get going as I.

We toasted our little blotter tabs, then we dropped the acid on our tongues. “À votre santé,’ said Lacoste. “To your health.”

Cheers to that. If last week was any indication, this was going to be a full-throttled trip all the way to the moon. It was too late to turn back now.

But one hour went by, and nothing. That’s, okay; sometimes it takes a little while.

Lacoste began playing his guitar and I got up and started moving around. Let the blood get flowing. Not sure if that really even helps.

Another hour went by and I can’t say one-hundred percent that I was getting concerned, but something definitely wasn’t right. After the third hour, I definitely knew something was wrong.

“Is this it?” said Lacoste. “Doesn’t really live up to the hype.”

Indeed.

At some point we had to admit, the whole thing was a bust. It was all my fault. That’s what happens when you don’t properly plan.

Poor Chemise. All he wanted was a little reset after getting tossed out on his keister. Sorry, old friend.

But we weren’t going down without a fight. We tore that whole place apart looking for anything: roaches in between the cushions of the couch, vodka underneath the kitchen sink. Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Spiritual journey, my ass. What a scam. I even caught Lacoste eyeing down the freon in the A/C unit.

The whole goddamn thing was a bust. And that’s when it came to me: a bust. A beer bust. There was a bar and a liquor store back towards town. It might be a little ways, but maybe we could still salvage the weekend.

Like I said in the beginning, my last acid trip was a total disaster. We really shouldn’t be drinking anymore, either. I still have to explain the dent in the car and my black eye when I get home, not to mention the smell of booze everywhere. I’ll leave it at that.

California sober. Yay.