Man took “40,000 ecstasy pills over nine years” and survived, according to resurfaced report
It is the biggest known number of MDMA tablets taken by a single person, reaching a height of 25 a day.
The story of a raver who took an estimated 40,000 ecstasy pills and survived has recently resurfaced.
Known only as Mr A, his story was originally published in a little-known 2006 report in psychiatry journal Psychosomatics, according to The Face.
Mr A took the pills between the ages of 21 and 30, and at the height of his consumption he took around 25 eccies a day.
When he eventually quit, due to repeatedly collapsing at parties and being hospitalised, he was “high for months” due to the amount of MDMA in his system, according to the author of the original report Dr Christos Kouimtsidis.
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Dr Kouimtsidis wrote in the 2006 report: “For the first two years, he took five tablets every weekend.
“It escalated to an average daily use of three-and-a-half tablets for the next three years, and further to an average of 25 daily over the next four years,” he continued.
Although Mr A survived, he didn’t escape completely unscathed, suffering with “tunnel vision”, as well as “severe panic attacks, recurrent anxiety, depression, muscle rigidity (particularly at the neck and jaw levels), functional hallucinations and paranoid ideation.”
Dr Kouimtsidis told The Face that Mr A was “using ecstasy as if it was an antidepressant” and was “more like a management of his mood rather than excitement and having fun”.
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He also mixed his drugs with the MDMA, often taking “solvents, benzodiazepines, amphetamines, LSD, cocaine and heroin”, as well as smoking marijuana.
Mr A had encountered ecstasy after getting into in the club and partying scene and gaining easy access to the drug. After being hospitalised, he was reportedly "inundating the hospital radio station with requests for old-school trance and king-size skins", according to The Face.
It is not known what has become of Mr A, after leaving a residential unit and dropping out of contact from the services around 20 years ago.
Isaac Muk is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow him on Twitter
