The Wild Wedding Weekend

My husband and I were staying in one of these extended-stay hotels in a medium-large California town while I spent a few weeks getting the local clinic straightened out.

A large group had pretty much taken over the hotel for a wedding ceremony in the garden on Saturday.  So Friday and Saturday nights there were some pretty wild looking revelers whom my dear husband had to dodge on the way to the ice machine.

A group on the second balcony; another one by the pool — laughing loudly, behaving erratically. Every age group represented, but it seemed they were all getting along together happily.

The sounds of partying went on late into the night and the wee hours of the morning. Sunday morning I went to the breakfast room.  It was jammed with hung-over partiers – massive hangovers. They moaned about how sick the felt, how cataclysmic their headaches were, but they would all be going home this morning.

I wasn’t exactly eaves-dropping – I had a right to the breakfast room too.  I wasn’t interested in getting involved with conversations, and none of them were exactly seeking new friends. I just got my breakfast and did my best to stay out of their way.  It would be suicide to get between them and the coffee pot.

I couldn’t help but hear their conversations, and as I reconstructed their story, and was pretty surprised what I put together. This young couple had lived together for many years before they tied the knot. Someone said they were not wealthy but had saved up for a big celebration.  Family from as far away as Alaska and Hawaii had attended.

Well, they had their “traditional” celebration and the day after, many in the family were wondering why the ceremony and family reunion had been so important.  The blue garter, the throwing of the bouquet. Truth of the matter is most of our wedding traditions, like the garter and bouquet, can be traced in one form or another back to Elizabethan England.  The reason they seem to have survived is that marriage is scary. The depth of commitment is scary. And tradition is a tangible reminder lots of other people have been through what you are going through, and become ancestors to future generations. Tradition is a tie with the past that suggests security for the future.  I have no problem with this.

But wait — there’s more. Couples that have lived together often want to make their wedding day “special.” This may admittedly be a bit more difficult when folks may have been (what my parents would have called) “shacking up” for a bit.  My dear husband told me about a couple he knew in Kansas who had been celebrating the day they moved in together as an anniversary, and made sure their wedding took place on the tenth anniversary of that day. Sentimental and beautiful, this idea seemed to have done the trick.  But that was a few years ago, and it was in Kansas. This was California and this young couple decided to make the day (and evening) special for everyone who attended by giving out vials of amyl nitrate.

For those who don’t understand the significance of this, I will try to explain as delicately as I can.

Amyl nitrite is used medically as an antidote to cyanide poisoning, but I don’t think anyone at this party was worried about that.

Amyl nitrite in recreational use is called “poppers” and the recreation it is used for is sex.

They are often used in substance abuse because they cause a rush of warm sensations and dizziness when the vapors are inhaled.

Now, imagine what that feeling would add to a sexual climax.

Uh huh – the couple wanted everyone to enjoy those experiences that night, supposedly as the newlyweds consummated their newly-legitimate union.

Hence – an epidemic of mind-crunching hangovers.

Obviously, none of them was a psychopharmacologist like me.

Although this drug is usually considered less dangerous than most other drugs of abuse, it can and does kill folks.  I mean, someone swallows the stuff instead of inhaling the vapors, they can die from acute intoxication.  I wonder what kind of instructions they gave?

The drug was given to the men; interesting, because most people I know who have used it are gay and have sex with other men.  Most people present were married couples; one man, one woman.

I wonder if any youngsters got hold of the poppers?

Basically, amyl is a non-specific relaxer of smooth muscle.  Curiously enough, the older men who were “afraid” and did not try it were on prescription medications, at least one for the heart.  The substance was first used for heart patients by a 19th century Scottish physician, Sir Thomas Lauder Brunton.

It is related to the sublingual “Nitro” heart patients use today to ward off angina.  It is after all a coronary artery vasodilator.

So the poppers may have, in some way, actually been helpful to the wedding guests on heart medicines. I doubt any of the crew I met in the breakfast room would have become chronic abusers, but such usage can cause neurological damage.  This is safe enough stuff for single use that many countries do sell individual vials at clubs, although some sell it as “deodorizers” or liquid incense. Smooth muscle. Well there were a few headaches in the breakfast room. Urogenital system has lots of smooth muscle; if anybody soiled their trousers they weren’t talking about it. Headaches are a frequent side effect of nitro for the heart or sometimes even Viagra.  Everybody was diving for the coffee. After all, caffeine is a fine cerebrodilator and could be some real help with a post-popper headache. Just by looking at me, someone thought I was a “nurse or something” and asked for advice on post-popper ills.  I am not exactly a free public service, and they were all already drinking coffee.  So I just told them to keep drinking coffee.  I did tell them that when you take something given to you without a warning label, you are pretty much on your own.  It is short half-life stuff. Their worst was probably over. I did applaud them for stationing someone outside the door of the breakfast room who told all of the kids from the wedding party not to come in because there were “no kids allowed” this morning.  After all, kids seeing adults complaining and behaving badly cannot possibly be uniformly good.  Maybe a smart one who overheard the conversation would know what to avoid, but my guess is they would have remembered the adult who said this was “good stuff” and he liked the “rush.”

Plus, could you handle noisy, hyperactive kids if you were hung-over? Are a few minutes of heat and presumably heightened pleasure  a fair exchange for a potential life-risking situation?  If I am not convincing about the potential dangers of amyl nitrate, consider the 2nd balcony party where they were struggling last night to get one of the intoxicated older gentlemen to stay in his room so he did not go over the balcony. They never learn, those who seek a few minutes of “feeling good.” I am constantly surprised by the total lack of awareness about the risk and the consequences of thrill-seeking out there.