The Dental Experience

In April of 1965, George Harrison and Pattie Boyd got an offer for dinner from their dentist, John Riley, and his girlfriend Cyndy Bury, who worked at the Playboy Lounge Club. Apparently it wasn't unusual as they previous went on other dinner outings (honestly, I never really hear about a Dentist and client hanging out socially). The dinner invitation was extended to John and Cynthia. The original plan was to have dinner at the Dentist and then go to the Pickwick Club to see Paddy, Klaus & Gibson perform. Well... let's just say the evening didn't go completely as planned. The dinner was held at the home of John Riley in Bayswater Place, London. Apparently, he was the dentist of the stars in those days, and managed to get access of LSD. Unbeknownst to his guests, John Riley and Cyndy laced LSD into the sugar cubes and had them as a display. After a lovely dinner in the dining room, the party was moved to the lounge where the sugar cubes were on display and coffee (not tea?) was served. John Riley and Cyndy were determined for their guests to drink the coffee and add the sugar. Meanwhile, John, Cynthia, George, and Pattie would try to wrap up the evening as they were expected elsewhere. But, their hosts were determined for their guests to stay put. The Beatle party of four must have thought the creepy dentist wanted to do an orgy at first. 

“We had a lovely meal, plenty to drink.” 

Pattie Boyd

“It was as if we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a horror film.” 

Cynthia

"It was done without our knowledge, so we didn't know how to handle it. We didn't know the effect it was going to have on us. It was like sitting in the room and it suddenly became like the Albert Hall. Pattie and George were opposite, John was beside me, and they started disappearing in the distance. I wondered what on Earth was happening. We just had to get out."

Cynthia, 2005

"I didn't know what was happening to me. It was more frightening than anything I'd ever experienced. I thought I would be like this for the rest of my life. John Riley said that we shouldn't leave the house because he'd given us LSD but we thought, 'So? What's that?' It was totally irresponsible thing to do."

Pattie Boyd

Not long, the guests started to feel weird. John Riley and Cyndy eventually confessed that they had given them LSD. John was furious! Oh boy, was he mad! George, Pattie, and Cynthia didn't know much about it while John heard about it. They decided enough was enough and left, despite the drug starting to kick in while John Riley and Cyndy's protests to have them stay. The dentist even offered to drive them himself but John, Cynthia, Pattie, and George went in George's car and fled. They did went to the Pickwick Club, John Riley followed them. While seated at the table, John Riley joined them, and in their hallucinations, he turned into a pig. Anyone who came to their table looked like some kind of animal, so they left and went to the Ad Lib Club where Ringo and Maureen were, including Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull. While in the elevator, there was a red dot light and they were convinced that it was a raging fire, they panicked, yelled for help as John, Cynthia, George, and Pattie were hallucinating, and somehow decided to leave and George drove very carefully back to his home where they let the drug wore off at the early hours of the morning. While driving slowly, George was trying to concentrate while John was cracking jokes; in the backseat, Pattie wanted to smash windows and play sports while Cynthia was scared.

"None of us used heroin but we took acid – LSD – regularly. Our dentist, John Riley, had turned us on to it. He and his girlfriend invited John, his wife Cynthia, George and me to dinner at his house in Hyde Park Square one evening in 1965. We knew him quite well and had been to a few clubs with him in the past. The four of us drove to London in my little Mini Cooper S. We had a lovely meal and as we prepared to leave – we were due to watch some friends playing at a club – Riley's girlfriend jumped to her feet and said: 'You haven't had any coffee yet. It's ready, I've made it – and it's delicious.' We drank the coffee but by then we were really keen to get away. John said: 'We must go now. Our friends are going to be on soon. It's their first night.' Riley told him: 'You can't leave.' 'What are you talking about?' asked John. 'You've just had LSD. It was in the coffee.' John was absolutely furious. 'How dare you fucking do this to us,' he said. George and I said: 'Do what?' We didn't know what LSD was. John said: 'It's a drug.' As it began to take effect we felt even more strongly that we didn't want to be there. We were desperate to escape. Riley said he would drive us but we ignored him and piled into my Mini, which seemed to be shrinking. All the way to the club the car felt smaller and smaller, and by the time we arrived we were completely out of it. People kept recognising George and coming up to him. They were moving in and out of focus, and looked like animals. We clung to each other. Soon we moved on to a different club which we knew – we thought we might feel better in familiar surroundings. We walked to the venue and I remember trying to break a window on the way. The club was on an upper floor and we thought the lift was on fire because there was a little red light inside. As the doors opened, we crawled out and bumped into Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull and Ringo. John told them we'd been spiked. The effect of the drug was getting stronger and stronger, and we were all in hysterics. When we sat down, the table elongated. Hours later we decided to go home. We climbed into the car again and this time George drove – at no more than 10mph all the way to Esher – but it felt as though he was doing 1,000 mph. At one point, I saw some goalposts and said: 'Let's jump out and play football.' The journey took hours and it was daylight by the time we got home. We locked the gates so that the cleaner wouldn't come in and find us. The drug took about eight hours to wear off, but it was very frightening and we never spoke to the dentist again."

Pattie Boyd, 2007

"One night a friend of George and Patti invited the four of us round to dinner with his wife. At first it was a pleasant evening. They had a lovely home in central London and the dinner was wonderful. The wife was a superb cook and we enjoyed the meal. Afterwards coffee was served and a large bowl of sugar lumps appeared beside the silver pot. 'Have more coffee,' they kept urging, 'more coffee,' and each time they poured, these sugar lumps were loaded into the cups. They were so insistent that it began to seem a little odd but we'd drunk a lot of wine and we didn't want to offend them, so obediently we drank the coffee. How were we to know that those glistening sugar lumps were laced with LSD? Afterwards we moved into the drawing-room. George and Patti sat on one settee, John and I sat on the settee opposite and then simultaneously, we began to feel strange. 'Something's happening here,' said John suddenly. I knew just what he meant. Without warning the room had stretched to about a mile long and sort of disappeared into the distance. The host and his wife came in and when we looked at them their bodies were moving and changing, twisting and contracting in a most alarming way.George stood up. 'We've got to go home,' he said quickly. John and I were at his side in an instant. We knew these people had done something to us and our overwhelming instinct was to escape. The four of us hurried towards the door as fast as our drugged feet would take us. George had driven us here in his little Mini Cooper and it never occurred to us in our irrational state that it might not be a good idea to let him drive. 'No, no, you can't go home,' said George's friend, running after us. They were beginning to panic. 'You must come to this club we know. You'll love it.' But we didn't trust them. They'd poisoned us and we didn't feel safe. At all costs we had to get away. We dashed into the street, jumped into George's Mini and sped up the road. At the wheel, though, George began to have a few misgivings about his driving ability. We were nearing a club we knew so he suggested we stop there instead of going all the way back to Weybridge. 'We'll be safe there,' he said. So, we piled out again and staggered unsteadily into the club, wondering what had happened and what other unpleasant surprises might be in store. But we'd hardly sat down when the couple arrived behind us. Obviously they'd followed us to try and persuade us to go back with them. But in our drugged condition their appearance was positively supernatural, as if they were haunting us. We turned to look at them and each saw the hallucination. Before our eyes they turned into cadavers, then skeletons, then devils. It was absolutely terrifying. Horrified, we fled back to the car once more and this time we weren't stopping until we reached Weybridge. But the drug was tightening its hold. Halfway along the road Patti was hanging out of the window, shouting, 'Look at that shop window, I want to smash it! Stop the car, George.' She didn't know what she was saying, of course, and George took no notice. Then suddenly it was like being inside a bubble and we were flying along above the road. How we ever got home to Surrey in one piece I don't know. A combination of good luck and George's brilliant driving, I should think. Anyway, somehow we got into George's house and still we couldn't get back to normal. John was hitting his head against a wall and arguing with the fish in the fish tank. God only knows what George was doing and all I could think of was Julian. 'I'm never going to see him again,' I told myself. 'I'll never see him again.' Fighting panic, I told myself to be sensible, I'd try to be sick then I'd find one of the guest bedrooms and go to sleep. I'd be alright in the morning. I staggered upstairs, past one of the cats which was looking somehow different today. I peered closer and saw that all the hairs on its body had lifted and become animated. Each little hair moving independently of the others. Even more horrified I pressed on. I found a bedroom, sank down on the bed and closed my eyes against any visual tricks the room might try to play on me. But still sleep wouldn't come. Monstrous things were happening in my brain and I searched for some mundane thought to anchor me to sanity. For some reason a fragment of a long forgotten domestic science lesson floated into my mind. We'd been taught how to iron a handkerchief. Suddenly that handkerchief became vitally important. Blocking out all else I hung onto its image and in my mind I tried to iron it perfectly the way the teacher had shown us. Eight hours I spent mentally ironing that little white square, smoothing every crease, nosing the point of the iron down each careful fold. Over and over it I went, concentrating hard to shut out the lunacy my drugged brain was trying to produce. 'When I've finished this hankie I'll be okay,' I told myself. And I was right. At last, as the drug wore off I drifted into sleep, the beautifully pressed handkerchief still lying on my mental ironing-board.Needless to say we went home shattered and horrified by our experience. We'd been given LSD, we realised. Acid. I for one had no desire to go near it again."

Cynthia, 1994 

"The first time we took LSD was an accident. It happened sometime in 1965, between albums and tours. We were innocent victims of the wicked dentist whom we'd met and had dinner with a few times. There'd been discos and similar events; everybody knew each other. One night John, Cynthia, Pattie and I were having dinner at the dentist's house. Later that night we were going to a London nightclub called the Pickwick Club. It was a little restaurant with a small stage where some friends of ours were playing. Klaus Voormann, Gibson Kemp (who became Rory Storm's drummer after we stole Ringo) and a guy called Paddy. They had a little trio. After dinner I said to John, 'Let's go - they're going to be on soon,' and John said 'OK', but the dentist was saying, 'Don't go; you should stay here.' And then he said, 'Well, at least finish your coffee first.' So we finished our coffee and after a while I said again, 'Come on, it's getting late - we'd better go.' The dentist said something to John and John turned to me and said, 'WE'VE HAD LSD.' I just thought, 'Well, what's that? So what? Let's go!' This fella was still asking us to stay and it all became a bit seedy - it felt as if he was trying to get something happening in his house; that there was some reason he didn't want us to go. In fact, he had obtained some lysergic acid diethylamide 25. It was, at the time, an unrestricted medication - I seem to recall that I'd heard vaguely about it, but I didn't really know what it was, and we didn't know we were taking it. The bloke had put it in our coffee: mine, John's, Cynthia's and Pattie's. He didn't take it. He had never had it himself. I'm sure he thought it was an aphrodisiac. I remember his girlfriend had enormous breasts and I think he thought that there was going to be a big gang-bang and that he was going to get to shag everybody. I really think that was his motive. So the dentist said, 'OK, leave your car here. I'll drive you and then you can come back later.' I said 'No, no. We'll drive.' And we all got in my car and he came as well, in his car. We got to the nightclub, parked and went in. We'd just sat down and ordered our drinks when SUDDENLY I FEEL THE MOST INCREDIBLE FEELING COME OVER ME. It was something like a very concentrated version of the best feeling I'd ever had in my whole life. It was FANTASTIC. I felt in love, not with anything or anybody in particular, but with everything. Everything was perfect, in a perfect light, and I had an overwhelming desire to go round the club telling everybody how much I loved them - people I'd never seen before. One thing led to another, then suddenly it felt as if a bomb had made a direct hit on the nightclub and the roof had been blown off: 'What's going on here?' I pulled my senses together and I realised that the club had actually closed - all the people had gone, they'd put the lights on, and the waiters were going round bashing the tables and putting the chairs on top of them. We thought, 'Oops, we'd better get out of here!' We got out and went to go to another disco, the Ad Lib Club. It was just a short distance so we walked, but things weren't the same now as they had been. It's difficult to explain: it was very Alice in Wonderland - many strange things. I remember Pattie, half playfully but also half crazy, trying to smash a shop window and I felt: 'Come on now, don't be silly...' Then we got round the corner and saw just all lights and taxis. It looked as if there was a big film première going on, but it was probably just the usual doorway to the nightclub. It seemed very bright; with all the people in thick make-up, like masks. VERY STRANGE. We went up into the nightclub and it felt as though the elevator was on fire and we were going into hell (and it was and we were), but at the same time we were all in hysterics and crazy. Eventually we got out at the Ad Lib, on the top floor, and sat there, probably for hours and hours. Then it was daylight and I drove everyone home - I was driving a Mini with John and Cynthia and Pattie in it. I seem to remember we were doing eighteen miles an hour and I was really concentrating - because some of the time I just felt normal and then, before I knew where I was, it was all crazy again. Anyway, we got home safe and sound, and somewhere down the line John and Cynthia got home. I went to bed and lay there for, like, three years. That is what became known as 'The Dental Experience'."

George Harrison

"A dentist in London laid acid on George, me and our wives. HE JUST PUT IT IN OUR COFFEE OR SOMETHING. It was all the thing with the middle-class London swingers who'd heard all about it and didn't know it was any different from pot and pills. He gave us it, and he was saying, 'I advise you not to leave.' We thought he was trying to keep us for an orgy in his house, and we didn't want to know. We went out to the Ad Lib and these discotheques, and there were incredible things going on. We got out and the guy came with us, and he was nervous and we didn't know what was going on, and that we were going crackers. It was insane, going around London on it. We thought when we went to the club that it was on fire, and then we thought there was a première and it was just an ordinary light outside. We thought, 'Shit, what's going on here?' And we were cackling in the streets, and then people were shouting, 'Let's break a window.' We were just insane. We were out of our heads. We finally got on the lift. We all thought there was a fire on the lift: it was just a little red light; we were all screaming, 'AAAAAAAARGH!' all hot and hysterical. And we all arrived on the floor (because this was a discotheque that was up a building), and the lift stops and the door opens, and we were all, 'AAAAAAAARGH!' and we just see that it's the club, and we walk in and sit down and the table's elongating. I think we went to eat before that and it was like the thing I read, describing the effects of opium in the old days, where the table... I suddenly realised it was only a table, with four of us around it, but it went long, just like I had read, and I thought, 'Fuck! It's happening.' Then we went to the Ad Lib and all of that, and some singer came up to me and said, 'Can I sit next to you?' I said, 'Only if you don't talk,' because I just couldn't think. It seemed to go on all night. I can't remember the details; it just went on. And George somehow or other managed to drive us home in his Mini, but we were going about the miles an hour and it seemed like a thousand. And Pattie was saying, 'Let's jump out and play football' - there were these big rugby poles and things. And I was getting all these hysterical jokes coming out, like [I did on] speed, because I was always on that, too. George was going, 'Don't make me laugh. Oh, God!' IT WAS TERRIFYING, but it was fantastic. I did some drawings at the time (I've got them somewhere) of four faces saying, 'We all agree with you!' - things like that. I gave them to Ringo, the originals. I did a lot of drawings that night. They all went to bed, and then George's house seemed to be just like a big submarine I was driving."

John, 1971

"I was actually there in the club when John and George got there shouting, 'THE LIFT'S ON FIRE!' Acid was the best thing we could take after that!"

Ringo Starr 

“It was a lovely dinner and afterwards there was coffee galore and the host kept saying, ‘have more coffee, have more coffee.’ So we did, in our innocence. The next thing, everybody sort of disappeared. The stupid, stupid man had put LSD in our coffee. It was terrifying. We finally came out of it eight hours after... It was John’s first time, as it was for all of us. He thought it was wonderful. John had too much enthusiasm. I tried to pull him back, but I couldn’t. There were so many people around him trying to influence him. They’d say they could invent an island where there was sunshine all the time, and John believed them. I always hoped he would understand that you don’t have to do these things to be yourself. But it didn’t work. I could see John being sucked away into a dream world.”

Cynthia, 1976

“Really I suppose the big thing happened when John Lennon and I went to dinner at this dentist's house and he put LSD in our coffee. He dosed us and we just went off on this trip and that was it. You know what happened to me was like, it was just like lots of doors in my mind was just flying open and there was a lot of things which I knew instantly, which now I believe to be all part of what they call karma, previous karma, action-reaction. And you know, I'm a big believer in reincarnation and all that. And I think, you know, you go through things, you experience things, it's all part of that whole trip. And at that time I realized, just through looking at the grass and the trees and I could see the sap running through the trees and everything. And I just knew that there was such a thing as God. I suddenly felt happy but there was some connection, that we were all connected to this energy. And just like we sit here and talk now, the energy within you and the energy within me is the same, and not only that, I could see the space between us was buzzing too. And then I got into meditation.”

George Harrison, 1979 

"I was never anxious to try it, but our first experience was a friend of George's, actually, a dentist person, and we went for dinner. And after dinner, he put sugar cubes in our coffee which were laced with LSD. And, of course, it hit us all at the same time, and we had the most horrendous night and a very dangerous drive home. We could all have been killed, because we were absolutely out of our minds. And for me, that was hell, sheer hell, mental torture. And I couldn't cope with it, and I would never, ever wanted to do it again. And yet for John. It was something else. You see, John was a different animal. He was a searcher. He was a - he desired something new in life, constantly changing, constantly wanting new experiences. And, of course, he didn't have a bad time on this particular drug. So he tried it again."

Cynthia, 1985 

George and Pattie swore never to have John Riley as a dentist again while Cynthia never forgave him. John Riley and Cyndy Bury were married and eventually divorced. John Riley died in a car crash in Ireland in 1986: Cyndy currently lives in the South of Spain. Both Pattie and Cynthia wrote about the first LSD in their autobiographies.

"When you go for dinner with your dentist, you don't imagine a professional man would do something like that."

Cynthia

Drugs and Alcohol

John at Brian Epstein's home in London on May 19, 1967 during the press launch of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Many people there have commented how John looked while stoned.

As mentioned quite a bit on this blog, drugs were part of the catalyst that broke up John and Cynthia. Drugs started to take hold on John since 1960 in Hamburg when he and the Beatles were playing long hours on stage to boost the energy. I will go through drug by drug in great detail but to say that in general, it affected their relationship greatly. Cynthia wasn't the far out druggie one, she did not get addicted; yes, she tried some (pills, marijuana, and LSD) but each one had a bad effect on her. Some she understood why John took them: pills boosted his energy, pot helped him relaxed, LSD he escaped mentally. LSD Cynthia hated the most- will explain momentarily. Because she was sober, Cynthia watched in great horror of her witty husband becoming a stranger living with her. During perhaps the last year of their marriage, John didn't look at Cynthia the same way as he got more and more deep- he wanted a partner of crime, but instead he got straight and narrow. John wanted pizzazz but was bored. If John had never got deeply involved with LSD, perhaps their marriage would have survived longer than it did. While John was high in the clouds, Cynthia was rightfully worried about her son. John would come in at the crack of dawn with his strung out "friends" that littered around the house, sleeping off their high after loud partying. Cynthia quickly realized that you can't have two drugged out "not there" parents- Julian was a toddler who demanded attention and needed guidance. John did noticed the rift; but his solution was to join him on his drugged out mental journeys rather than sobering up, or to cut off LSD entirely. John would try to convince her that it was really beautiful and wonderful but didn't fully comprehend that whenever Cynthia got high, she would get monsters and boogeymen while John would get flowers and laughter. It pulled John and Cynthia away into different directions. Cynthia felt helpless as she didn't know how to help him or put her foot down… if she did, John would have rebelled and sink further down. Cynthia was in a no win situation.

At the time of the 1960s, there were barely any rehabs- maybe anonymous meetings or hospital treatments, but no rehab. It started to boom out around the time United States First Lady Betty Ford admitted to drug use and seeked help, even forming her own rehab clinic center. By that time after Sean's birth in 1975, John kicked out most of his drug habits. Although I do think he had a couple of marijuana tokes up in his death.

"Which was the road of 'enlightenment' as far as drugs were concerned. John was in a more trapped situation than I was. Trapped in his own mind, and in the Beatles’ situation and the pressure of the music and the pop world. And I think he’d had enough and wanted to escape that. I had nothing to escape. I wasn’t looking for anything else. I wasn’t searching in my mind for new experiences on a mental state. That was the beginning. He was always searching, John. Always looking for the truth, an ideal, a dream. And I suppose once he’d got hooked on that situation and the mental state, he thought he’d found something new in life that nobody else had. I think that any drugs are destructive of anything and everyone. But the reality of life was slipping by John. He wasn’t aware anymore. He became less interested in the original dream of becoming famous and becoming wealthy, and that didn’t matter to him anymore. He had that, he had it all."

Cynthia, 1987

"John needed to escape his reality. I understood completely but I couldn't go along with him."

Cynthia

"Creatively, it’s very difficult to say. I think drugs were an escape at the time. And that’s my view, and they were still – no matter what they did, as far as drugs were concerned, I think they were creative in themselves. So the creativity would still be there. It might be heightened or lessened – but they were still very creative." 

Cynthia, 1982

Preludin

In 1960 while performing long hours at seedy clubs until the crack of dawn, John, Paul, George, Pete Best, and Stuart Sutcliffe would get obviously tired. In order to keep up their energy, someone offered up preludin. When Cynthia visited John in April of 1961, one of the first things she noticed was his energy and body build being skinny by barely eating while having the time of their lives despite living conditions. Cynthia did take preludin and had a bad reaction: it was as though she was feeling dizzy and the patterns on the wall went wild. I don't think Cynthia took those pills anymore after that trip. I believe John, Paul, and George stopped after their time in Hamburg ended.

"Nevertheless, exciting though those evenings were, I doubt whether we'd have been able to stay awake all night every night without a little help. We managed to get hold of some Preludin - speed - so there we were sipping beer and as the night wore on we'd take half a "prely" to keep us going. Soon my heart would be racing and I'd feel giddy and hyped-up and silly. Mind you, on one occasion the combined 'prelys' and booze had a dramatic effect. I woke up the next morning to find that the zig-zag wallpaper in my room was zig-zagging about in an alarming manner, every line dancing independently of the line next to it. And everything else I looked at seemed to be moving. I felt terrible and it took all day for things to settle down. I gave up the prelys after that. But this was my only unpleasant experience. Everything else was magical."

Cynthia, 1994

Marijuana

Although it made Cynthia sick, she didn't objected John to smoke. She saw that it relaxed him, put him in a positive mood, and helped relieve the pressure he was having. John had deadlines for books, films, albums, writing, demoing, recording, touring, photo sessions, interviews, oh my gosh I am tired already and ready for a nap! I believe John started smoking pot by 1964 during the Beatles actual first major tour in America with a visit by Bob Dylan. Bob misinterpreted the lyrics in the song I Want to Hold Your Hand as I get high instead of I can't hide so he thought that they were potheads. They definitely became potheads after that! They filmed Help! stoned, John had said that Rubber Soul was influenced by marijuana while Revolver was influenced by LSD, and Paul wrote Got to Get You Into My Life for pot rather than long believed Jane Asher. Paul was a longtime pothead until after his divorce in 2008 when he became a single parent to a toddler Beatrice. Cynthia claimed she didn't do much smoking but she could still get stoned by getting a contact high.

"Yet gradually, as the years passed, our relationship changed. John changed and drugs had a lot to do with it. It was inevitable that the pressure would mount. John had no control over his career. The lawyers, the managers, the record company - they were the ones who seemed to have the real control, who knew what was going on. John had to go along with what they said. There was so much money around, yet the Beatles were so young and vulnerable. The stress grew and John wanted something the help him to relax. At first it was pot. Gradually I noticed that every party you went to, people were passing reefers round. The first time I'd come across it was in a record producer's flat. Somebody had introduced him to pot and he wanted to introduce it to everyone else. 'It's fun,' he told us. 'It's relaxing.' So we all tried it. Within minutes I realised it was a mistake. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. They were giggling and happy but after just a couple of puffs I felt paranoid. Someone was playing a hideous trick on us, I decided. I didn't trust anyone. All around me the others seemed to have turned into idiots. Somebody would stand up and point to something, some ordinary everyday object and everyone would fall on the floor laughing. I couldn't understand it. 'It's not funny,' I wanted to tell them. 'What's funny about a table lamp?' But it was useless. They only giggled all the more. You couldn't get through to them. They'd gone stupid. I'd always been keen to try new things but that night I ended up with my head down the toilet for about two hours. Pot was a big mistake. John, however, enjoyed it, but he confined his smoking to the studio. There it calmed him down and helped him to enjoy the music. It didn't seem such a bad thing."

Cynthia, 1994

"John kept a big box on a convenient shelf filled with pot. He often stayed stoned or dropped acid, something else that terrified Cynthia."

Tony Bramwell

LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)

How John and Cynthia first experience with LSD will have its own individual post but for short story: a dentist spiked their sugar cubes with it during a dinner party with his girlfriend, George, and Pattie in 1965. The first experience was terrifying! But once John, Cynthia, George, and Pattie got back to reality, John was eager to try again. George too but not as far as John got while Pattie went with the flow. Cynthia? Not so much. She claimed to have had only three trips: dentist, carried away, and 'Mission Cynthia'. Since the dentist one will have a post all on its own, let's go into the carried away and 'Mission Cynthia': carried away was quite simple- John and Cynthia were with a group of friends, someone had LSD and because everyone was in such a jolly randy good times mood, Cynthia participated in and… she did not have fun. The third and final time was Mission Cynthia: it was John's way to fix their marriage for the better to have his wife with him on the hallucinating adventure. Cynthia was for it; they set the date, time, where, who could come, and the acid was laced into a drink or food so Cynthia couldn't back out at the last minute. Once again, Cynthia had an awful time. Later in 1976 in an open letter, John wrote of Cynthia seemingly forgot about other subsequent trips… I don't think John was lying as he was pretty open about the drug taking. Maybe there were more than three drug-trips but those definitely stood out for Cynthia.

"It was at this point in our marriage that I realized that unless I joined the club, we weren't going to survive, so I succumbed to one of John's never ending requests to take LSD with him. I didn't want to but I felt that I had to save our marriage. I also believe John in his own way was doing the same. During my trip John was marvellous. But whatever happiness and awareness John gained through it, I didn't. I hated every moment. It was hell on earth. The hallucinations sent me into a panic. Through my tears and fears I would look at John in the hope that he could in some way help me out of the prison my mind had become, only to see the man I loved turn into a giant mule with razor sharp teeth leering and laughing at me. All the time John kept telling me he loved me and would never leave me. All I could reason was that I was definitely going mad. It was something I never wanted to experience again." 

Cynthia 

"I knew I had to keep away from the stuff for everyone's sake, but mostly for Julian's. I thought John could take care of himself, but he couldn't. Luckily for me I had a strong instinct for survival. But I was an absolute bore to everybody. They did their utmost to get me to go on it. 'Oh, it's beautiful,' they'd say. 'Come on, let's be brothers and sisters.' I always hoped John would understand that you don't have to do these things to be yourself. They all thought drugs would enhance something in their lives. I suppose I thought that just by being me I'd make some sort of point. But it didn't work. I could see John being sucked away into a dream world. I tried to fight it but the dream world won. All the big guns were on the other side."

Cynthia, 1976

"The Indian period was very relaxing, we were away from all the screaming and pressure. Brian Epstein had just died and we each needed to gather our thoughts. But the Beatles began dabbling in drugs when we went out with a dentist friend and he spiked our drinks. It was a night of absolute horror for all of us - probably the worst thing that's ever happened to me. After that, John got really into experimenting with drugs and because he was having a good time he wanted me to join him, but I hated it. And that was the end of the end of our relationship which was very sad." 

Cynthia, 1995

"She had been persuaded to drop acid at a dinner party where she, John, George, and Pattie had been introduced to it, and had such a bad trip that she wouldn't use it again. She was convinced that sooner or later John would literally lose his mind, that his brain cells would melt and dribble out through his nose. The way in which he lay for hours on a wicker sofa in the sun lounge sleeping or gazing into the sky ignoring her and Julian convinced her that the rot had already started. She would hover helplessly over him, telling him to stop, watching him like a hawk in case he died- all of which wound him up, pissed him off, made him even more paranoid."

Tony Bramwell

"After the LSD incident, I was not dealing with a rational person. I lost John to drugs, not Yoko."

Cynthia

"When John discovered drugs I lost him. He had decided his path in life and there was nothing I could do about it. He would just take acid every day in the hope of escaping from me, from Julian, from the Beatles. I tried acid twice but it just made me feel sick. My priority was Julian, while John had no interest in responsibility at all."

Cynthia, 2000

Heroin

In his new relationship with Yoko Ono, John started taking heroin probably around May or June of 1968. Yoko was taking it and introduced John to it; I don't know if John was still taking LSD at the time unless he dumped it in favor of heroin? Can you imagine doing heroin and LSD at the same time? That would have been quite a trip! A trip I wouldn't go on! Heroin scares me and LSD is hardly available anymore. John must have known it was bad as he didn't see Julian until he settled in Tittenhurst Park in 1969 and got cleaned, going cold turkey. I've heard Yoko continued to dabble with heroin longer but this isn't about Yoko- this is about John (and Cynthia).

Cocaine

I don't know when John tried cocaine but I am definitely guessing during his Lost Weekend while he hung out with Harry Nilsson and Keith Moon who were taking it at the time. Cocaine was definitely popular in the 1970s. 

Julian has had his own fair share of doing drugs- I know he did cocaine in the 1980s, early 1990s. Marijuana, too. Not sure about heroin- maybe a dabble here and there. 

And then there was John's drinking. That was around since the beginning of John's relationship with Cynthia. Well, before that: Paul recalled smelling beer on John when they first met in 1957. John did drink a lot… it couldn't have been the aftermath of his mother's death as she died in 1958 he was already drinking… but I do think his nasty drunken temper really came out after Julia's death. He was a regular at Ye Cracke bar in Liverpool near the art college. During Paul's 21st birthday party in 1963, John got very drunk by getting into a fight with Bob Wooler, and a few heated exchanges. Tony Bramwell has said that John would be happily jolly in two drinks but afterwards John would be not happy. I, honestly, know someone like that… after several drinks, this person becomes miserable company. In 1974, John's drinking went on a binge; even getting kicked out of a club for heckling. Was Cynthia a drinker? I would say definitely yes but not as an alcoholic. She did loved her wine. 

Breakdown on Marriage

“As you and I well know, our marriage was over long before the advent of LSD or Yoko Ono... and that's reality!”

John, 1976

This post list was inspired by what John publicly wrote to Cynthia in 1976 during the time she was doing interviews, particularly with News of the World. I will post the entire letter(s) in full another day but now I want to go over the list of reasons why John and Cynthia's marriage didn't last… Mind you, this is all speculation and my opinions only. You don't have to agree and you are more than welcome to share your own opinions of what went wrong in the comments (just be nice is all I ask). So, let's give John a benefit of the doubt and explore the top 10 possibilities of why their marriage didn't last.

1. John

He was away a lot. Even in town, John was away a lot. He was incredibly busy with The Beatles with recording, touring, partying, photo sessions, the lot. I don't think that's entirely his fault though. I can't even blame Brian Epstein for it. It's just the way of life of a musician in the 1960s. It's not just his lack of absence. There's also his drug-taking, infidelities, his old-fashioned views of being the dominant male and breadwinner of the household. John didn't exactly have the best husband-like figure in his own life as his father wasn't around at all and his beloved Uncle George Smith died when John was 13. There was hardly anybody for him to learn what it took to be a husband. Both Paul and George had their fathers, Ringo had his stepfather to be influenced; John didn't really have anybody. Then there's the in depth level on how much John loved/in love with Cynthia as many many people (except me) have question or came to the conclusion that John was never in love with her. Especially comparing to his overrated love story with Yoko Ono.

2. Cynthia

I like to think that Cynthia didn't have a lot of blame in her marriage breakdown but… it does take two. Well, I think what John was looking for was a partner-in-crime or a dominant partner, or both. I must say and admit that Yoko provided both. Whatever John did, Yoko did too. Whatever Yoko did, John did too. Before Yoko arrived in his life, John did try to get Cynthia to be his partner-in-crime. He wanted a buddy to do drugs with (I don't think Cynthia was wrong on refusing drugs: good for her!) and whatever mischievous ideas he had. But I believe that once Cynthia became a mother, the partnership ended. Cynthia became, in Pattie Boyd's words, more like a mother than a wife. I also don't think Cynthia managed to integrate into the rock and roll style well. Although London may have fascinated her, she was more happier in a small town village. Maureen Starkey had a similar upbringing like Cynthia but managed to blend herself into the entertainment world while married to Ringo Starr and Isaac Tigrett. Cynthia wasn't a partyer, a few are okay but not frequently. Nothing wrong with that (as I am more of a homebody myself) but for John and their marriage, I believe he wanted more pizzazz and surprises; maybe more sex, more mischievous thinking, more fun, to be on his mentality wavelength. After John got hooked on LSD, whatever was left of their partnership started to wind down.

“I don't know. I must have a guardian angel somewhere. I guess it's my boring, down-to-earth attitude that probably sent John running and was the end of the marriage. I see things in black and white rather than grey or colours. It's just my upbringing. I'm a realist.”

Cynthia, 1988

3. Drugs

A big part of the catalyst that broke up John and Cynthia. There will be a post dedicated to drugs so I don't want to dwell over this, so here's a short version: while John was in Hamburg, he was into pills that gave him and the other Beatles an adrenaline rush to play several hours onstage. When Cynthia visited, she took them too but I don't think the pills really agreed with her. In fact, I don't think any drugs agreed with Cynthia. She didn't take well to marijuana as it made her sick but she didn't really objected John using it as it helped him relaxed. I do think Cynthia did her fair share of it or at most had gotten a contact high. LSD frightened them both at first but John decided to explore it more while Cynthia definitely had a bad reaction every time she took it. As mentioned in #2, John wanted a drug buddy in Cynthia, but her body, mind, and self was just not into it.

"When John discovered drugs I lost him. He had decided his path in life and there was nothing I could do about it. He would just take acid every day in the hope of escaping from me, from Julian, from the Beatles. I tried acid twice but it just made me feel sick. My priority was Julian, while John had no interest in responsibility at all."

Cynthia, 2000

4. Infidelities

All through their relationship, John did cheat. Maybe it had been exaggerated on how often… some made it as though John had so many women he barely had time for Cynthia or sleep. Yet early on their relationship, John and Cynthia were very inseparable… only John knows the real story but then again John would say he was a proud dirty man-slut. Whatever how it may have been, John covered it up because he didn't want Cynthia to know about it until he met and eventually got involved with Yoko. Before Yoko, John treated his side pieces like toilet paper. I guess John cheating did screw him to be paranoid towards the end of the marriage as he started to get curious on how Cynthia really behaved during their relationship.

5. The Beatles

I wouldn't say The Beatles were THE blame of the breakdown of the marriage… but, yes … they did ultimately caused the breakdown. Cynthia did seem to understood that she would have to share her man not just with the guys but with the whole world. But that being said, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Pete Best, and Stuart Sutcliffe did like Cynthia and vice versa. On their wedding night, John performed elsewhere. On the time during Julian was born, John was on tour. The Beatles took John away when he really needed to be with Cynthia during these monumental moments. They needed to readjust their relationship as a married parents but it was difficult to do when they were apart with just phones and letters. I do understand that John had no control over the timing and it was his dream to succeed as a musician- Cynthia knew that from day 1. Cynthia did accept it but it couldn't have been easy.

“I lost my first family to do what, make Sgt. Pepper?”

John, 1978

6. Fame

I know that Cynthia yearned more for the early days when John started becoming more successful and well known. She preferred it. I get it: before John was famous, he was around more. Broke, mind you, but honestly, if John was to be homeless, Cynthia would be cozy in a cardboard box next to the highway alongside with him. They went everywhere together: to a park, to shops, to the movies, to wherever they wanted. As John got famous, he would get stopped, mobbed, and chased after so much so that it was impossible to just go outside and explore the city. They couldn't even live in the heart of the city as it was unbearable. It's a high price of fame. Nowadays it may have been different today but celebrities do still have paparazzi and stalkers while the fan-mobbing have scaled back a bit. If John and Cynthia were together in this day in age rather than in 1964, their freedom to go to wherever they pleased would be a lot easier! Unlike with Yoko Ono, John kept his marriage quiet and private. I don't think Cynthia then didn't like the fame part although she did participate in film premieres and travels. There were, and are, perks but fame does come at a price; from divorce, to death.

7. Opposite Directions

Right from the very start of their relationship, John and Cynthia were very different from each other. Like night (John) and day (Cynthia). It even baffled their friends- it wouldn't surprise me if they took bets with how long it wouldn't last. At the same time, being the opposite seemed to have worked in balance. John took in so much joy into seeing Cynthia's shocked reactions over his grotesque and dark humor. Cynthia was very shy while John was sociable (up to a point). They had very few things in common: they lost a parent while aged 17; they were blind without their glasses; and they both enjoy reading. They were also artists, however even that has opposite point of views. John doodled, Cynthia detailed. With drugs, John wanted to explore while Cynthia had bad reactions. With raising Julian, John was tough while Cynthia coddled. I would say that around 1966/1967, John and Cynthia were starting to live two separate lives in one big house to the point of being roomies. They fell into a habit of sleeping in the spare room so one night owl would not wake the other. John was still wrapped up in his Beatle world as well as drugs and weird cronies while Cynthia went out and about with her mother. The opposite attraction may have worked in the beginning but it didn't in the end.

8. Lillian Powell

I don't believe that Lillian's presence helped their marriage one bit. According to Tony Bramwell, Pete Shotton, and many others, John did not like Lillian. Of course, Cynthia tried to downplay it, 'oh yes, they got along for my sake'. At best, it was tolerance. For a better idea of my version on Lillian, think of Marie Barone (played by Doris Roberts) on Everybody Loves Raymond. John would give her money and send her off on shopping sprees just to get her out of the house. John even bought Lillian her own home nearby but that didn't last very long. I do understand why Lillian was around alot: she was very close to Cynthia, her only daughter and baby of her nest; she doted on her first grandchild, Julian; and who would want to leave a luxury apartment or mansion?!? I wish there was some sort of compromise… like, when John was away on tour or in the recording studio, Lillian could be with Cynthia. If John was home, Lillian could be with her two older sons, her friends, travel, be anywhere but Weybridge so John could have peace and quiet with his wife and son.

9. Magic Alex Mardas

Mr. Creepy. That guy is as mysterious as Jack the Ripper. The only little background things known about him was that he was from Greece. I don't know how exactly he met the Beatles other than through art gallery owner John Dunbar (somewhere around 1965, 1966) but he certainly latched onto John. Alex fascinated John with his far-out engineering inventions and ideas but they never seem to work… he tried to upgrade the recording studio in Apple Corps but nobody was happy about it- George said that they had to strip everything off. Perhaps his ideas were ahead of the times but nothing came of it as you don't see Alex on the list of inventors along with Thomas Edison, Eli Whitney, or Benjamin Franklin. The most cringing thing about Alex was his role in the breakdown of John and Cynthia's relationship. I know he had one. Not just the part where he put the moves on Cynthia while she was staying with him and Jenny Boyd… or when he traveled to Italy to tell her John wants a divorce. I believe he encouraged John in his paranoia that Cynthia may be cheating on him and the interest in Yoko Ono. Telling Cynthia her marriage with John was over got Alex a new Rolls Royce and John was Best Man at Alex's wedding to Eufrosyne Doxiadis on July 11, 1968 (even that relationship is a mystery). I don't think he told John to leave Cynthia for Yoko but he was a 'yes’ man who got prizes (including his own electronic laboratory and head of Apple Electronics from Apple Corps) from John. He definitely took advantage.

10. Yoko Ono

No explanation necessary other than what's already been posted.