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.