Features Jan 17, 2008 at 4:00 am

How It Happened, Why I Did It, What It Felt Like

Confessions of a Gasoline Huffer as originally printed. Illustration: Paul Hoppe

Comments

1
I enjoyed reading this.
2
genious
3
Thanks Brendan.
4
I enjoyed reading this as well. Thanks for sharing your secret with me.
5
That was beautiful...
6
Brendan Kiley, you are a good writer. Keep it coming.
7
There's a very powerful and disturbing movie about gas huffing (and loss) called "Love, Liza" that you should watch. One of Philip Seymour Hoffman's best roles.
8
I'm a 28 year old art teacher and I just watched the movie 'Love Liza' and wanted to do some research on the whole huffing thing. Your essay was very touching. I'm glad that you shared it. Well done, keep writing.
9
I am an ex-huffer and your article really helped me to stop. thank you.
10
Very genuine experience. I truely loved it. I corrolated it to my experience.
11
this was a very entertaining essay but being an ex-huffer myself, im disapointed in your details. perhaps you cant remember. if you ever huff again in the future, perhaps you should use a notepad or recorder to capture the moment that is so easy to forget
12
hello i'm a huffer. not like i use-to be but from time to time i revisit my old friends, i call them eddies. why i don't know but its been about 23 years since i started. i'm 35 now and i sniffed gas countless times over the years. i don't know why i'm telling you but something about your story inspired me. the things i've seen and done, the people i've met and been, all because of eddies.

i talk to them and there harmless. they don't tell me what to do or anything but we do talk and our relationship has grown and so has there persona. i'm not full of shit this is weird i know but it has taught me allot about my self and at times given me confidence.
13
I am a 54 yr. old woman who just recently has found the exciting smell of gasoline. I do not go through my mouth, but I keep a gas can by my side at all times when I am home. I just love the smell of it. I had no idea that you were supposed to take it through the mouth. Sometimes I just want to drink it, it smells so damn good!! I also drink alot of beer and sometimes I worry that I just may do that someday. Hopefully I will be able to refrain from putting my mouth over the hole.....but it I did that then i couldn't smell it....and that is all I like. I don't get a buzz or nuthin, I just LOVE the smell.
14
Very entertaining writer. I was amused by the comical parts of this essay but saddened by the fact that the writer has to experience the pain of memories that robbed a part of his childhood.
15
These are all very similar effects to what I experienced when I started huffing gas at age 12. I probably did it for about 3 of 4 years. Im 25 now and little things in life still always pop up and remind me of old trips
Very good read
16
I and my younger brother huffed away a teenage summer. In my blackouts (passed out), I walked unfamiliar streetscapes and talked with people unknown to me at the time. My brother and I would share our stories of our "gasoline travels" upon waking up. Many years later I walked those streetscapes and met those people in my day-to-day life. It freaked me out.

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