Man who took FORTY-THOUSAND ecstasy tablets and lived to tell the tale

A man who took 40,000 ecstasy pills over nine years has been deemed the person who consumed the amount of MDMA ever while living to tell the tale.

Doctors estimate the 37-year-old, from Surrey, England, took 40,000 ecstasy pills over nine years after getting ‘very much into the club scene’.

He started taking the pills in party settings, but found that when he tried to stop he could not move and experienced tunnel vision as a symptom of withdrawal.  

His case was documented in a medical journal in 2006 that has only recently surfaced and circulated online. It comes after DailyMail.com revealed MDMA could be available in US hospitals in 2024 after showing promise as a powerful treatment for PTSD. 

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Mr A took ecstasy nearly every day for nine years, leaving him with severe health consequences including depression, panic attacks, and muscle rigidity

Known as molly, MDMA is popular in the underground dance scene, where people take it to party through the night and to feel more connected to the music and fellow ravers. 

The British man, referred to only as ‘Mr A’, used the drug heavily from the age of 21 until he was 30.

He took five tablets every weekend for the first two years, but bumped that up to about 3.5 tablets daily for the next three. 

His use jumped even higher to an average of 25 tablets daily over the next four years.

He had taken 40,000 pills before he quit, breaking the previous highest figure ever recorded for a single person of 2,000, which was published in a 1998 study. 

Dr Christos Kouimtsidis, the psychiatrist who treated him, said there was so much ecstasy in his system that he was high ‘for a few months’ after he quit the drug.

Dr Kouimtsidis was first connected to Mr A at age 37 to address his memory loss issues. The case report did not say whether Mr A was still on the drugs when he met with the doctor.

Mr A stopped using ecstasy after ‘collapsing’ at parties too many times.   

He experienced bouts of ‘tunnel vision’ and later developed severe anxiety, panic attacks, depression, muscle rigidity, hallucinations and paranoia.

The drug typically is not considered an addictive in the same way that benzodiazepines, a class of anxiety medications, and opioids are. 

Overdoses from MDMA are rare. Most are a result of multiple drug poisoning – when taking two different drugs that toxically mix in a person’s system – or outside circumstances such as dehydration. 

But too much of any substance can prove toxic and cause cardiac arrest, regardless of whether it is an illegal drug. 

Dr Kouimtsidis said: ‘Typical use is not every day and not the amount of tablets he was taking. It was extreme, his use was really, really high.’ 

Mr A may have started taking a staggering amount of ecstasy for fun, Dr Kouimstsidis explained. 

The raver ‘was very much into the club scene, providing ecstasy for himself and others and so forth’.

But at a later point he was likely taking so much of the drug to self medicate. 

The doctor added: ‘It was more like a management of his mood rather than excitement and having fun.’ 

He also had a history of using other harmful drugs including benzodiazepines, amphetamines, LSD, cocaine and heroin.

Mr A stopped taking the drug at age 37 but researchers lost contact with him.