Overdose: Why Gabbers in the ’90s Stepped Back from Drugs

  I still see attempts at drug use similar to the ’90s gabbers in some places. I’ve been researching the reasons — whether the gabbers gave up the unsustainable lifestyle on their own, or if it was political. 

Here’s the post about it…

 Step Back From The Overdose

  In the early ’90s, gabber in the Netherlands was a beast. What started in Rotterdam as a reaction against polished house music became a full-blown youth culture, complete with shaved heads, Air Max kicks, pounding 180 BPM kicks, and a no-holds-barred approach to partying.

At the center of it all was speed — lots of it. Amphetamines, MDMA, LSD (even combined together) weren’t just part of the experience; they were the experience. Ravers pushed themselves to the edge of physical and mental limits, weekend after weekend. As the scene exploded in popularity, tragedies followed — young ravers collapsed, overdosed, or ended up in hospitals after taking unknown pills or mixing too much too fast. 

But by the end of the decade, the scene had pulled back. What happened?

For many original gabbers, the lifestyle wasn’t sustainable. You can only run on speed and no sleep for so long before your body shuts down — and your mind with it. People started disappearing from the scene, not because they stopped loving the music, but because their nervous systems were wrecked. Panic attacks, depression, paranoia — these weren’t rare cases; they were common exits.

And to the main reason why drugs were pulled back, belong: 

 * Public health groups like Unity and Jellinek entered clubs, handing out honest info, offering drug testing, and educating ravers without judgment.

They distributed flyers, information cards, and offered drug testing at events, which helped reduce overdoses and raise awareness. The Dutch government adopted a pragmatic, non-punitive drug policy, which paradoxically made it easier to talk openly about drugs and their dangers.

 * Media panic over overdoses sparked fear — even if exaggerated — and forced clubs and promoters to take safety more seriously. 

A string of high-profile drug-related deaths, especially involving overdoses and bad batches, caused moral panic in the media. This created pressure on promoters to tighten safety rules and distance their events from the drug-fueled reputation.

 * Commercialization shifted gabber from underground rebellion to mainstream youth culture. As the music softened, so did the drug culture.

- Gabber, originally a raw underground movement, became more commercialized by the mid to late 90s. With this shift came a broader and younger audience who didn’t necessarily share the same “hardcore” drug culture. The music also changed — from the raw Rotterdam-style hardcore to happy hardcore, attracting more mainstream ravers, often teens.

 * Burnout hit hard. Many original gabbers couldn’t physically or mentally sustain the lifestyle and either quit or moved on.

- By the end of the 90s, many of the original gabbers aged out or experienced burnout from the intense lifestyle. Many simply couldn’t sustain the level of speed and MDMA use long-term without severe mental and physical consequences. Some moved on to techno, trance, or even dropped the scene entirely.

 * Local governments began regulating events, requiring safety measures that made chaotic drug excess harder to maintain.

- Although Dutch drug policy was tolerant, local governments and police cracked down on illegal raves and unsafe venues. Promoters were forced to meet safety standards, provide medical staff, and sometimes even allow on-site drug testing. More organized events meant less tolerance for chaotic, drug-fueled excess.

 Summary of the Shift: 

 The extreme drug use didn’t just vanish overnight — it lost its centrality. And the culture matured. And crucially, it did so without needing a full-scale moral panic or brutal crackdown. In that sense, the Netherlands did something rare: it trusted its youth enough to educate them, not punish them. And over time, it worked better than repression ever could.

Back in 90’s when I was a kid in Czechia, I was already listening to happy hardcore — I just didn’t know it had a name. In Czechia this was “disco” or “dance”. Faster beats, chipmunk vocals, melodies that made no sense about Gabba but made you feel everything. Just cassettes, and joy in their purest form. 

Not All Drum & Bass Is Built Equal

  Right now, Sidney SN isn’t really a drum and bass producer, just he is a producer of drum and bass mixes— and maybe that’s not just a coincidence. Yet I don’t need to be a DnB producer right now. I still have different priorities in life. I can become a producer right now like even when I’m in my sixties. 

Sidney has always shown interest about the UK scene — where clear sound, professional-level production are absolutely essential. In the UK, if your sound isn’t clean, you simply won’t break through.

But when Sidney mixing tracks that come from a different philosophy — like the Liquicity-style tracks, which are often made entirely in FL Studio and similarly softwares with minimal mixing depth — Sidney himself sometimes struggled to make those tracks sit right in his mixes. The difference in sound quality becomes very real in the DJ booth — not just in theory.

If you go back to pre-2020, Sidney SN mostly mixed music from UK artists — or at least tracks that sounded like UK drum and bass: clean, well-produced, emotionally deep, and technically solid.

But as Liquicity grew and more continental artists filled the scene, the overall sound quality shifted. And so did the impact of Sidney’s sets. It’s possible that the loss of sound quality in the music he had to work with played a role in how his DJ style evolved.

In the UK, drum and bass is not just made on laptops. It’s made in real production studios, by artists who treat it like serious music. Think hardware synths, outboard compressors, acoustic instruments, real vocal booths, and trained engineers. This is where you find artists like Pola & Bryson, Technimatic, Sustance, Kyrist, LSB, Flava D, BCee, of course London Elektricity, Etherwood, Keeno, LENS, and others — and vocalists like SOLAH, Riya, Ruth Royall, DRS, Visionobi, Charlotte Haining, for example. 

In the UK, a drum and bass track without professional-level clarity, vocal quality, and mix balance won’t get released. It won’t reach radio. It won’t get booked. This is a sound culture built on decades of studio experience — not on presets and shortcuts.

A lot of producers at Liquicity Records, they produce entirely inside FL Studio or similar DAWs, often in bedrooms with minimal acoustic treatment. And Liquicity itself supports this — encouraging young producers to focus on emotion and melody, even if the sound isn’t clean. I don’t say that is not good idea support people in their music production—in a away, modern liquid drum and bass emerged because tools like is Fl Studio, Ableton, but UK sound is better because approaches to music production in UK. And maybe, this shift matters because the world followed FL Studio approaches. As Liquicity grew in Europe, many young producers copied the accessible FL Studio formula — and the standard for liquid or deep DnB dropped.

In the end, the UK remains the benchmark — not because of tradition, but because it still respects the full process: Studio craft, instrumental layering, professional vocal sessions, and clean, powerful mixes. If you remove that, you don’t just lose clarity — you lose meaning. 

And in Czechia? The scene is especially about raving. Clean sound is not a priority at all. Most local events are built around energy, not quality. Nobody cares whether the track is clean — only if it drops hard. One of the reason, why in Czechia dominant DnB genre is neurofunk. Neurofunk is not about clear sound at all what is UK drum and bass. A truth is, free tekno has also big sound in Czechia—because tekno is possible make by simply way in tools like is FL Studio, need nothing else for this music, even in mind. 

When I am sick

  I wrote that I’m currently sick. If someone finds me dead, this is why. (Practical doctor doesn’t know exactly what is there with my person.) 

Summary 

🦠 Initial Symptoms (about 6 weeks ago):

• Sudden fatigue, sleeping almost 24 hours

• Nausea, loss of appetite, flu-like symptoms

• Muscle pain, body aches

• Parainfectious state with pressure sensations, internal restlessness, indescribable “strange feelings in the body”

😷 Subsequent Course:

• Inflammation in the left ear (treated)

• Followed by a tooth infection (left molar) → drainage, pain, minimal food intake

• After improvement, a return of “flu-like” symptoms and physical weakness, fever 38 °C

💊 Treatment:

• Erdomed, Ventolin

• Long-term use of ibuprofen during illness and for dental pain

🩺 Laboratory Findings:

• CRP within normal range

• Electrolyte imbalance (specific values not provided)—treatment by mineral waters

• Elevated magnesium

•.     COVID test—negative

✅ In fourteen days, the following have healed:

• Shortness of breath

• Sore throat

• Other flu symptoms

• Strange sensations in the body — unless influenced by ibuprofen use

⸻

🚨 Newly appeared (7/10-13/10):

• Mild pain in the heart area

• Strange pressure around the heart

• Sometimes high or fluctuating blood pressure

• Feelings that heart failure might occur

⸻

Current issues:

• Elevated temperature

• Discomfort or pain when clothing rubs against the body

⸻

Thursday 7/10-…

• Thursday: Attempted to stop taking ibuprofen

• Thursday after a bath: Sudden, one-time, intense sharp pain shooting from the upper body down to the feet. The pain stopped after the shock from it, and I slept the entire afternoon

• Later that evening: Needed to resume ibuprofen, a stronger, more anti-inflammatory version — due to intense body pain reaching the feet

• Friday: Fluctuating conditions, feelings of impending heart failure — considered visiting the ER or calling emergency services if the condition worsened

• Saturday: Fever spike in the afternoon, over 38°C — the fever brought relief, relaxation; during this time the body hurt less. There was a sensation of the “pain” spreading from the left side of the chest (heart area) into the body — this spreading seemed to reduce pain at the source, as if trying to move the issue elsewhere to improve the condition — in a way similar to how Galmed ibuprofen works against inflammation

• Sunday: Possible improvement in heart area due to stronger and anti-inflammatory ibuprofen

• I dared to do things I hadn’t done since Thursday — like a full-body shower, though not hot

• Monday: Still mild pain in the heart area, elevated temperature and fever, discomfort from clothing, body aches

• Despite this, tried to ignore the symptoms and do normal things at home — aside from the mild heart pain and other mentioned issues, nothing worsened while doing regular activities

• Tuesday: In current time, similar to Monday — mild pain in the heart area, elevated temperature to fewer, discomfort from clothing rubbing the body, body aches

                 •        Wednesday: There may have been some further improvement. From Saturday is better. I went to the general practitioner for a check-up, and nothing was found; the ECG was normal. However, when I got back from the doctor, I took my temperature and it was 37.9°C (I can provide the record.) I still have an internal examination ahead of me. Clothing still feels uncomfortable when it rubs against my skin. I usually experience this when I have a fever, but the almost constant fever and mild pain in the heart area have not been explained by the doctor. The doctor also said it might be psychological. My argument was that it sounds like I’m making up even something like a tooth infection—or that my mind invented the infection. A dentist would be surprised. And the fever also remains unexplained. I also lost a planned weekend, event in the Netherlands because of current issues. I had already informed about the chest pain last time. But person said he didn’t know about it. And for more times, I mentioned that I used, in current time, to be a smoker, but today person said I’m an ex-smoker. Yes I have doubt. 

              •       Thursday: According to the examination at the internal medicine admissions clinic, it appears to be a post-infectious condition, including elevated temperature and fever. I may still feel body aches for a few more days, and likewise, the elevated temperature may persist for a few days. My heart is fine. The new blood test results after fourteen days are normal—I no longer have an electrolyte imbalance. When I asked my general practitioner about the long-term use of ibuprofen, the cardiologist stated that it could be harmful. I am now supposed to take paracetamol. And of course, I was advised that smoking is not a good idea—generally speaking as well. I have mentioned several times to my GP that I currently smoke, but there has been no response.

It might be a coincidence during respiratory illness, but I asked AI about a pinched nerve. So far, no doctor has considered this theory. Only I took it into account because of the symptoms I had. 

A pinched (or compressed) nerve, technically called nerve compression, can be caused by various factors that press on or irritate the nerve.

📌 Specifically for the chest area:

• A pinched intercostal nerve often causes pain that mimics a heart attack or rib pain during breathing. — Friday 07/11

🧠 Symptoms of a pinched nerve

• Sharp, burning, or radiating pain (e.g., into the limbs) - Thursday 07/10

The release of a pinched nerve in the thoracic spine or rib area (often the intercostal nerve – nervus intercostalis) can manifest in several ways. Once the pressure on the nerve eases, your body usually lets you know through a sense of relief. - Saturday 07/12

!!! I think, it could be a good clue for anyone calling emergency services saying they might be having a heart attack — and maybe the doctor will think you’re crazy, that your heart is fine.

              •        Friday:  No one pain at heart area. Elevated temperature. Discomfort when clothing rubs against the body. Treatment; Paracetamol. 

              •         Saturday: A bit tired, probably also because I’ve been dealing with various health issues continuously since the first weekend of June. According to the internal medicine doctor, I should still take it easy for a few days—so I’m taking it easy. This isn’t typical for me. The last time I saw a doctor was for Omicron in February 2022. Before that, it was for strep throat in the summer of 2020.

 Illnesses over seven weeks:

1. Respiratory illness
2. Inflammation of the tooth root canals in a molar
3. After dental treatment, recurrence of the respiratory illness and fewer
4. Electrolyte imbalance (most likely due to irregular eating caused by tooth pain, gum drainage, and a week of dental rinses)
5. Pinched nerve in the rib area

📍  Infection as a Trigger (AI summary)

• You clearly had an infection: fatigue, inflammation, fever, cough, shortness of breath, inflammation in the ear or tooth → the body was systemically weakened.

• These conditions (especially viral infections) can trigger:

  • post-infectious inflammation of nerves or their sheaths

  • an autoimmune response – the body starts attacking its own tissues (including nerve tissue)

  • inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis) or the pericardium (pericarditis) →  the same possibility mentioned doctor

🧠 Suspected Conditions (by AI):

•.      Post-infectious neurological involvement (e.g. sensory neuropathy, dysautonomia)

• Post-infectious myocarditis / pericarditis 

• Electrolyte imbalance with possible metabolic complication (including kidney involvement)

* Initially, I had a problem with an infection in a treated tooth at the end of December 2024. I was in the Netherlands at the time. Paracetamol and regular Czech ibuprofen didn’t work well. I realized this when I ran out of few Czech ibuprofens and bought UK Flamingo ibuprofen in Rotterdam. Within 20 minutes, the pain was gone. Within twelve hours, the inflammation had moved out of the tooth, the abscess burst, and everything was resolved for months. 

In March 2025, I visited a dentist because I wanted her to clean the root canals. But no inflammation was visible. The infection in tooth came back in June, two days after current illness seemed to be gone. And regular Czech ibuprofen didn’t help with the tooth pain either. 

Flamingo ibuprofen isn’t sold in the Czechia. I was frustrated that the UK Flamingo ibuprofen worked instantly, while regular Czech ibuprofen did nothing. Using AI, I found Galmed, which seemed similar to Flamingo ibuprofen. And while Galmed ibuprofen has different effects than Flamingo, it has strong anti-inflammatory properties, is more potent than common ibuprofens available in the Czechia, and is more anti-inflammatory. However, it’s not easily accessible — most pharmacies don’t carry Galmed ibuprofen.

Please note that during treatment with Galmed Ibuprofen, it may seem like the condition is getting worse. In reality, however, the problem is being treated. I’m not a medical expert, but in my opinion, Galmed Ibuprofen is aggressive and, for example, forces the inflammation to leave the body, which can make it seem like the condition is worsening. From my experience, these effects typically are between the third and fourth hour after taking it. Overall, I believe Galmed Ibuprofen works for about six hours. In my opinion, it’s better to wait six hours before taking another dose, especially if the issue is more serious. Right around the third to fifth hour, the symptoms can appear quite intense, and someone might be tempted to take another dose, thinking the medicine isn’t working. However, these are just the more aggressive effects of Galmed Ibuprofen trying to expel and treat the inflammation, I think.

When The Future Held Back

 If a full-fledged high-speed rail line (HSR) like the one in the Netherlands were built between Plzeň and Prague, for example, the actual travel time could be 20–25 minutes, including acceleration, deceleration, and safety buffers.

Today, that same journey takes—on the example of the Západní Express Ex 562—around 1 hour and 11 minutes. The regional train Rx Křivoklát takes around 1 hour and 5 minutes. And regular Ex6 Bavorský expres takes around 1 hour and 22 minutes. Or regular R16 Berounka takes around 1 hour and 31 minutes.

I think the situation with German trains might be similar to the Dutch HSR trains on the route from Plzeň to Prague, especially when it comes to IC/ICE trains. I’ve even heard criticism of the German Alex train, which operates on the route between Pilsen and Prague. But some people from Czechia might not realize that it’s possible to use Germany’s HSR trains for that part of the journey — it’s just that the Czech Republic doesn’t have the infrastructure for high-speed rail. And at the way from Munich to Prague, in some areas, such as Nýřany, all trains had to slow down due to frequent suicides involving people jumping in front of them. (1) 

Another example, if you traveled from Düsseldorf to Munich (this is distance 600 km) at the same average speed as a typical Czech train like Plzeň to Prague, it would take about 10 hours or that. German train takes around 4 hours 45 minutes to 5 hours. 

Because of my experiences with approaches in the Netherlands, I sometimes laugh when someone in Czechia says that “green stuff” is limiting. Yes, it limits irresponsibility—but not wealth and pretty good infrastructure, as the Netherlands demonstrates to me. The Dutch are generally wealthier and more cultured than what I usually see in Czechia. And trains in the Netherlands are powered by wind energy—yet for years have already been much more pleasant than trains in Czechia. And they are usually punctual. Yeah, German trains are not so punctual, yet they are not powered by renewable energy. But the speed of IC/ICE trains is similar to Netherlands trains. 

Yet we also could discussing roads in the Netherlands, the Dutch highways and their contradictions towards Czech roads, highways. So ironically, even though German Autobahn’s allows you to fly, the constant roadworks, traffic jams, and lane madness can slow you down. In the Netherlands, even with lower speed limits (100 km/h during daytime, 130 km/h only at night), the road just flows. Once you leave even Germany and enter the Netherlands, the road somehow “opens up” — not in terms of speed limit, but in flow, discipline, and comfort. 

I read that in the Netherlands, around 12,000 buildings will be waiting to connect to renewable energy by 2030, which is about 0.12% of buildings in the Netherlands. In another countries, by 2030, only a minimum number of buildings will be connected to renewable energy. I also already mentioned that Rotterdam will be the first city where buildings will receive electricity through the energy of Rotterdam’s public transport system. And as I write here, for example, trains are powered by wind energy.

I also read that energy prices in the Netherlands are high because of the current Dutch renewable energy infrastructure. I conducted research using AI to find out where energy is the most expensive in relation to the minimum wage in different countries. The result: The ETUC data is from July 2022, and although the situation may have changed since then, reports indicate that energy costs remain relatively similarly. Czech households pay the highest electricity prices in the EU when adjusted for purchasing power, which confirms the worsening ratio between income and energy expenses, especially for low-income groups. The worst situation is in the Czech Republic, where a minimum wage worker has to work 65 days to cover annual energy costs. Next comes the Netherlands (48 days), Belgium (37 days), and Germany (33 days). The best off is Luxembourg, where annual energy costs equal roughly 14 days of minimum wage work. 

Czechia is often antagonistic toward sustainability, and refuses to modernize in ways that have been standard in proper Western society for years. It’s held back by outdated infrastructure.

I even asked AI about the future of Czechia if it continues on its current course. And the AI responded:

     The future of Czechia, like any country’s, depends on a mix of internal choices and external pressures. Here are three key possibilities leading up to 2050, based on current trends and your concern:

  1. If Czechia stays the same — Stagnation or managed decline

If the political, economic, and cultural approaches remain conservative, reactive, and short-term focused:

• Pros: Stability, low debt, preserved traditions, and a functional bureaucracy.

• Cons: Brain drain, continued apathy among youth, environmental neglect, weak innovation, and dependency on foreign investment.

• Outcome: Czechia may avoid collapse but lag behind socially, technologically, and economically. It risks becoming a “museum state” — cheap, passive, and irrelevant on the global stage. (2)

 2. If Czechia adapts wisely — Renaissance potential

If bold reforms are made in education, energy, digitalization, and civic engagement:

• Pros: Czechia could become a niche leader in green tech, science, or culture (as Estonia did with tech or Finland with education).

• Cons: Requires uncomfortable decisions — taxes, migration policy shifts, breaking with tradition.

• Outcome: By 2050, it could be a prosperous, ecologically balanced, culturally confident European country — small, but respected.

 3. If Czechia falls behind or ignores global changes — Slow decay, cultural erosion

If nationalism, Euroscepticism, or disinformation dominate public discourse and environmental crises worsen:

• Risks: Water scarcity, brain drain, authoritarian drift, rising inequality, and loss of cultural self-respect.

• Outcome: Not dramatic collapse, but slow decay. A place where people still live, but where the future feels second-hand. 

What makes the difference?

        • Whether Czechia invests in young people and listens to their visions.

• Whether it joins climate and digital revolutions instead of resisting them.

• Whether it can balance local identity with global responsibility.

(1) Railway Suicides in Czechia (annual figures) According to the Erasmus European Railway Agency (via Wikipedia):

 

— Czech data extracted from EU totals. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if high-speed trains operated in the Czechia, and not just because railway suicides.

(2) In a way, the post-pandemic tornado in Moravia vividly illustrated what would happen in the event of a war—most Czechs would be left with nothing, exposed under the open sky. There is no solid urban infrastructure in Czechia, no sturdy high-rise buildings, no complexity civilization or strong public transit where a Czech wouldn’t immediately be vulnerable. This is something I’ve been talking about for a while, and I pointed it out even back in 2023. During a conflict, if it’s not possible to hide in a remote wilderness or forest, it’s better to be in the solid infrastructure of an industrialized high and complexity civilization.

Aurora

  Hi there!

 It’s summer and there is tropical weather in Europe. But maybe it’ll cool down a bit in the coming days and some rain will fall. 

And what’s Sidney SN up to? Sidney is currently sick. Not Sick! how we an often thinking towards Sidney SN. Yep, it’s summer and Sidney is sick. I’m emphatic person towards good people, I think, and not just due I now have a healthy issues, there exist many people who have permanent healthy issues across all summer. 

Nevertheless, Sidney has a mission. Below is a tracklist for a good, great liquid drum and bass mix— the main reason why know about Sidney SN. Sidney would like you to create the mix yourself using the tracklist. It’s not silly to say, “Mix it yourself.” Yet, this is not a mission for supporters, friends who have own originality in their music. 

Maybe, if you can pull it off with the precision of Sidney SN, you can say you have a bit of Sidney SN in you. But music isn’t just about technique — it’s about the ideas within the music.

I believe it’s those ideas in the music that create originality. Someone might music well like another, like a copy, but they won’t go further if they don’t have their own ideas, their own originality.

All Day All Night All Summer. Enjoy!

Tracklist: 

Moleman — Escalate

Flava D — Snakebite

Flint — Dive

Bert H & Hiraeth Feat. Sydney — I’m Holding

IYRE — Where Words Fail

Tomoyoshi — Dots & Lines

Flava D x Emz — Fluent

Makoto — Silver Lining

SOLAH — King

EIJER — Nebulous

Euqsarosa — Aurora

In:Most & Etherwood — Bloodstream

Seba — Crockett

Justin Hawkes — Neverafter

Raise Spirit — When You’re Ready

Aperio — All Night All Summer