CHICAGO — Local metalhead and avid drinker Stephen Mullins realized he needs to donate increasingly larger amounts of blood and plasma just to achieve the lightheaded euphoria he once enjoyed, employees at the Cook County Red Cross have reported.
“It used to be so simple. I would donate a pint of blood and they’d give me $15, which was more than enough because I only needed like one beer to get tipsy,” sighed Mullins while donating for the second time that day. “I’d get that nice floaty feeling. But now my tolerance has shot through the roof. I’m practically bleeding myself dry in some fucked up psuedo-Satantic ritual just to feel anything. Not only that, the cost of beer is through the roof and blood banks just don’t pay like they used to.”
Mullins’ economical method for achieving a buzz has left many of his fellow metalheads concerned.
“Stephen feels like he found a workaround to getting wasted but even though we all tend to look pale and strung out, Steve looks like a corpse, and not in a fun way. He only wears long sleeve band shirts to hide all the marks on his arm from all the donations,” Claudia Elliott, guitarist for the Chicagoland mental outfit Eternal Carnage said after picking Mullins up at the blood bank where he was too weak to walk. “We keep telling him he can just drink more beer–we will even buy it for him, but he refuses.”
Experts, meanwhile, are weighing in on the peculiar trend with a mix of curiosity and concern.
“While donating blood is generally a noble act, doing so to achieve a state of intoxicated euphoria is highly unorthodox and potentially dangerous, especially when mixed with alcohol,” hematologist Emily Greene explained. “The human body can only handle so much blood loss before serious health issues arise. Mr. Mullins’ case highlights the need for safer, healthier ways to seek thrills within the metal community, like freaking out your mom with scary makeup like you used to.”
As of press time, Mullins was found Googling if those vampire goth night clubs in movies like Blade actually exist and how to get invited.