It took me 3 drugs.
It took me 3 months from the last time I really used.
It took a friend 3 minute of her time to listen to me ramble so that I could come to a very needed realization.
Tonight, I had my first epiphany that came from myself. Just me. Not Jackie, not my friend… Me.
For over a year I’ve been using. For over a year, I’ve had people beg and plead me to stop.
Last summer, I thought I met someone who changed me. She did. She couldn’t. She inspired me to make a change. But she can’t make the change. She made me WANT to change. She made me want to quit. She made me want to be a better person.
Well, I’m proud to say I most certainly am a better person. Unfortunately, I continued to use.
In the past 3 months, ecstasy, weed, and caffeine have been my drugs.
I’ve put so much shit in my body, the drugs don’t have their normal effects on me.
Ecstasy
I basically spent my spring break on a huge relapse. I spent that week completely high. But one cap didn’t satisfy me. No… I popped 2 and would have a large RedBull accompany them. Instead of the good feeling and the occasional hallucinations, I sat there and I shook. I sat in an arm chair shaking, sweating, freezing, feeling numb.
I realized ecstasy didn’t have the effect on me it once did. Even when I was sober that week, I can’t remember a single thing. I can’t remember the Britney Spears concert. I can’t remember sleepovers, hang outs, family visits, etc. What I do remember is biting my tongue so hard it was numb. I remember grinding my teeth because I felt I had to. I remember anything carbonated might as well have been acid going down my throat. I remember picking up my cellphone and thinking it must have been a brick it felt so heavy. I remember sitting in that chair thinking I was going to die. My blood was pumping my head was pounding I was shaking and sweating. I remember waking up the next morning wondering why my tongue had bite marks/blood on it, why my lips were chewed up and swollen. I remember wondering why I was drenched in sweat.
Then I remembered. I took 2 caps of orange dolphin ecstasy the previous night and chugged a large RedBull with it.
Lady Ecstasy, I am done with you.
Marijuana
I remember the first time I smoked a bowl. It was for a stupid reason, really. I was at home, hanging out with my friend. My stepbrother is a bit of a pothead and his stoner friends come over. One of them was REALLY hot. He came in to my room and kept asking me to join them. Embarrassed that I’d never smoked weed/didn’t know how, I declined. Later that night, I got my stepbrother to teach me so that I could hang out with his hot friends.
WELL. I noticed that when I was high, it made me feel good. It was an easy and quick addiction. It became an everyday thing, and my tolerance became ridiculous.
After spring break, I was hanging out with a friend and we got quite a bit of weed. And of course like any obnoxious teenager, we smoked it. I had at least eight times more than him. He walked around like an idiot, laughing at everything. I didn’t feel any good. I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel giddy and smiley and laughy.
I felt dead.
I felt clammy, my blood was pumping and my head was pounding. I felt light. I felt as if I were going to black out.
Mary Jane, I am done with you.
Caffeine
Everyone knows caffeine. Okay, obviously I am going to enjoy a coke or a cup of tea or an iced coffee again. But today I did something really stupid.
I thought it was going to be harmless. I thought it was going to be fun. I thought I was going to be wired.
I had a large can of RedBull (funny how RedBull is always involved…), a bottle of caffeinated pop, and 3 caffeine pills.
Let me put that into perspective for you.
Large RedBull (more than 80 mg of caffeine, that’s how much is in a regular can)
+ 571 mL coke (around 55 mg of caffeine)
+ 3 caffeine pills (200 mg each)
———————————————-
= over 735 mg of caffeine.
Now, in a cup of coffee there is generally about 40 mg of caffeine.
735 mg of caffeine / 40 mg of caffeine per cup of coffee = over 18 cups of coffee.
Imagine drinking about 18 and a half cups of coffee in 20 minutes.
I wasn’t wired. I wasn’t bouncing off the walls. I wasn’t running around non-stop. I wasn’t crazy.
I was pretty normal mentally.
But physically?
I remember my blood was pumping my heart was pounding. I walked around today with a sore spot where my heart is, short of breath, and yet still tired. My temperature was ever-changing, I’d be really flipping hot one second and freezing the next. The cold sweat returned.
I thought I could get a high, because clearly the other drugs weren’t giving me one.
It had the same effect. I felt sick, I felt faint.
Drugs, I am done with you.
Until my realization today, I never wanted to be sober. I missed drugs, I missed the high and the wonderful fantasy feeling I got. But then I realized… I’d put so much shit in my body that I can no longer feel that.
My body had been giving me warnings recently, but I had been too ignorant and addicted and dumb to see them. I’d blacked out from drug use before, and it was a similar feeling.
So I asked myself today… If I don’t get the high, if I feel like I’m sick or faint or like I’m going to die…
How many warnings will I get until it’s too late?
I consider this my official closure to drugs, my final wakeup call.
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