A Drug Trip
In the few days that I’ve been here, I’ve seen more victims of drug abuse than I care to share.
Don’t get me wrong- Tucson, like most places, has quite a drug problem as well. However, it just wasn’t always as evident as what I see around Seattle. Maybe it’s just more accepted here, so all the trippin’ folks just meander around town?
Whatever the case, I’ve watched a couple of deals from my balcony in the few days I’ve been here, and James has been politely asked if he was interested in buying “something” more than once. Must be his ponytail. If the people weren’t so nice, I might find it all a little scary, but so far we haven’t been stalked or anything. Yet.
Experience- limited, but experience nonetheless- has taught me that while I feel it’s a person’s choice whether or not they want to engage in drug use, I personally want nothing to do with it.
Several years ago, my substance-free self got a little involved in the world of mind-enhancing supplements. I was working at a dance studio, and the majority of my co-workers were heavy weed smokers. Naturally, I got a little curious and decided to join them one day. My first hit off a bong and the several thereafter appeared to have absolutely zero effect other than bathing me in the aroma of marijuana. A scent that I’m a bit ashamed to admit I like a little too much, even today.
So naturally, since I seemed to be a bit immune to the mellow world of weed, I kept doing it. For awhile, anyway. Until that one night when I ate a special brownie at a movie theater and I learned my lesson the hard way.
My friends who made the brownies were pretty experienced drug users. Me- not so, and whatever that cheap weed was laced with was a little too strong for my mind to handle. I had a terrifying drug trip that lasted all night. One that I couldn’t shake for days afterward.
It was unlike anything else I had ever experienced. One second I was enjoying the movie, the next I couldn’t figure out whether I was asleep or awake, and before I knew it, people were pulling me out of the movie theater, telling an acquaintance of ours to cancel the ambulance, and I was dragged to someone’s car.
I couldn’t breathe, get rid of the horrible shaking, or figure out who I was and what the hell was going on. We waited in the car for eons while I babbled incoherently and panicked about the demons in my head. I saw a large, black man dressed in all white crossing the parking lot, and I felt soothed by his presence. When I turned my head to watch him walk away, he had disappeared.
“Where’d the man in white go?” It was a hallucination, and I couldn’t figure out what was real and what was an illusion of my brain.
Terrifying is an understatement. I never did drugs again, and it got to the point where I was scared to death of even the effects of over-the-counter medications for a very long time.
I never wanted to lose control again that way, and I was unsure what sort of substances could trigger that effect. It was like once the weed showed my head where to go, the simplest things could throw me into a panic attack. Too much noise. Exhaustion. Nyquil. Hell, just stress did it.
Since then, I have spent a lot of time trying to recover from that horrible experience. It was stupid, the whole thing, yet it was an invaluable lesson. Had I never done it, I never would have made the educated choice to live a drug-free life.
Have you had an experience like this?
Current Mood:
Cool
September 15th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
in all my drug experiences, (which weren’t really that many) i didn’t ever experience something that awful. when i was high, it was like moving through the world in slow motion, my thoughts fuzzy and uncaring. i’ve been offered lines of cocaine, and had the opportunity to do magic mushrooms…both of which i turned down. i figured going for pot was enough for me, and i didn’t want to have one of those adverse reactions (like what you had) that i hear about so often. every once in a while i think back and remember what it felt like to be high, and i miss the camaraderie of sitting around smoking a bong with my good friends… but i the camaraderie is all i miss. i could probably feel the same way if we had wine and a good board game. i wouldn’t risk my future with my children just for the chance to get high. i don’t feel comfortable being in the presence of a person who smells like pot, let alone actually being in its presence nowadays.
September 15th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I think about those times when I was so stoned (weed) I couldn’t sit on the sofa and I’d be having a panic attack. I stopped when I started my “professional” job… after waiting in agony for a week to find out if i passed my drug test I realized the stress wasn’t worth it. Then there was my flashback while I was staring at my computer at work to the only time I ever tried ’shrooms (and I thought I was Alice in Wonderland- heh!). Fun experience, but never again. Nope, I’m all grown up now and it was never an option to let it control my life.
September 15th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Mike and I did more than our fair share of expirementing. We’re totally over it now, and wouldn’t do any of it again. I think at some point you have to grow up. It’s one thing to be caught with weed at 17 but can you imagine being 20 something with kids? I think there’s an age where it quits being ‘cool’ and starts to make you a loser. At least this way, our kids won’t be able to get anything by us!
September 15th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
In the very far away past I used to drive around with friends getting high. Except getting high meant me getting sick. I always had an allergic type of reaction. I don’t care if anyone else wants to smoke pot, but I just can’t. Now that I have stopped smoking (almost 3 years now) I can’t stand to be around smokers hardly at all. Part of it is my OCD.. ok a big part of it is my ocd. I will pick out someone smoking in their car at a red light. I don’t even like to drink much. Go figure.. I was always the one that knew how to get hooked up in high school.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:58 am
I think pot is great, relaxing, inspirational, and I don’t usually have any problem getting creative things accomplished on it. It also helps me get the motivation to do housework.
Never had a bad trip on acid or shrooms or ecstasy, never had a flashback, but I don’t have empty weekends for them now.
Salvia Divinorum doesn’t work every time, is short-lasting when it does, is a little strange and tastes pretty nasty–i.e., not something I consider really “recreational.” My only real “am I going to come back to the right dimension and why can’t I move my jaw” moments were on her, but it’s over in five minutes and the little friendly cloud people tucked themselves back behind that sky curtain where they live and never re-appeared, hahaha.
Never had any urge to do cocaine or pills or anything else. Was offered cocaine once anyway, and it just made the back of my throat numb and I felt like I was choking on my uvula. No fun, no high there for me. (I didn’t want to like it.)
September 16th, 2009 at 7:00 am
You know, I have to wonder if part of the reason I had such a bad reaction to it has to do with my overall chemical make-up. The wires in my head (clearly) aren’t the same as a “sane” person without a little help, so maybe pot doesn’t have the same affect on me, either. Hm… I suppose it’s probably a REALLY good thing I never tried anything else. I probably would have ended up a human rocket or something had I tried shrooms- LOL!