DOSE:	20 mg	oral	Pharms - Paroxetine	(daily)
	0.5 mg	oral	Pharms - Lorazepam	(pill / tablet)
	repeated	oral	Alcohol	(liquid)
	27.5 mg	oral	Pharms - Lorazepam	(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

125 lb

I am prescribed .5 mg of lorazepam two times a day for anxiety along with 20 mg of paxil once a day for anxiety/depression. When this experience occured, I am just refilled my prescription for lorazepam; I had been without it for at least 4 weeks. I was taking Paxil as prescribed.

On this Friday, I had taken .5 mg of lorazepam in the morning as prescribed. I drank two glasses of wine, and my memory begins to go hazy after just that small amount of alcohol. I went grocery shopping, came home and made dinner for my roomate, Sam, and I. We drank several shots and mixed drinks after dinner and were playing cards when two guys in our apartment complex stopped by and invited us to a party. At the time, I did not feel all that drunk, but looking back, I barely remember getting ready to go out.

Sam and I went to the guy's apartment, where I had a beer or two, and then to the party. I do not remember being in either place. My memory completely cuts off at this point, so all the following actions have been pieced together from what people told me.
I was very happy and excited about going to the party, but when I was there, I became more and more upset and angry. I don't think there was any real reason to be angry, but apparently I was mad at Sam. I felt like she was abandoning me and was mad that she was having such a good time. Apparently, I stormed out of the party early on. One of the guys came outside to see what was wrong and saw me storming off in the wrong direction. He tried to help me, but I cursed at him and gave him the finger. I walked back to my apartment, but could not find the keys to get in. I called Sam and she came to let me in. She said I was sitting by the door with my knees to my chest and still acted angry and rude when she arrived. She went back out, refusing to deal with my drunken moodiness.

Somehow, I must have fallen on something and hit my eye. I had a black eye with cuts and scrapes around it the next morning. Sam says I called her and screamed that my eye was bleeding 'from the top and the bottom'. I wanted her to come home and must have grown even more angry when she refused or did not offer to. I called my boyfriend and told him the same thing. I was screaming, 'What am I supposed to do? My eye is bleeding and Sam is not here!' He tried to calm me down and thought that he had done so. Sometime shortly after I threw my cell phone at the wall repeatedly until it proke into many pieces. I also more or less trashed our apartment. I knocked over a vase of flowers, threw things all over my room, went in Sams room and tried to rip up our high school year book, threw some of her things around, etc. I then swallowed the rest of my lorazepam pills, which was approximately 55 .5 mg pills. I left the empty bottle on my floor.

[Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!]

I got into my car and drove. I don't know where I was headed, but I have a vague thought that I may have been going to Ocean City. I do not remember any of that. I have a vague image in my mind of my broken phone and the feeling of the pills in my mouth (I swallowed them all at once as they are very small) but that is it. I don't even know why I was so angry. It was rage, really, the most intense kind. I woke up slowly to the sound of Joni Mitchell playing on my CD player in my car. I had the seat reclined and had been asleep on the side of the road for about 5 hours. Upon waking, I did not have any clear emotions. I simply tried to start my car, and upon finding that it would not start, I got out and looked around. It must have been about 5:30 or 6am. The only thing I noticed was a Royal Farms, which I walked towards.

It was raining intensly, but I hardly seemed to notice. I lit a cigarette that I found on the seat next to me, along with my smashed cell phone, but it kept going out b/c of the rain. I walked into the Royal Farms briefly, but didn't really have any business in there. I went outside, found 50 cents, and called Sam on the pay phone. She was drunk and said she had been worried sick about me. We got cut off. I had no more cash or change, so I started walking. I had no idea where I was. It could have been Ocean City for all I knew, but I was very calm, not really comprehending the situation. A man in a car stopped and offered to drive me home. I agreed, although normally I would be wary of that. I was only about 5 minutes from the apartment. He dropped me off and I entered the apartment.

I stopped, stunned, as soon as I walked in the door. I saw the huge mess and started crying. I knew that I had done it, but I did not remember. It was as if some monster inside me had taken over. I felt horribly guilty. I went into my room and saw the empty pill bottle. That is when I realized that I had taken the lorazepam. Before, I did not remember. Sam was on the couch and I crawled up next to her. We just laid there together and cried hysterically. I cried that I was so so sorry. She said it didn't matter, just that I was ok.

The next day we drove around and found my car. It was parked along a residential street that I had never been too. The next few days I struggled to come to terms with what I had done. I have never in my life been suicidal and I wondered if it was suicide I had in mind when I took all those pills. It still feels like it was not me that went into that rage. I am amazed at how severely a normal dose of my medication affected me when combined with alcohol. I am lucky to have friends who understood and forgave me for such behavior.

Exp Year: 2005	ExpID: 48712
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 23, 2008	Views: 47,516
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Pharms - Lorazepam (79), Alcohol (61) : Combinations (3), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Various (28)