DOSE:	repeated		Pharms - Alprazolam
		smoked	Cannabis
	repeated		Various

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

It all started Junior year of college. I had just transferred up to a 4 year school the semester before, and moved off campus into an 8 bedroom house on a notorious party block that August. It wasn't a frat house, but nearly every other house on the street was. I took my first opportunity out of my parents' house, off campus, to be completely reckless. I was already a huge pothead and had done a fair share of drinking and coke, but had never really had much experience with or access to pills until now. My roommate and old friend sold considerable amounts of bud and as a result had remarkable access to anything he wanted to get his hands on.

By the second week of school we were throwing the biggest parties I'd ever been to, during which I would pop a few Vicodins and drink my face off. I found out opiates make me talk even more than usual, making it easy for me to say anything I want to anyone, which meant approaching just about every girl in our attic, which was packed far beyond capacity. It was amazing, I was having the best time of my life, while still managing to get to class all throughout the week, and keeping the partying, responsibly, strictly to the weekends.

As the semester started to wind down, and I got the hang of managing the work and play schedule, I found more time for play. One boring Wednesday night I was over at my friend's apartment, smoking blunts and watching movies. His roommate was another pot dealer, but he also managed to get decent sized shipments of OC's and Xanax. I knew a lot of kids from home who ended up hopelessly addicted to Oxy's and definitely wasn't interested in those, even more so after seeing the freaks who came in to buy them. Xanax, on the other hand, I had only heard good things about. My friend's roommate offered me a bar and told me to take it as he started rolling a blunt.

By the time the blunt was done my body was completely relaxed and I was feeling really good. It was sort of like being drunk but without the awful feeling I get from alcohol sloshing around in my stomach. When I first tried to get up I fell back into my recliner and began laughing uncontrollably. I was immediately in love with this drug. And I was starving. To me, Xanax was like smoking the best weed I'd ever smoked times ten, minus the paranoia. For a huge pothead like myself, this was heaven. Eventually the Xanax replaced the Vicodin for my weekend rituals.

It also became a part of my lazy weekday nights as my dosage increased from one bar to two, to two and a half, to three or more. Still, I was having the best time in my life, completely in denial of the fact that I was getting myself not only addicted, but physically dependent upon Xanax. I just didn't care though, probably because I was taking so many pills. Most of the people around me were doing the same. It got to the point that every night of the week either I was on Xanax or hanging out with someone who was.

By Spring semester I had a steady girlfriend who was also taking Xanax. Every night we'd get fucked up together somehow. Whether it was Xanax, alcohol, pot, or some combination of the three, we were sloppy wasted every night. It got to the point that anyone who wasn't on Xanax when we were couldn't talk to us. We'd just be completely incoherent. I was taking up to 6 mg at a time and drinking about a bottle of wine and smoking innumerable blunts. If I was saying anything coherent, I was repeating it over and over again. Drunk and with that many benzos in my system, my short term memory was completely gone.

When school let out for the summer I started thinking about how I could get pills. I was completely addicted at this point, but never really admitted it unless I was fucked up, and simply laughed it off when I did. I started driving out 2 hours to where my friend's roommate lived with his parents just to get a few pills, 20 2 mg bars was the most I ever remembered picking up at a time. Then I'd drive back there about a week later to get more. I couldn't go more than a few days without getting high.

One night I decided it might be fun to try doing some coke with the pills. I figured mixing an upper with the downers would be fun. I always liked coke, but hate the come down (who doesn't?) so I figured why the fuck not. My inhibitions were practically nonexistent from all the Xanax I had been taking. So I decided to get a 50 bag (.5 g) to blow after I took my first 4 mg's of Xanax. After doing this once, I started craving coke every time I took Xanax, which was 3 or 4 times a week at least, at least 6 mg at a time.

I went back up to school in July for a summer class and managed to quit cold turkey for about a month. Then people started coming back up and I met a local frat kid who could get bars. I started taking them every couple of days, but didn't get as bad as I was earlier that summer. I would only take up to 4 mg at a time, and wasn't taking them as often. Then my girlfriend broke up with me, and I became an emotional mess. I stopped giving a shit about anything and everything. With everyone coming back up for the Fall semester, I had nearly unlimited access to pills and soon enough I found a good source for coke. For the next few months I was in a full blown addiction, back to taking at least 6 mg a day and blowing a 50 bag along with it.

Eventually, though, I got to the point where I was taking at least a 2 mg bar as soon as I woke up and smoking a bowl before I would drive to class. I would go to my 2 back to back classes then go home and take another 2 mg bar and smoke a bowl or 2 before trying to take a nap. I was so strung out over this girl that I simply couldn't sleep, even though I already had at least 4 mg of Xanax in me. So I would take another 2 mg and try to go smoke some more with my friends. We'd order some food and I'd grab a couple 22s of Bud Light to wash down another 4 mg of Xanax. Then I would call my coke dealer and grab a bag, snorting a few lines. People would come in and out to grab pills from my friend's roommate and we'd chill, smoke a few more blunts. Tuesday nights were “Tequila Tuesday” at the bar down the street, so every Tuesday we'd go there and I would knock back a few shots of Patron before barely being able to stumble out of the bar. I'd do a few lines at my friends apartment then somehow manage to make it a block back to my house without falling on ass.

After doing this steadily for a few weeks I knew I couldn't continue living this way if I wanted to make it out of college alive. So I decided that I would stop for a few days before the Thanksgiving break, and save the pills I had for that break. I wanted to stop cold turkey again, but I knew I was an addict, and knew I'd be so depressed at home that I'd be craving the pills anyway. Still, I stopped for a few days before waking up one Sunday morning, November 18, 2007 to work on a paper due the next day.

Next thing I know my roommates are all asking me if I'm all right, telling me they heard loud noises coming from my room. I remember insisting that I was fine as I heard my friend telling me he was calling 911, even though he's a drug dealer with massive amounts of weed in our apartment. I went to lie down in my bed as paramedics quickly arrived, strapping me to a back board even though I was frantically arguing with them, telling them not to. I had no idea that I had just had a seizure, and had slammed my face against my hardwood floor, computer tower, metal desk and maybe my wall too. Those were the loud noises my roommates had heard: me falling out of my desk chair and banging my head against all of those things.

I was delirious on my way to the hospital and luckily my good friend and roommate who called 911 came in the ambulance with me. I was insisting I was still going to community college, even though I hadn't been there in years. I was also claiming I had hit my head days before in a gym class, something else I hadn't done in years, considering that this was my senior year of college. By the time I go to the hospital, though, I realized exactly what had happened. I always liked to educate myself on the substances I put in my body and I knew that I had caused myself to have a seizure by completely discontinuing Xanax after taking over 10 mg a day for weeks. I told the doctor my drug abuse history and he ordered me to have a CAT scan.

Luckily, I hadn't experienced any brain damage or broken bones. My face was completely swollen and purple, though. I couldn't open my left eye and had a nasty cut that needed to be stitched up in my right eyebrow. When the swelling finally did go down I saw that my left eye was completely red, the impact against the hard surfaces bursting blood vessels in my eye. Even though that all hurt, nothing compared to the pain of seeing my parents' faces when they finally came in after driving an hour and a half north. I knew they felt awful and I knew I had let them down. They knew I was taking Xanax, but also knew they couldn't really stop me. They relied on my good judgment, and clearly it wasn't that good. I spent Thanksgiving break going through all sorts of tests at doctors offices. I had to get more brain scans needed to have my eye looked at. Luckily, I had absolutely no permanent damage other than a scar in my eyebrow. Physical damage, that is. The emotional damage of knowing I let my parents down will likely last forever. Still, it's been about 2 years and I haven't touched a benzo since. Granted, I haven't been perfect, but I know that Xanax is my worst enemy because I loved it too much. I thought it would cure all my problems. In reality it became the biggest problem I had.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 81605
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 21
Published: Apr 29, 2010	Views: 77,663
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Pharms - Alprazolam (98) : Addiction & Habituation (10), Health Problems (27), Combinations (3), Not Applicable (38)