DOSE:	12.5 mg	oral	Pharms - Zolpidem	(daily)
	repeated	oral	Alcohol	(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

In 2006 I got a very high-paying and high-stress job at a small ad-agency in New York. I was so excited.. more money.. I was a producer in New York. I was the boss.

Well it wasn’t long until the actual stress of the job set in. I would have to deal with multiple clients a day all wanting something more ridiculous than the next... a lazy editorial staff and a boss that smoked weed “secretly” in his office. After about 2 months I started to lose sleep. I was slowly losing my mind. I needed something to put me to sleep. I would ask friends for a xanax here and there which helped tremendously but I always felt like shit the next day.

I went to the doctor and got a prescription for Ambien ER (Zolpidem ER). It was fantastic. The first layer would dissolve in my stomach instantly knocking me out while the second layer would dissolve throughout the night keeping me asleep. I would go to work well rested and able to deal with the stress... I always knew I had my little blue pill that would guarantee me sleep no matter how much stress I endured at work.

After about a month of taking my little blue pill the problems started. I would come home buzzed or drunk sometimes after work and take my Zolpidem and then do things I wouldn’t remember. I woke up one morning and all of the artwork in my apartment was moved to one wall. One time I woke up on the floor of my living room.. My BF had locked me out of the bedroom and taken all the knives in with him. Evidently I was acting so insane and hallucinating that he thought I was going to kill him.

One time I showed up at the local bar at like 1AM. I literally slept walked into the bar and ordered a drink and had full on conversations with people. None of this I remember. This didn’t happen like one or two times but more like 20. A couple of times I remember waking up and talking to people that weren’t there. If I didn’t get to bed within 20-30 minutes after taking the drug I would hallucinate.. I would think friends were there with me in the apartment.. then after a couple of months those friends.. became objects I would see out of the corner of my eye. I was losing my mind to Zolpidem.

I became increasingly more and more paranoid in my conscious life. I was convinced I had AIDS..I started seeing symptoms that weren’t there. I would walk around like a ball of anxiety all day long. All I could think about was that when I got home I would take my Ambien with a beer and everything would be fine. I would feel fine. I would plan my evening around when and how I took my blue pill. It became an obsession for me. I would wait until 10PM or so after a couple of drinks, take my pill.. THEN I would eat dinner. I was so scared it wouldn’t work on a full stomach.

One day I really just flipped out at work. My heart was racing and I almost fainted. Panic Attack!!! I went to the doctor and told them what was going on. They cut off the Ambien and gave me lorazepam and a couple of other anti-depressants for anxiety. It worked. The first night I took my lorazepam That anxiety and obsession I had about my blue pill was gone.

My friends later told me some of the stories.. the things I would do on Ambien. I would call them up and ask them to meet me for a drink. I would sit in the bar.. one minute seemingly lucid and interacting the next.. zoned out in another world. One night I thought I was a bull and I started to ram my head against my friends arm.. then the next second I was normal. I have absolutely NO memory of any event while under the influence of Zolpidem.

I feel Zolpidem is a great medication for OCCASIONAL use. MIxing it with alcohol and using it over the long term.. I feel is dangerous.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 91356
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 33
Published: Jan 11, 2019	Views: 2,270
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Pharms - Zolpidem (143), Alcohol (61) : Combinations (3), Retrospective / Summary (11), Difficult Experiences (5), Addiction & Habituation (10), Not Applicable (38)