Erowid Experience Vaults: Alprazolam: General:
"Pain and the Rock' n Roll Rabbit hole"
I'll start with a basic self-description. I'm 17 years old. I'm 6 feet tall and naturally muscluar; I guess I'm attractive. I'm very popular at my high school. I'm in a popular local band and I'm a pretty accomplished guitarist. I'm a pretty modest person, but honestly...I'm very good when it comes to creating and playing music. I've got a record deal in the works right now, hoping that it goes well. As far as academics goes, I've always been above average with regard to test scores, etc. My ACT score was 34 and I took it when I was 15.
I'll start with the sex addiction part. My first time was when I was 12 (early bloomer). Since then I haven't really been single for more than a week at a time, and even if I am single, I usually have sex with random girls a few times a week. I'm a pretty charming mother f*cker I guess. One thing I'm proud of, though, is that I've never had sex without a condom. Well, my first girlfriend and I had sex without condoms a few times but she was on birth control and told me she was a virgin before she met me. I was 13 and she was 18. haha.
The thing about girls fucking guys just because they're in a rock band seems to be true. After every show I usually have relations with at least two and a sometimes as many as 6 girls that night. Lately though, I've been falling in love rather than just f*cking. It used to just be about the sex, but now I actually fall in love...and when I eventually wind up with my heart broken, I go on a drug binge to deal with the emotional pain.
When the pain first started I handled it without pain killers, but over a period of six months it progressively got worse. I eventually went to the emergency room because one night I was in so much pain that I couldn't put my f*ckin' pants on. After god knows how many tests, CT scans, MRI's, etc., my family doctor just prescribed 100mg ultram to be taken four times daily. That was 3 years ago. I've had weeks here and there where the pain gets to the point of where I just stay in bed, but most of the time I can function on a semi-normal level. When I'm on stage though, the rush from that overcomes any pain I'm having and I deal with it pretty well. That's the only place where I'm naturally comfortable and happy.
In the past 3 years the pain has steadily gotten worse and I started seeing a pain management doctor. I've had prescriptions for Vicodin, Lortab, Skelaxin, Flexeril, and numerous other random medications here and there. Ativan for anxiety which I haven't taken in 5 months.I was taking about 5 mg daily and my doctor decided to cut me off cold one day, so now when I have a panic attack I just steal my mom's Xanax. The only constant was Tramadol. I'm pretty sure I'm addicted to it by now, but I'd rather be addicted than in mind numbing pain.
The pain changed my life in a pretty profound way...I started going to school less and less and eventually just had a tutor come to my house a few times a week. I've developed depression and extreme anxiety. I've also crawled into the hole of street-purchased drugs. I started off by making a connection with a local pill dealer and, at first, I would only buy hydrocodone from him, maybe once a month. About a year ago, I started buying morphine and Oxycontin to help deal with the pain. After experimenting with taking higher dosages than recommended, I realized I loved the opiate high more than weed, coke, X, or any other drug.
My tolerance for opiates has always been abnormally high. It takes at least 90mg of instant release morphine to put a dent in my pain and if I want to get high I take about 200mg of instant release morphine or 500mg of extended release morphine tablets (the oval blue ones). I have experimented quite heavily with everything excluding amphetamines or psychedelic drugs because they scare me. Irony is big in my life. I'll shoot hard-drugs into my body but I'm afraid of a mushroom or cactus.
I had injected cocaine about two years ago and did that for about a month on a daily basis. One day I just got tired of it and decided to quit and I've only done it once since then. It got to the point where I was doing up to 5 grams daily and spending insane amounts of money. I'm the only person I've ever known of who can shoot coke for a month straight and then just quit one day and not have withdrawal symptoms or want to do it again. I just got tired of it, that simple. Plus it made my anxiety worse.
I've always been very comfortable with syringes and my best friend's sister is a diabetic, so I have easy access to sterile 'rigs'. Up until a year ago, I had only injected cocaine. One day I tried injecting 60mg oxycontin because I was tired of snorting it and I loved it. I've been chasing that rush for the past year. I've injected everything from morphine, different benzodiazepines, X, and most recently heroin. I've even shot up vodka when I didn't have any other drugs...it was strange and I wouldn't recommend it.
About 2 months ago I got a call from an old friend (from the 5th grade). Apparently he heard I was into opiates and he was now dealing heroin. I had never tried it before. I decided to buy a baggie one day, so I had him meet me at a restaurant where I was with my family. We went into a bathroom stall and he gave me the smallest amount of any drug that I've ever seen in exchange for $30, but he assured me it was very pure and it would be more than enough (it was less than 1/10 of a gram I think). I was so excited to try it that I was sweating all the way home in the car with my family. My family wanted to go shopping but I told them that my back hurt too much and I just needed to go home.
As soon as the needle was in the vein I took a deep breath and pushed down on the plunger. Immediately, I felt a tingling sensation in my forearm and hand which spread up my arm. Then it hit me: the most intense pleasure and comfort that I've ever experienced. When people describe it as 10,000 orgasms at once, that barely touches how wonderful it is. I sat back in my chair and pulled the needle out. At that moment I decided that this was what I've been looking for. Even in the past when I had shot up 120mg of oxycontin, my back pain never completely subsided. This tiny amount of brown powder had taken away all of my pain for the first time in three years. Luckily for me, the guy I buy it from has access to the purest heroin in the midwest.
I've only shot heroin 7 times since then, not because I don't want to do it more, but because my guy, the only person in my city that I know who can find it, goes AWOL for weeks at a time and isn't reliable. I am extremely afraid of becoming addicted to any drug other than ultram, though, which is a reason why I haven't done any opiate more than once or twice a week.
I forgot to mention that my father was a drug addict and supplier in the early 90's, which is also part of the reason why I'm so afraid of becoming a full blown addict. I heard a quote once from the founder of High Times magazine: 'there are only two kinds of drug dealers, those who need fork-lifts and those who don't.' My dad was the former. He had fields of marijuana I guess and would frequently travel to Mexico and South America when I was younger and before I was born.
One day we received a package from UPS about the size of a refrigerator. Keep in mind I was 4-5 years old and had no idea what my dad did for a living. After my dad hauled it down to our basement, I heard a pounding on the door, it was the DEA and a SWAT team. My dad had been set up by one of the people he dealt to and this was a sting operation. If you hadn't guessed, the box from UPS was filled with many pounds of marijuana.
The DEA busted down our door and handcuffed my dad, put a gun to my mother's head while she was holding my baby brother, and I watched as my dad was hauled away by men with black masks on and machine guns. For a 5 year old that's a pretty traumatic experience. My mother was never involved in his drug dealing activities and she never even tried pot. My dad went away to prison for about 5 years or so and he hasn't been in our lives very much since then. The last time I saw him was a few years ago when he came to visit us. He was addicted to crack and looked like the walking dead.
After that sting, we lost everything...our big house in the country, car, etc. My mom, baby brother, and I moved into a tiny one story house that my grandparents owned and my mom got two full time jobs so she could afford sending me to a private school. She always wanted the best for us, even when we were dirt poor she never let that stop her from providing us with the best of everything.
So, after a few years, my mom married the owner of a car dealership and they eventually sold it for about 4 million dollars I think. He was a heavy smoker and drinker so my mom never let him live with us and I'm pretty sure my mom just married him for the money.
A couple years after they were married, he was diagnosed with throat cancer and he was operated on and was fine for another few years. Then a year ago he was hospitalized and died. I forgot the exact reason, but he really didn't take care of himself and I'm pretty sure he was addicted to pain medication after his first surgery along with his alchoholism and smoking 3 packs of un-filtered Camels daily. I played Blackbird by the Beatles on my acoustic guitar at his funeral. I had never seen him as a father figure or anything, but that was a very odd and moving experience for me. I was crying a lot but I couldn't figure out exactly why.
That night I was with my best friend and I was so emotionally f*cked up that I thought it would be a good idea if we stole his parent's $50,000 SUV and we went to a party. This was during the biggest blizzard that our area had seen in 5 years. He didn't have an ID and I thought it was a good idea to take my pants off before the party and show up half naked in a blizzard. I had taken 3 tabs of X and 5 beers. I must have some determined guardian angels, because I should have died many times over the past few years.
I've seen the damage addiction causes and I know how hard it is to see a loved one fall into that hole.
Luckily, I'm extremely good at hiding my drug usage and my family has no clue that I've done ANY drugs other than pot back in the 8th grade and the medication that I'm prescribed. I'm very good at the double-life thing.
Despite being only 17 years old, I've experienced more in my life than most people do in their entire time on this strangely absurd planet. What I wrote in this 'report' is only a brief glimpse into my life. Think it'd be a good idea for me to write a book? haha
If there's a point to all this, it's that I shouldn't have even tried drugs because they ultimately lead to death, despair, and I'll end up alone wondering what the f*ck I was thinking. I'm fully aware of that but I can't stop myself at this point in my life because I don't know how to deal with my physical or emotional pain in a normal way.
Say a prayer for me if you feel like it.
Thanks."-Unknown.