I didn't get that near to death itself, but I did have a close call with serious catastrophe as the result of overuse, which I feel very lucky to have dodged.
One Sunday afternoon, I was sitting in an armchair and "surfing the net," getting pleasantly high on benzos/opiates. Eventually, I nodded off and fell into an unusually deep slumber, probably because I'd only slept a few hours the previous night.
After 8 hours of dreamless sleep, I woke up in a state of confusion. It quickly turned to horror as I discovered that I couldn't move my right hand anymore. It just flopped down from my wrist, limp and motionless, no matter how what I did, even though I still had sensation in it and could move the fingers normally.
On Monday, I saw a doctor who immediately said I had something called "Saturday night palsy," so called for happening to drunks who passed out on park benches. Apparently, I'd had my arm draped awkwardly over the chair back for too long, damaging a nerve. The numbness should've woken me up, but of course I was too heavily sedated.
After 2-3 weeks, I felt painful shocks running down my arm and noticed that I could flex my wrist a tiny amount, gradually improving over the next few weeks until I could write legibly again. I was basically functional again within 2 months, but the right wrist was noticeably weaker than the left one for almost a year.
In the moment, I was pretty depressed about all this. But once it started to improve, I felt incredibly grateful that I didn't end up cutting off the circulation entirely. I know it has happened to many other addicts who've nodded off under similar circumstances, often the consequences are often disastrous.
