Woodsong
Bluelighter
I guess the title pretty much explains it all... This is probably one of many little cautionary tales for anyone thinking of messing with the queen mother of opiates in any way other than what the instructions on the label indicate that don't know preCISEly what they're doing... My mother, who has an extensive history all her own, refuses to listen to this story, bless her heart. I apologize in advance for it being so lengthy-- but the devil is in the details, so to speak.
T'was New Year's Eve, 2011... Me and an old addict buddy of mine used to work together in my family's remodeling business. We'd drive around doing jobs, and when we had a spare moment we'd go score some roxi 30's from our usual dealer. The dude was sort of a heavy hitter in his line of business, and we were probably the lowest customers on his totem pole, so the source wasn't always the most reliable, and this happened to be one of those days...
But there's plenty of other fish on the street, so we made some more calls until one guy says he has a limited amount of Percocet and three Duragesic patches (the gel-filled kind, not the matrix thingy ones)... Now by this time it's already well after work hours, and neither one of us was exactly feeling too hot to say the least, so we took our roxi money down the road and bought everything he had.
I took a few perc 10's at first, just to keep myself from tearing my hair out. My buddy in the passenger seat is getting just a little more antsy than me, so he takes out one of the patches. "75mcg an hour, 72 hours, contains 7.5mg of Fentanyl, blah blah blah..." How they do that math I'm not really sure...
Now I knew what Fentanyl was at the time and that it was insanely powerful, but I had something almost resembling pride at how high my opiate tolerance was back then (about 300mg of oxy a day), which led to the silly notion that I could handle it... My friend cuts one of the patches in half, one of which he hands to me. At first I start to tell him that I should probably wait since I'm driving and all, but I figure what the hell, "What could it hurt?"
I squeeze a tiny little drop into my mouth, swish it around for about ten minutes, and swallow it... And wait. And wait...-- Nothing? Nothing at all...
I tear the plastic off the back of my half, rip it open like a book, and pop it in my mouth for about 30 minutes.........
Gross ... but still nothing! I drop my friend off, we both take one of the remaining two patches, and head home. As I walk in the door, I'm sure as hell not in withdrawal anymore, but I don't really feel much of anything either. Being the greedy little thing I was back then, I figure anything short of a whole patch wasn't going to do the trick, so I sit down at my computer and cut another one in half, and repeat the same process I used on the last one...
Maybe I just didn't get as much gel in the last one, maybe it just takes longer than I thought to kick in, I really have no idea and don't intend to "research" this substance any further in the future ... but as soon as I get to swallowing this lot, I realize that my entire face is numb and whatever muscles are involved in swallowing things didn't seem too keen on doing their job ... aaaaaaand neither do my lungs, for that matter. There is a very strong buzzing sensation throughout my entire body that seems to get stronger the more sedated I feel-- and that was ALL I could feel. It might have been the drug itself, it might have simply been a lack of oxygen. *Shrugs*
As I just sat there slowly browsing the web, I realized somewhere in my head that I wasn't going to stay conscious for very much longer. Never before in my career of substance abuse had I ever been so profoundly affected by an opiate, by anything, ever... I somehow managed to tell myself that this was it. I'm getting the death I'd always hoped for: One without pain...
Looking back, I think that was the most disturbing effect of the drug: No euphoria, no fear, no pain, no feeling of any kind-- the mere ability to form a coherent thought was almost completely destroyed in the span of a few minutes. Complete and utter oblivion of the senses... How I actually remember any of this is a mystery, but the fact that I remember it with such clarity is, quite frankly, horrifying.
My roommate hadn't come home yet, and I couldn't exactly stumble over to her room and pass out in case she did. The last thing I remember doing before my vision blanked out completely was picking up my phone, which suddenly weighed as much as a brick, and holding down the volume + button til it reached max.
... which in hindsight may have actually saved my life, because my phone ringing is what startled me awake about four hours later-- though my opiate tolerance is probably what kept me alive in that time. My neck was in considerable pain, because my head had been hanging off the back of my chair.
The angle my head was in could have squeezed off my breathing, I could have fallen out of my chair, hit my head on my nightstand and be knocked further unconscious, or I could have simply stopped breathing from the drug itself. Who knows. So many little factors probably play into why I'm still alive, because 7.5mg of fentanyl is without a doubt a pretty significant overdose.
My friend was fine, albeit pretty damn trashed. That was him who called me, oh sweet irony, wanting me to take him back home from the bowling alley next to my apartments.
Well ... I think that's about all there is to tell. Hopefully everyone can glean the moral of the story for themselves... Peace.
T'was New Year's Eve, 2011... Me and an old addict buddy of mine used to work together in my family's remodeling business. We'd drive around doing jobs, and when we had a spare moment we'd go score some roxi 30's from our usual dealer. The dude was sort of a heavy hitter in his line of business, and we were probably the lowest customers on his totem pole, so the source wasn't always the most reliable, and this happened to be one of those days...
But there's plenty of other fish on the street, so we made some more calls until one guy says he has a limited amount of Percocet and three Duragesic patches (the gel-filled kind, not the matrix thingy ones)... Now by this time it's already well after work hours, and neither one of us was exactly feeling too hot to say the least, so we took our roxi money down the road and bought everything he had.
I took a few perc 10's at first, just to keep myself from tearing my hair out. My buddy in the passenger seat is getting just a little more antsy than me, so he takes out one of the patches. "75mcg an hour, 72 hours, contains 7.5mg of Fentanyl, blah blah blah..." How they do that math I'm not really sure...
Now I knew what Fentanyl was at the time and that it was insanely powerful, but I had something almost resembling pride at how high my opiate tolerance was back then (about 300mg of oxy a day), which led to the silly notion that I could handle it... My friend cuts one of the patches in half, one of which he hands to me. At first I start to tell him that I should probably wait since I'm driving and all, but I figure what the hell, "What could it hurt?"
I squeeze a tiny little drop into my mouth, swish it around for about ten minutes, and swallow it... And wait. And wait...-- Nothing? Nothing at all...
I tear the plastic off the back of my half, rip it open like a book, and pop it in my mouth for about 30 minutes.........
Gross ... but still nothing! I drop my friend off, we both take one of the remaining two patches, and head home. As I walk in the door, I'm sure as hell not in withdrawal anymore, but I don't really feel much of anything either. Being the greedy little thing I was back then, I figure anything short of a whole patch wasn't going to do the trick, so I sit down at my computer and cut another one in half, and repeat the same process I used on the last one...
Maybe I just didn't get as much gel in the last one, maybe it just takes longer than I thought to kick in, I really have no idea and don't intend to "research" this substance any further in the future ... but as soon as I get to swallowing this lot, I realize that my entire face is numb and whatever muscles are involved in swallowing things didn't seem too keen on doing their job ... aaaaaaand neither do my lungs, for that matter. There is a very strong buzzing sensation throughout my entire body that seems to get stronger the more sedated I feel-- and that was ALL I could feel. It might have been the drug itself, it might have simply been a lack of oxygen. *Shrugs*
As I just sat there slowly browsing the web, I realized somewhere in my head that I wasn't going to stay conscious for very much longer. Never before in my career of substance abuse had I ever been so profoundly affected by an opiate, by anything, ever... I somehow managed to tell myself that this was it. I'm getting the death I'd always hoped for: One without pain...
Looking back, I think that was the most disturbing effect of the drug: No euphoria, no fear, no pain, no feeling of any kind-- the mere ability to form a coherent thought was almost completely destroyed in the span of a few minutes. Complete and utter oblivion of the senses... How I actually remember any of this is a mystery, but the fact that I remember it with such clarity is, quite frankly, horrifying.
My roommate hadn't come home yet, and I couldn't exactly stumble over to her room and pass out in case she did. The last thing I remember doing before my vision blanked out completely was picking up my phone, which suddenly weighed as much as a brick, and holding down the volume + button til it reached max.
... which in hindsight may have actually saved my life, because my phone ringing is what startled me awake about four hours later-- though my opiate tolerance is probably what kept me alive in that time. My neck was in considerable pain, because my head had been hanging off the back of my chair.
The angle my head was in could have squeezed off my breathing, I could have fallen out of my chair, hit my head on my nightstand and be knocked further unconscious, or I could have simply stopped breathing from the drug itself. Who knows. So many little factors probably play into why I'm still alive, because 7.5mg of fentanyl is without a doubt a pretty significant overdose.
My friend was fine, albeit pretty damn trashed. That was him who called me, oh sweet irony, wanting me to take him back home from the bowling alley next to my apartments.
Well ... I think that's about all there is to tell. Hopefully everyone can glean the moral of the story for themselves... Peace.
