SunSpot
Bluelighter
Hi All,
just a bit of background, I'm on day 23 after quitting oral opium (pods and tea) for good. Just felt DONE with it. But earlier today i was talking to an acquaintance about the US's OD epidemic, even I usually stay away from that topic as though it doesn't interest me, to hide my intimate familiarity with the subject. But they really wanted to talk about it, which got me thinking about my scariest experience, of how close I came to DIE at age 26. Here's what happened:
I've always loved to garden, and we had just bought our first house in 2008, a fixer upper. Opiates have always fascinated me and I'd had some experience with pods and seed tea (I purposefully abstained from asking around for harder stuff). The pods had lots of seeds and I lovingly planted them, watered them, thinned the plants to one every foot, etc. I ate every plant I pulled out (I love eating salads anyways), and my doses gradually grew larger. Plants bleed sap, and I started collecting that too, making tea. Of course I used daily; I was naive as a kitten about addiction back then. Btw I must've done something wrong with smoking as that never worked for me, or my tolerance was too high.
It was a beautiful friday night, pleasantly cool after a hot day. I had the house to myself (wife was deeply sleeping, kids had sleepover), and after my friend left at 10, I went out in the garden. My 5 best plants had large lentil-sized gobs of dry sap from where I had cut off their pods earlier. There must've been over 100 plants in the garden of all different sizes and states of ripeness. Thinking it was time to have a really fun time, I cut off the bitter gobs of sap with scissors, enjoying the tangy bite as I chewed my little cud. Euphoria was building before I finished the last plant, then went back to the first one to lick off the free-flowing white latex. My body grew heavy, and warm.
After my second round, the world was incredibly warm and close, it felt like being in a gigantic euphoric cocoon. I had gone that far before. But there was something about being outside and the earth-splitting pleasure of just moving that made it seem a good idea to just keep going. I also had had maybe 3 beers earlier that night, and it felt like that stupid state of impaired decision making you enter sometimes after loads of alc and stims. I went to the smaller plants, and started eating their pods. They tasted dry, but latex flowed freely from every plant. That was my sauce. For 10 minutes (probably) I ate and ate, yet didn't seem to get any higher. A few plants were on the opposite corner of the garden, so I walked to them. It was as if every step was a different experience: What started out as epic euphoria turned into a confused but still happy stumble, then I noticed I was barely breathing. To say me eyes were drooping would be an understatement.
Not thinking too hard about it, I lay down on the naked earth of a freshly tilled flower bed. My breath was very shallow, and I nodded hard for a few minutes. Itching woke me (There were fire ants nearby, maybe that was a factor), so I struggled upright, determined to keep eating as that was what I was doing. I still had a golfball sized cud in my mouth, and spit it out to actually eat and swallow fresh pods. Very gradually, rational thoughts were going through my head, telling me I had eaten too much. I was short of breath and getting very confused. That's when the nightmare started. I stumbled to the back porch and into the house. For an endless time I was pushing my index finger down my throat, trying to throw up into the kitchen sink. Sometimes it felt like I could, but I would just choke and lose my breath. The world grew dimmer around me in waves, as if I were wearing real dark sunglasses, and my legs felt as though they were pudding, ready to give way.
Terror alternated with euphoria and sleepiness, and after nodding off over the sink and collapsing, I hit my head on the faucet. This woke me and gave me two ideas. The first was to eat instant coffee, so I found the jar, opened it and ate some powder with a dirty spoon from the other sink. Actually I'm not quite sure if I did that at all or just pumped my stomach, so I'll just continue. As you've just read my second idea was to pump my stomach. We had an aquarium aspirator tube in the nearby living room, and feeling a bit more awake I got it, took it to the kitchen and turned on the water. Getting the rough tube down my throat was no problem at all, it was barely an annoyance. I pushed it a bit over a foot down. that i couldn't breathe was also not very troubling. As I let the water run stuff did indeed come out of the tube. I must've let the water run for 10 seconds when this gigantic wave of drowsiness washed over me, nearly blacking me out. It made me collapse to the floor which pulled the tube out, and I took a breath. With one hand I held on to the counters above me, I'll never forget that. It felt like fighting against drowning in a sea of blackness. It was pure terror.
Breathing took lots of effort, I had to remind myself to do it. Through it all was an incredible sense of absolute terror that was NOT masked by the opiates. It was a fight to get back upright, those were minutes of horrible effort. Standing I felt a bit better and my body breathed by itself. I was hopeful, feeling like I'd just escaped something dreadful and turned off the water, but reaching for the handle made another wave come on. There was a definite feeling of increase in strength. I think I spent a confused minute searching for the jar of instant coffee powder then, things are muddled. It was probably right on the counter in front of me, or maybe that was when I got it from cupboard. My memories are clearer of then eating raw instant coffee powder spoon after spoon. I didn't even choke on the fine stuff, it was weird. After a half minute of increasing awareness, another wave came. I think I forgot to breathe (it was a conscious effort again) and I partially blacked out, slumping over the counter in you guessed it, terror. Next I remember having a new resolution, which was to call 911. But the phone wasn't there. I then tried to call for help out loud to my wife, but the coffee powder was coating my whole mouth so I only croaked.
With shaking hands (I remember clearly they shook so bad I couldn't grab it at first) i got a dirty pot soaking in dishwater to my face and gulped down liquid. After a minute trying to call her but only croaking, I wanted to make that call. It wasn't clear to me where my phone was so I must've decided to walk to the living room. Two steps from the counter I either slipped in the spilled water or just collapsed, not sure. That's where i stayed, in terror. I remember once waking up, crying from fear but without tears, but turning myself on my side. I had the phone in my hands but couldn't get the screen open. After one wave I got it open but couldn't identify the call button. That's how I passed out, thinking these were my last minutes alive.
I woke several hours later, high as anything. But I was cognizant enough to use the phone, so after I entered 9 1 1 I decided not to dial. I got up, wiped together some spilled instant coffee into a little mound just in case, then tried throwing up again. After a few minutes it worked and out came bitter coffee with tons of pod fiber. It made me feel instantly better. Slow as a turtle I roughly cleaned up the mess I'd made in the kitchen and my smeared, numb face, then went to the couch to nod until the light went up, then I went into my little home office to keep on nodding until that evening. I was still high 3 days later. My wife never mentioned anything (she probably assumed I had drunk too much). I stopped using opiates for a few years, then used again in much more moderate but still increasing doses, and now i've quit for good. quit alc a year ago after drinking less and less (and my periods of abstinence grew).
I probably did a lot of stupid things during my OD, such as trying to pump, which gave me that first really debilitating wave. Or not wanting to call 911 for fear it would enter my record, or get help from my wife. So there, that's my worst OD. I'm also keeping this post as my own personal record as my memories of that night are really muddled and this is my best recollection / reconstruciton. But I'll never forget the abstract terror of slipping away into blackness ...
Tagged by Xorkoth
substancecode_opium
substancecode_opiates
explevel_experienced
exptype_negative
exptype_difficult
exptype_overdose
roacode_oral
just a bit of background, I'm on day 23 after quitting oral opium (pods and tea) for good. Just felt DONE with it. But earlier today i was talking to an acquaintance about the US's OD epidemic, even I usually stay away from that topic as though it doesn't interest me, to hide my intimate familiarity with the subject. But they really wanted to talk about it, which got me thinking about my scariest experience, of how close I came to DIE at age 26. Here's what happened:
I've always loved to garden, and we had just bought our first house in 2008, a fixer upper. Opiates have always fascinated me and I'd had some experience with pods and seed tea (I purposefully abstained from asking around for harder stuff). The pods had lots of seeds and I lovingly planted them, watered them, thinned the plants to one every foot, etc. I ate every plant I pulled out (I love eating salads anyways), and my doses gradually grew larger. Plants bleed sap, and I started collecting that too, making tea. Of course I used daily; I was naive as a kitten about addiction back then. Btw I must've done something wrong with smoking as that never worked for me, or my tolerance was too high.
It was a beautiful friday night, pleasantly cool after a hot day. I had the house to myself (wife was deeply sleeping, kids had sleepover), and after my friend left at 10, I went out in the garden. My 5 best plants had large lentil-sized gobs of dry sap from where I had cut off their pods earlier. There must've been over 100 plants in the garden of all different sizes and states of ripeness. Thinking it was time to have a really fun time, I cut off the bitter gobs of sap with scissors, enjoying the tangy bite as I chewed my little cud. Euphoria was building before I finished the last plant, then went back to the first one to lick off the free-flowing white latex. My body grew heavy, and warm.
After my second round, the world was incredibly warm and close, it felt like being in a gigantic euphoric cocoon. I had gone that far before. But there was something about being outside and the earth-splitting pleasure of just moving that made it seem a good idea to just keep going. I also had had maybe 3 beers earlier that night, and it felt like that stupid state of impaired decision making you enter sometimes after loads of alc and stims. I went to the smaller plants, and started eating their pods. They tasted dry, but latex flowed freely from every plant. That was my sauce. For 10 minutes (probably) I ate and ate, yet didn't seem to get any higher. A few plants were on the opposite corner of the garden, so I walked to them. It was as if every step was a different experience: What started out as epic euphoria turned into a confused but still happy stumble, then I noticed I was barely breathing. To say me eyes were drooping would be an understatement.
Not thinking too hard about it, I lay down on the naked earth of a freshly tilled flower bed. My breath was very shallow, and I nodded hard for a few minutes. Itching woke me (There were fire ants nearby, maybe that was a factor), so I struggled upright, determined to keep eating as that was what I was doing. I still had a golfball sized cud in my mouth, and spit it out to actually eat and swallow fresh pods. Very gradually, rational thoughts were going through my head, telling me I had eaten too much. I was short of breath and getting very confused. That's when the nightmare started. I stumbled to the back porch and into the house. For an endless time I was pushing my index finger down my throat, trying to throw up into the kitchen sink. Sometimes it felt like I could, but I would just choke and lose my breath. The world grew dimmer around me in waves, as if I were wearing real dark sunglasses, and my legs felt as though they were pudding, ready to give way.
Terror alternated with euphoria and sleepiness, and after nodding off over the sink and collapsing, I hit my head on the faucet. This woke me and gave me two ideas. The first was to eat instant coffee, so I found the jar, opened it and ate some powder with a dirty spoon from the other sink. Actually I'm not quite sure if I did that at all or just pumped my stomach, so I'll just continue. As you've just read my second idea was to pump my stomach. We had an aquarium aspirator tube in the nearby living room, and feeling a bit more awake I got it, took it to the kitchen and turned on the water. Getting the rough tube down my throat was no problem at all, it was barely an annoyance. I pushed it a bit over a foot down. that i couldn't breathe was also not very troubling. As I let the water run stuff did indeed come out of the tube. I must've let the water run for 10 seconds when this gigantic wave of drowsiness washed over me, nearly blacking me out. It made me collapse to the floor which pulled the tube out, and I took a breath. With one hand I held on to the counters above me, I'll never forget that. It felt like fighting against drowning in a sea of blackness. It was pure terror.
Breathing took lots of effort, I had to remind myself to do it. Through it all was an incredible sense of absolute terror that was NOT masked by the opiates. It was a fight to get back upright, those were minutes of horrible effort. Standing I felt a bit better and my body breathed by itself. I was hopeful, feeling like I'd just escaped something dreadful and turned off the water, but reaching for the handle made another wave come on. There was a definite feeling of increase in strength. I think I spent a confused minute searching for the jar of instant coffee powder then, things are muddled. It was probably right on the counter in front of me, or maybe that was when I got it from cupboard. My memories are clearer of then eating raw instant coffee powder spoon after spoon. I didn't even choke on the fine stuff, it was weird. After a half minute of increasing awareness, another wave came. I think I forgot to breathe (it was a conscious effort again) and I partially blacked out, slumping over the counter in you guessed it, terror. Next I remember having a new resolution, which was to call 911. But the phone wasn't there. I then tried to call for help out loud to my wife, but the coffee powder was coating my whole mouth so I only croaked.
With shaking hands (I remember clearly they shook so bad I couldn't grab it at first) i got a dirty pot soaking in dishwater to my face and gulped down liquid. After a minute trying to call her but only croaking, I wanted to make that call. It wasn't clear to me where my phone was so I must've decided to walk to the living room. Two steps from the counter I either slipped in the spilled water or just collapsed, not sure. That's where i stayed, in terror. I remember once waking up, crying from fear but without tears, but turning myself on my side. I had the phone in my hands but couldn't get the screen open. After one wave I got it open but couldn't identify the call button. That's how I passed out, thinking these were my last minutes alive.
I woke several hours later, high as anything. But I was cognizant enough to use the phone, so after I entered 9 1 1 I decided not to dial. I got up, wiped together some spilled instant coffee into a little mound just in case, then tried throwing up again. After a few minutes it worked and out came bitter coffee with tons of pod fiber. It made me feel instantly better. Slow as a turtle I roughly cleaned up the mess I'd made in the kitchen and my smeared, numb face, then went to the couch to nod until the light went up, then I went into my little home office to keep on nodding until that evening. I was still high 3 days later. My wife never mentioned anything (she probably assumed I had drunk too much). I stopped using opiates for a few years, then used again in much more moderate but still increasing doses, and now i've quit for good. quit alc a year ago after drinking less and less (and my periods of abstinence grew).
I probably did a lot of stupid things during my OD, such as trying to pump, which gave me that first really debilitating wave. Or not wanting to call 911 for fear it would enter my record, or get help from my wife. So there, that's my worst OD. I'm also keeping this post as my own personal record as my memories of that night are really muddled and this is my best recollection / reconstruciton. But I'll never forget the abstract terror of slipping away into blackness ...
Tagged by Xorkoth
substancecode_opium
substancecode_opiates
explevel_experienced
exptype_negative
exptype_difficult
exptype_overdose
roacode_oral
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