DOSE:

repeated

insufflated

Cocaine

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

Hi

In February of last year (2003), I did coke for the first time. It was really really good, almost identical in effect to Adderall, which I did a lot of previously. I got deep into coke for about a month after that experience, once doing a whole 8ball in one night bymyself. Coke was the only thing on my mind, and with no job, and not going to school, it was a very bad thing to do at the time. After that 8ball, I told myself 'never again' and stayed away for a while. My friend starting doing it a lot once I introduced him to it. I wish I never had. I don't know how he's doing now, but I know I have changed his life for the worse.

Anyway, I started doing crack cocaine on a pretty regular basis, until I was on the verge of having a heart attack, and I abandoned it. I'm glad I didn't take to crack that easily. I consider myself very lucky to have done crack and then gotten out of it scott-free. I don't know what made me come back to doing powder cocaine again, but somehow, I decided to blow my money on a gram, and see if I could still handle it, which I was very suspicious of.

I couldn't. I did all of it, and it was gone. I went and bought an 8ball, and that was gone, everything started getting worse. I knew I wasn't going to get more, I had already been up for 2 days and I wasn't really feeling the positive effects anymore, the coke was simply keeping me awake and most importantly, it was keeping me from COMING DOWN. I had stayed up like 2 nights (48 hours) without sleeping, and didn't even feel tired.

About 2 hours after the last bit I did, I started going crazy, literally. I was so paranoid, it wasn't funny. I've never done any kind of hallucinogen but I suppose what I was going through could be compared to a bad trip. I saw things out of the corners of my eyes, and they would start moving. And they always seemed to take the shape of a human being. I would turn around quick, and look, and there would be nothing there. I'd look all around the room, nothing. I'd turn back around to do whatever it was I was doing, and I'd see it again.

I told myself, 'It's not real. It's just the coke' and damn if I couldn't just sit there. I must have turned around to look around me more than a thousand times. It was like when you someone or something frightens you, and you jump back or get scared, it's really quick and after a while, your heart rate goes back to normal. But for those couple of seconds when you're really scared, you really are on a paranoid, cautious, 'what the fuck is going on?' level. I was constantly feeling like this: my heart beating so fast, for every second I felt like someone was behind me, going to kill me. And I thought this only happens to crazy people! I never knew a drug could do this! But this was like I was about to die, and I knew it.

I believed that someone, or something (more often, someONE) was after me and going to kill me. Either that or I was going to get busted and go to jail, which I am scared to death of when I do coke. That's the main reason I abandoned crack: I got so paranoid it wasn't funny. And it doesn't take much crack to get paranoid, unlike powder.

I heard stuff. I was scared to death the cops were gonna come up any second. Now that I think about it, it really is kind of silly that I would think about those absurd things. I'm really glad that there was no one with me, someone most likely would have gotten hurt. I thought that my heart was beating so fast because I was SO scared! I thought that I may in fact die of fright! That's how scared I was! I've always knew coke was pretty bad, but my mind always made it right by making some excuse for why I NEEDED the coke.

When it got really bad that night, I thought I would smoke a joint. Maybe it was because I smoked too much, more than I usually do (because my throat was still numb from doing all that coke, I couldn't feel the smoke, and therefore I would take MONSTER hits) but it just was really scary. I couldn't stay very long outside (but I hate smoking in the house) because it was dark and I would just keep on seeing shit. At one point I let my little dog out, a Jack Russell terrier, wouldn't hurt a fly, and thought that maybe if I knew he was in here with me, he would bark if he heard or saw something unusual, and it helped a little bit, until he went back to bed.

At one point, I came to the conclusion and I was having some kind of mind-expanding experience and the things I was seeing were ghosts, and I figured there are so many ghosts, that they're literally everywhere, and that's how I explained seeing all of those things. I know that's not true now, but damn that was a scary experience. In fact, I think the fact that I really thought they were ghosts made it even scarier than it was before! Finally, I thought if I went back to my room and just layed down, and chilled out, that maybe I would feel better.

The hallucinations and disturbances I saw were an experience in itself. Maybe they were so scary because I wasn't expecting them to occur. Maybe if I had been warned, or perhaps prepared, things wouldn't have been so bad. I never thought of myself as a 'crazy' person. But doing drugs for most of my teenage years, and continuing that practice when I was an adult has really got my head fucked up. I often thought about 'what does it feel like to have schizophrenia?' or 'What does it feel like to take a hallucinogen?' but never really sought the answer, mainly because I've heard you can have a 'bad' experience with hallucinogens that can make you go crazy, or even change your life!

I could never understand how somebody could just start seeing things that weren't there so clearly. And I knew about hallucinogens, and also knew the basic type of 'experience' you would get from doing it, but never soughy any type of one, or really cared. But now that I've gone through this hellish experience, I can relate and have a general idea of what a bad trip feels like. And I wasn't prepared for it, either. I never thought cocaine did this much more other than make you feel good. But with everything good in this world, it comes with a cost, and a very high cost at that.

Sometimes I wish that I never had picked up that first joint, that shot of liquor, or most importantly, snorted that first line. Maybe if I had kept things simple, like just smoking weed or drinking every now and again, everything would be okay, and I could live a 'normal' life, so to speak, with no troubles other than the simple stresses that seem so small compared to the stresses of addiction. But now that I've done coke again, I really am pessimistic about the future. It's getting pretty bad, and no matter how many times I tell myself, 'I can handle it' I never ever can. I can never buy some and save it for later. As soon as I get it, before I even start doing it, I start shaking, clenching my jaw, and am sweating like a pig, EVEN BEFORE I START TO DO ANY!!! The anticipation is more intense than the effects of the cocaine!

If you're thinking 'Why am I reading this experience? I just want to know what coke does, I don't need a lecture on the dangers of cocaine, I get enough of that from the government and the media!.' The goverment does lie a lot about the dangers of drugs (marijuana is a very good example, IT NEEDS TO BE LEGALIZED!!!) And in fact is the only drug that you will not and cannot overdose on!!!) but I think cocaine is one of those genies that never should have been let out of the bottle. And I think the media is in the process of accepting marijuana use more than before. Once it does (if it does) becomes legal for everyone to possess, the media will drastically change their policy on marijuana use.

And addiction isn't the worst part of the story. Addiction is not that bad if you have a constant supply, and your tolerance never increases to the point where you spend every dime on your drugs. But there is a very bad part of this experience, something called 'coming down'. As high as I get, and as pumped up as I feel, I will later feel proportionately low. That is the main downside to this drug, not necessarily addiction. That's the main reason I quit using powder for a while, almost a year. I couldn't take the overwhelming depression anymore. That 15 minutes of complete ecstasy just wasn't worth the hours of complete and intense depression.

But, in the back of my head, I knew I would never really dislike cocaine. And sooner or later, I was going to do it again, especially if I had money and the opportunity. Coke will make me lie, call in sick to work, steal money from people I don't know and sadly, from people I do know and love. If I have a $1000 bill to pay, and I don't have the money, I'll think of something, but within the limits of the law, to pay the bill. With cocaine, if I want it and don't have the money, I will do anything to get the money, and most times it's steal.

The more I write, the more this sounds like a 'Don't Do Drugs! Just Say No! or maybe even a D.A.R.E. program, but all of this information is true, and the only people who know for a solid fact that it is true, are the unfortunate ones who once believed that it was safe and the greatest thing anyone can ever experience. That's really the human spirit: if we don't believe anything bad will happen, then we do it! It's only after the negative enters into the equation that we realize it, and therefore LEARN and let other people know about if you do this, then this will happen.

It's a good thing there is an internet that's not too sensored. It lets us go anywhere for any type of information out there, and I think erowid.org is the best place for unbiased information on any drug out there. Our experiences are what teach us about the world. I'll learn something until the day I die. But no single person can know everything. That's why we're different. All the information in the world is probably more than you could ever, ever fathom. And again, our experiences are what guide us through life and what they are what help us make simple and complex decisions.

Granted, there are a handful of people that can indeed handle cocaine with some type of control and responsibility. But let me reiterate that addiction isn't the worse thing! There are people who have died doing cocaine, have done something extremely stupid that would either land them in jail or possibly killed. I always feel like shit after I do enough to make you feel good. And if I continue to do it, all I am doing is making the come-down worse and delaying the inevitable.

I think one of the most important reasons I did and continued to do (and do now) cocaine is because when I get in that zone, I HAVE to write! I love to write when I'm skiied up! That's the only thing that feels right and I feel like I'm getting a lot of things off of my chest. And it also makes the time go by faster, so if I did enough to make me feel good, it may be 2-3 hours before I realize that I haven't done anymore and that I have a lot left!

This is why I did Adderall. I would take it either at school in the morning, or at home before I left. And I would only take enough and that was it. I didn't pop anymore for the rest of the day. So the dose I took in the morning had to be a good bit. But I would just feel really good, for a lot longer period of time than I would if I snorted coke. And the best thing about Adderall was, it opened up my mind to write ANYTHING! And the come-down was very bearable. But I wasn't just taking Adderall and snorting coke to feel good. It was a great thing that I did feel good, but I also felt like I was accomplishing more than I would if I didn't do it. Believe me, I could never open up like I do if I didn't do any coke or Adderall.

Like I said, they put me in a state of mind where I had to write, and it was a good thing! That's the only positive I have! Just about everytime I've done coke or Adderall, I have a HUGE number of pages describing my life at that point and sometimes writing songs and I never really title them. I just write what comes to mind, and try to get a lot of it out before another thought enters.

PLEASE BE SAFE, DON'T RUIN YOUR LIFE OVER SOMETHING SO SIMPLE, YET SO ADDICTIVE! And don't think of this experience as just another anti-drug experience! I've been there and back, and I'm telling you the TRUTH! These are not lies at all, everything I've said is TRUE!

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 32182
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 11, 2007	Views: 28,356
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Cocaine (13) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Bad Trips (6), Depression (15), Hangover / Days After (46), Multi-Day Experience (13), Addiction & Habituation (10), Not Applicable (38)