DOSE:

1.5 mg

oral

Pharms - Clonazepam

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

135 lb

I was in sober living, 40 days sober, and as a disastrous relationship was tearing me up, I wanted anything to get my mind off of it. I had been an oxy cotton/heroin addict for a year and a half, than got put into rehab by my family. I went in and out of rehabs and sober houses, and a friend introduced me to needles. I moved to LA, my family was no longer supporting me, but I got taken in by an old friend. My usage in LA got bad, it wasn't long before I found connections and my usage escalated and after 6 months I had hit bottom again. I finally got sober again.

But now that all seemed a distant memory, I had never had a problem with klonopin, and an old using buddy had loads. I had deleted his number so I walked to his apartment, took an hour and a half, I called my sponsor told him what I was doing, he told me it was a terrible idea, but I didn't care I just wanted to get out of my head, out of the misery this relationship was causing me.

I finally arrived, he was reluctant to give me any, we had used together in fact I used primarily with him in LA. I introduced him to needles, he knew how bad it had gotten.

“I feel bad doing this for you,” he said.

“I just need em man, I need to get out of my head.”

“In the past all my friends who have gotten sober and than gone back out get bad fast.”

“I wont, I just need something to hold me over right now.”

We both looked at each other knowingly, and he took the pill bottle out of his pocket, and gave me five 1 mg klonopin tabs. I felt better just having them in my pocket. I hesitated before I took the first one, I knew it was a mistake, but something inside me was screaming for me to do it. I crunched it between my teeth than held it under my tongue. They kick in fastest that way, there’s no point in snorting them, it’s a waste.

10 maybe 15 minutes later my fears, my misery begins to melt away, I feel free. I ended up staying at my buddy’s house. Didn’t go back to the sober house. We smoked weed all night, and I popped a few more. We talked, all this is kind of hazy, but I firmly ended the relationship. I got a little sleep, than went to out patient the next morning, I broke down crying in it, for relapsing and for ending the relationship.

Klonopin accentuates depression for me sometimes, I didn’t feel anxious but I felt crestfallen. I went back to my sober house, told them what I had done, broke down again and ended up cutting one of my wrists. This is all hazy for me because of the k pins, but they called an ambulance and I ended up having to make a run for it to escape going to the pysch ward. I went back to my buddy's place and we smoked he told me his roommate was bitching at him constantly and I couldn’t sleep there.

I moved in with a different friend, Ill call him Adam. I was kicked out of my sober house, and spent what little cash I had spent on a zip of medical trees. I started taking 1-2 mgs of klonopin a day, and smoking weed pretty much all day.

I came across some money and my buddy with the k-pins hooked me up with 24 OC-20s for a buck. I tricked a few pharmacies in to selling me rigs saying I needed them for diabetes, gave half to him and the other half I saved for myself.

[Erowid Note: Intravenous (IV) injection of crushed pills/tablets can be very dangerous due to unknown substances, binders, and fillers present. Any substance injected directly into the blood stream should be very pure. Clean needles and medically appropriate techniques should be used to avoid serious injury or death.]
The high from shooting up oxy cotton is incredible, I crushed a 20 cooked it in a spoon, threw in the smallest piece of cotton I could (some oxy is trapped in the cotton) drew it up through the needle, pointing the tip up I flicked it several times getting two small airbubbles to the top, gave the plunger a small push, the air left and a little liquid shot up. My collapsed veins had come back somewhat, and I shot it in to my elbow. The rush is indescribable it's like falling back on to a bed of satin, body totally warm, this amazing feeling.

I don’t remember much from that night, just sitting outside the apartment building, nodding in and out after having hit three pills in under two hours.

Those kept me high for 3 days, but the friend who I was staying with saw the rigs one day; he didn’t use drugs, and he told my mom that I had been using needles, she set up an intensive outpatient psych program for me to go to in Boston, and he threatened to kick me out. I had been staying with him around 3 weeks, and had been using klonopin steadily every day. I had spent almost all my money on drugs, and cigarettes so I had been eating PB&J every meal of the day, till money for the peanut butter and jelly ran out and I was eating just bread. I lost 10 lbs in those 21 days. The friend I was staying with went out with his friends to eat, or by himself, and since I was always loaded he didn’t take me along, I far overstayed my welcome there but using up friends is something I do during addiction.

I flew to Boston, took 6 mgs of Klonopin and wasn’t carded on the plane so I drank heavily on the flight, ended up stealing a guy's jacket, he was pissed and even got the police involved but there was no way to prove it was his so I wore it out of the airport.

My mom picked me up and I told her I had to go to a detox for the klonopin, she took me to Mclean hospital and they asked me a number of questions, but the two most important ones were if I was feeling suicidal, to which I answered yes, and if I had ever attempted suicide to which I also answered yes, they took me inside, and suddenly I was jonesing for a smoke. One thing I didn’t realize however was I had been admitted to a psych ward, not a detox, and I wasn’t allowed to leave. I started screaming at them to let me out, and punched a reinforced glass window on the door to try and get out and suddenly I was surrounded by security, they told me to settle down or they'd restrain me, I started yelling at them, and went to punch the window again, and they tackled me, I only settled down when they went to shoot me up with a sedative, they put me in restraints and put me in a holding room.

There was no way out, no way to smoke, they gave me a piece of nicorette every hour. But they kept me on Klonopin and a anti anxiety pill I had never heard of before called Librium. They weened me off the Librium, but through threats of hunger strikes, I was allowed to stay on 1.5 mgs of klonopin a day. The psych ward was boring as hell, it held 40+ people in a single story of one of their buildings, they had a few classes in the morning and the rest of the day was mind numbingly dull.

I was released after 9 days, and after a week started the outpatient program, in that week I tripped off cough medicine a few times but once I started the program I stopped using anything but the klonopin.

After two weeks I tried to quit the klonopin cold turkey. The first day... nothing. The second day the anxiety started to kick in, by day five I was shaking hard, barely sleeping even while taking 350 mgs of Seroquel at night. The anxiety was intense. I decided to ween instead. I’ve just finished the program and I'm still weening off the klonopin and expecting to be weening for another three weeks to get off fully. I've been sober now thirty days though, been going to meetings daily and don’t want to go back to using.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 83061
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 19
Published: Nov 27, 2022	Views: 706
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Pharms - Clonazepam (125) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Addiction & Habituation (10), Medical Use (47), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Various (28)