> The last time that I overdosed was most definitely the worst. I had O.D.'ed three times in the last year, the first one was bad because I was "all the way out", and if I wasn't at my dining room table and my parents weren't there, I would have definitely died. The other time in this period that I overdosed, my oldest brother, Andrew, found me passed out on the bathroom floor and called 911 and saved my life. But the time that I am writing about now was the closest I came to death, and I remember it so vividly, so while I remember it this well I want to write it down so I never forget it, and never forget the craziness of the whole situation.
> >
> > This last overdose was actually not even from heroin, but heroin definitely played a major part in it all happening. Anyway, I'm pretty much fresh out of rehab, maybe thirty five days or so, and I'm already back at it, shooting heroin again, and all of that dumb s***. Taking Xanax and Klonopin with the heroin was a personal favorite because it really maximized the feeling and the "nod" was so incredible. Well this day must have been a particularly good day because I was high as s***, and I had a good amount of dope in my sock, maybe like ten or twelve bags. My mom and dad get home from work and I am mangled. I was sitting on the chair in my mom's office and im talking to her, but im nodding out at the same time. After maybe ten minutes of this, my mom calls me on my s***. She starts accusing me of being high, and of course I try to deny it as defensively as I can. What doesn't help my case is that my mom found a bag of dope on the floor in her office earlier that morning, and just now tells me about it. Of course I blame it on somebody else, one of my friends that was over the nigh before or something. Anyway, the main issue right now was whether I was high on heroin myself, or not. She calls my dad into the room to help her decide, and they are both ready to kick me out of the house if I was high, so I was trying to do anything I could to convince them that I was not. When my mom suggests to go to Walgreen's to buy a drug test, I'm all for it. I had on me the concoction of yellow water that I used to pass my probation urine tests, equipped with thermal handwarmers to keep it warm. That would have been perfect for me because I knew that I would pass the test easily, but my dad has another plan.
> >
> > He has a 50 milligram Narcan pill upstairs in his bedroom that he had been saving since 2003 for god knows what, but now he could use it to see if I was on heroin or not. HOLY F!#*. Well, I did say that they were ready to kick me out of the house, and that I had to do anything to prove that I wasn't high, or at try my best to pretend. So I did it. I swallowed that Narcan pill like I hadn't done opiates in months, and I had no idea of the pain that I was about to endure.
> >
> > Instant withdrawl is definitely the wrong term to use for when Narcan is introduced into the system of someone who is high as a kite on heroin. A better term would be instant rejection to any and all things inside of your body. Via diarhea (at fist). I could not stop s***ting. About every four minutes I was going to the bathroom while it seemed like straight water was pouring out of me into the toilet. But I had to keep it cool right? Because after all, my story was that I wasn't high, and my only way to prove it was by this pill having no affect on me whatsoever. Unfortunately every muscle in my body was spasming simultaneously, I was as cold as ice, shivering, but I was sweating and getting hot flashes at the same time, plus my legs were cramping painfully, my skin was crawling, and I just felt like I wanted to jump the f*** out of my body until this stuff wore off.
> >
> > Obviously jumping out of my skin and waiting until it was over for my body was not an option, so i figured that since I couldnt rid my body of the 50 milligrams of Narcan now coursing through my system like the tazmanian devil, I figured I would have to individually treat the symptoms until this stuff was done and over with.
> >
> > So what do you take for a super-high heart rate and blood pressure? Hyper-panic attack-like anxiety? Muscle cramps and spasms that are uncontrollable? Well a super high dosage of Xanax, Klonopin, and muscle relaxers (zanaflex). And Clonodine/catapress (which is to treat hypertension but is also used in rehabs during detox to help with withdrawl symptoms). Where was I going to get all of these prescription drugs from, ASAP? There was one person who had a ready supply of all of that s*** who would do anything to help me get out of this mess. My girlfriend, (name omitted). I knew she had a bunch of Xanax because I had just picked her up a s***load of them on the street. I knew she had tizanadine and zanaflex (the muscle relaxers) and even Clonodine, because she had just gotten out of rehab herself and they had given her a prescription to leave with. So I called her up and I told her what happened, I just changed "heroin" to "30mg percocet pills" so she wouldn't know I was shooting dope again. I told her she needed to come pick me up ASAP and have a handful of Xanax, zanaflex, and clonodine ready for me to try to calm me down. I was freaking out at this point. I told her to bring whatever else she thought might help.
> >
> > About ten minutes later she rolls up to my parents house, and I hurry up and run to her car. Actually, she was in her mom's car. It was pouring rain outside too. Now mind you, I'm still s***ting my brains out, so as soon as I open the passenger door I feel the urge to s***, an explosive urge, so, right there, in the rain, into the gutter, i s***. But it was just like pure f!*#ing water anyway, so I wipe and get in.
> >
> > She has a handful of pills for me to take, a bunch of every pill that I just mentioned above. So I took them. Maybe 7 Xanax (2mg) and probably 13-15 of the muscle relaxers. Then I told her to give me some of the Clonodine's, and I took about ten of those.
> >
> > I cant explain how my body was feeling through all of this. The only thing that comes to mind is RAGE. My body was in rage (if that makes any sense). So then she drives us back to her parents' house which is not far from where we were at. Those pills must have started to kick in quick as s*** because by the time we got there I was already feeling f***ed up from them, and like I said, it was not a far ride at all. By the time we got inside the house, all I wanted to do was lay down, and as soon as I made it to the living room I just flopped down on the floor and passed out.
> >
> > The next hour or so is a little foggy, so I'll explain it the best I can from what I remember and from what I was told. I don't remember getting back into her car, but I later found out that she was driving me to the hospital because I stopped responding. To anything. The next thing I remember is being in her car and she was smacking the s*** out of me, and I didnt know why, but she wouldn't stop smacking me, and I smacked her back. Later I found out that she was smacking me because I was unconscious and she was trying to wake me up and keep me awake. I didn't hurt her, but I include that part in my story because it's completely unlike me to smack at any female under any circumstances, but I want to make clear how "out of it" I was.
> >
> > She told me I couldn't talk, like I couldn't even formulate one word, or keep my eyes open for any length of time. My breathing at this point was pretty much non-existent. She pulled over in some neighborhood and just called 911 because she thought I was going to die before she got me to the hospital, and she was just way too freaked out to keep driving. She was hysterical. I was unconscious for about the next five minutes until the ambulance and police got there. Then I didn't exactly wake up, but I was responding a bit to some of the things they were saying to me. I remember them asking me what drugs I was on, and I remember telling them nothing. So, instinctively, they shoot me up with some Narcan, but when that doesn't do anything to me they rush me to the hospital because now I'm unconscious again and my blood pressure and my breathing are showing them that I am on the brink of death.
> >
> > I don't remember the ambulance ride, or getting into the E.R. but i remember being layed on a table and peering through these tiny slits in my eyelids, and watching a team of doctors work on me. The next part is where it gets really disturbing to me, because they were about to intibate me (insert a breathing tube down my throat and directly into my lungs) because I could not breathe on my own, but to do this, they needed to paralyze me and keep me unconscious because the way they do this is violent and barbaric. There was only one problem... I was paralyzed, but i WAS NOT unconscious. I can see these doctors through the slits in my eyelids, I could hear everything they were saying about me, but worse of all, i could feel EVERYTHING they were about to do to me, and I had NO WAY to communicate to them that I was able to feel this, I couldnt even wiggle my pinky. And what they did to me WAS NOT pretty, and it did not feel good.
> >
> > First, to sit me up, one doctor grabbed my head by the front of my hair and just pulled my body up to a seated position by my hair, which I felt because the anastesia wasn't working right, and they shoved this huge metal tongue depressor into and down my throat to open my airway, then they shoved a tube that was about two inches wide all the way down my throat and into my lungs. Then they put a bag of ice underneath me (i'm not sure why) and then the doctor just released my hair and let my upper body and head fall hard onto the bag of ice. I'll never forget that because I remember the doctor making a f***ed up comment after he dropped me. He said, "that was really graceful," and he and a few others all laughed at me. Now mind you, I'm supposed to be unconscious. I'm not supposed to be able to see or feel any of this, but I experienced it all.
> >
> > Next, once the doctor dropped my head onto a bag of ice, I feel my pants and underwear being removed. Then I feel a hand grab my private part and squeeze it, and then I feel them shove a catheter in me, I feel it travel all the way into my bladder, and it hurt like hell. I felt tears falling down my cheek because it hurt so bad and because I was so freaked out that I couldn't tell them that I felt all of this. It was so violent and painful and scary. I can't stress that enough.
> >
> > Next, once I'm laying back down, I feel them shove two thin tubes up my nose that travel all the way to my stomach, and then they began pumping charcoal into it, and sucking out the contents of my stomach through a separate tube in my mouth (separate from the breathing tube). Once they did that, one of the doctors noticed my tears and I was wiggling my pinky at this point because I guess their paralytic was wearing off, and when he noticed I heard him say, "oh s***, he should not be able to do that," so a different doctor gave me more and I went all the way out. The way I was SUPPOSED to be through all of that.
> >
> > The next thing I remember is, again, seeing through just slits in my eyes, I still feel the breathing tube in my throat and the other tubes in my nose. I know the machine is breathing for me, but now through my peripheral vision I can see my mom next to me, quietly crying at my bedside.
> >
> > I was in the ICU for two days, a period of during which I remember waking up a few times and trying to pull out all of this equipment out of my throat and nose, and a nurse just pushing more knockout medicine through my IV and putting me back to sleep.
> >
> > Then I woke up in four-point restraints and a nurse at my bedside who must have thought it would be funny if she woke me up BEFORE pulling my catheter out (instead of letting me sleep through that) because that's what she did. Then she took me out of the restraints too, because they were only there so I wouldn't pull the breathing tube out. So then the nurse leaves my room and I started to panic because I know I will start to feel dopesick again soon, so I jumped up and started getting dressed to leave. When the nurse comes back in to ask what I was doing, and I told her I had to leave ASAP, she knew exactly why. She knew I was an addict. But, she also knew a little trick to try and get me to stay. She asked me if I would stay if she could get me some Xanax to calm my nerves down, so I asked her how much and she left and came back. "Four milligrams." So I agreed, and she gave them to me. I would stay long enough to talk to a psychiatrist.
> >
> > To make a long story short, I try to leave again, the nurses tell me, "okay, the doctor's coming up to sign off of it, and then you can leave." Only when the doctor got there, instead of signing off on me leaving, he signs 3-0-2 papers to hold me for 72 hours because they didn't know if the overdose was a suicide attempt because once they saw all the s*** in my stomach and in my system, they decided that it had to be a suicide attempt.
> >
> > So now I'm pissed. They just tricked me and lied to me, so I start to snap out. I pushed over a computer monitor and a bunch of binders on the nurses' station desk and I got right in the doctor's face and had some not-so-nice words for him at which time security was there along with another doctor with a knock-out needle that he injected me with, and again I woke up in four-point restraints. I begged and pleaded with the nurses and doctors to please let me go, and then they had a psychiatrist come and see me who I convinced that it was not a suicide attempt, and I told him that I was going to get treatment ASAP, so he signed off on lifting the 72-hour hold and let me go. About an hour later, I was out of there.
> >
> > As soon as I got out I was right back on my mission to get high again. CRAZY. The full gravity of the situation never hit me until recently when I decided I don't want to get high anymore. Not once in those next few days or weeks did I acknowledge that I truly came very very close to death. To me, it was just a bump of the road that I had to get over and out of so I can go on getting high. I realize the insanity of it now.
> >
> > Most people who have a near-death experience try to hurry up and change their lives. They swear to their God that if he would only let them live, they would change. Not heroin addict's. At least not this heroin addict. The opiates were that strong to me, they blinded me to everything else. My life had absolutely no value to me, or to anyone else. No real value anyway. It blows my mind when I think about it now. Another thing that blows my mind is that I really thought and believed my girlfriend, (name omitted), who was my girlfriend for nearly six years at this point, really cared about me and loved me. She's knee-deep in her own addiction, but a few days after this overdose we were talking, and she let slip that after the ambulance picked me up from her car and she went back home, she and her mother practiced the story that they would tell the cops if I had died that night. Crazy, right? She didn't even come see me, practically on my death-bed. Only my mom did. The same mom who I've stolen from countless times, who I put through living hell for more than half of my life, and who I let down OVER AND OVER again. So now, in this moment of clarity, I can see who truly loves me. Not my girlfriend of six years who plotted with her mother what they would tell the cops if I died (because all of the prescriptions were hers and they were scared they would be investigated). Not her. She didn't even visit me in the hospital or call my mom once in that three day period to see if I was alive or okay.
> >
> > It just blows my mind the people that we surround ourselves with in addiction, who we really believe care about us, while we're high. And then when we're sober we realize who the ones who really care about us are. Drugs f***ed me up and it appears like I have a very long way to go to get me back to normal; physically, mentally, and emotionally. But I just wanted to get this on paper while I remember it this vividly. I don't ever want to forget about this....
wow johnny and u SHOULDNT forget any of that........
that s*** is cray cray man and I can tell u that that chick (your so-called g/f) is just someone that is in her addiction as deep as u are.... take that to heart ok?
U're mom- however- is someone that loves you unconditionally- and will always. PLEASE just think about that before you do anything else ok? Man- I'm so glad u made it thru all that. I had something similar but not nearly as intense.. I took 6 sleeping pills and could not move cuz I thought they were something else.... So I get the point of having peeps move u and them not knowing u are aware of it....... But please man let this be of some help / knowledge for ya... ok? Please please think about your actions ok??
OL
that s*** is cray cray man and I can tell u that that chick (your so-called g/f) is just someone that is in her addiction as deep as u are.... take that to heart ok?
U're mom- however- is someone that loves you unconditionally- and will always. PLEASE just think about that before you do anything else ok? Man- I'm so glad u made it thru all that. I had something similar but not nearly as intense.. I took 6 sleeping pills and could not move cuz I thought they were something else.... So I get the point of having peeps move u and them not knowing u are aware of it....... But please man let this be of some help / knowledge for ya... ok? Please please think about your actions ok??
OL
Hey man thanks.. this was in October of 2012. Ive been off of heroin ever since. Moved across the country and started over. But i never wanted to put it anywhere for anyone else to read, but I figured it could help someone. My struggles are different today. But theyre still around just in different forms I suppose. But i especially count any day NOT on heroin or opiates a 1/2way successful day.
