DOSE:

200 mg

IV

Cocaine

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

Over the past few years my best friend and I had injected drugs with varying degrees of intensity- a few weeks of heavy use, then a few weeks of little to no injecting. Around November 2001 we both were in the habit of injecting cocaine on a Friday night. We would get only 1 or 2 grams and share it until it was gone, injecting approximately between .1 and .2 grams.

The coke was excellent quality, and as the rush came on I could taste the chemicals, almost like acetone. All the things that attracted me to shooting coke were there in full force: tinnitus, the coke taste, and that wrecking ball impact of the rush hitting me. Nothing like it. Well this night something bad happened. I injected what I considered a 'bold' shot. I felt my stomach lurch like I might vomit and got up from the kitchen table and went to the sink.

Now the room was starting to spin so I grabbed on to the sink and the dishrack, and at that point I could no longer control my body. I was shaking so violently dishes fell off the rack and I couldn't let go. My legs would not obey me. It was if the whole house was on rockers, flying from side to side. My heart was racing so fast I thought it would pop. I was waiting for a searing pain from my chest as my heart would stop and I'd just die.

My friend ran in and pulled me off the sink. He later said I had a death grip on it. I fell over on to the floor and he started pulling me to the couch. I found I could barely control my arms and I started pulling myself along the floor as my legs spasmed wildly. My friend was an epileptic and he was saying to me 'This is what it's like! This is what I go through when I have a seizure!' I never understood before but I did then. Thankfully it began to wind down a minute or 2 after I got onto the couch.

[Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!]
5 minutes later I was preparing another shot. I just decided to use a little less this time. And 20 minutes later I was driving my truck on the highway.

I got locked up soon after this, and while I was gone my friend died, on January 2. He was alone in his room and his aunt found him dead around lunchtime. When I got home last week I did some asking around and found that for three days around New Years he was shooting a lot of coke. They thought it was related to his epilepsy and it may have been but the autopsy revealed that his brain was basically mush. They couldn't tell where the lobes and segments were. One phrase I heard was that he had 'drowned his brain.' When I remember how shooting coke made my 'normal' brain feel I can imagine what it would have done to him, who had epilepsy from brain surgery years before (he had to get a staph infection removed off his brain from guess what-using old funky needles.)

There is no feeling like shooting coke. No other drug I have found (and I've done a few) compares to it.

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 13527
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Sep 8, 2006	Views: 31,497
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Cocaine (13) : Difficult Experiences (5), Small Group (2-9) (17)