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Self-Medication
Cocaine
Citation:   Simon. "Self-Medication: An Experience with Cocaine (exp39480)". Erowid.org. Apr 5, 2018. erowid.org/exp/39480

 
DOSE:
  repeated insufflated Cocaine (powder / crystals)
BODY WEIGHT: 185 lb
So it's 2005 now, I'm sober, and I'm feeling a little nostalgic. After reading a lot here, talking to my old friends, etc. I've come to the conclusion that the way cocaine responds to a person, in terms of pleasure produced, addiction, and the sheer difficulty of overcoming the difficulty, varies greatly from person to person.

I had tried cocaine a few times years ago, not finding it particularly worth while or distinctly unsatisfying. It was just, you know, okay. Some time later, due to the challenges I couldn't meet in my life, fuck ups in a relationship, and eviction, I found myself really deep in depression. Too stubborn or proud or lazy or whatever to get real help, I medicated it with cocaine. That's the thing about cocaine, it never made me feel like a god, or anything really really special, it just made me feel good. Good about me and about people in general. That, and it made my throat, mouth, and at times, face numb. Cocaine, for me, just really made me happy. There are multiple reasons in my head that I didn't suffer the ego boosts others talk about, as well as half a score of effects cocaine supposedly has on people, but I digress. Cocaine... is good.

The real problem I have with cocaine is that... well, I get depressed even worse when I come down. I'd start a night with a couple lines of coke and end up repeating them every half hour through the night. Everytime I felt the happiness begin to fade, I'd replace it until I fell asleep. Only once did the excessive amount I was using give me any real problems. I was left jittering for a while, my heart was frighteningly loud in my ears.

I just went to sleep. Worked out all right.

Cocaine is addictive, I wouldn't rate it a ten out of ten in addiction, at least to me personally. I'd give it a good five or six, just because when yI do stop, come to a dead halt in use, all those times I was coming down and felt shitty are erased by the way I feel just then. I'm not so sure if what happened to me the day I stopped was withdrawal or the fact that I hadn't slept in a while (not sleeping doesn't have shit to do with cocaine, it was just a hectic day) but I felt like absolute crud. After that day, for a while, it was more or less the same dirty depressed feeling of a come down. The feeling that a little blow would make it all right.

But it's nothing that I couldn't get over. After using it too much for a while I started dreaming about it, as I did, and fantasizing. A lot of a cocaine addiction seems to be mental though, or maybe I'm just not too easily addicted. Like I said, I'm not sure.

So in retrospect, having a kind of screwy nose, and still some faint cocaine fantasy residue in my dreams, I have to say...

Hey, it's not that damned bad. The risk with cocaine is one of self, not of the drug. Some people get easily addicted to things, some don't. Hell, I might try heroin and become a head-over-heel addict with one shot. Point is, I didn't with cocaine. It's not a guaranteed thing.

Hope it's worth the read.

Exp Year: 2004ExpID: 39480
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 5, 2018Views: 1,169
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Cocaine (13) : Not Applicable (38), Addiction & Habituation (10), Retrospective / Summary (11)

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