DOSE:

oral

Oxycodone

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

As a full-fledged pothead and psychonaut, I am used to experimenting with substances. Altering my consciousness is something that I save for special occasions, however, and before my love affair with percocet I had never really considered trying 'hard' drugs. At this point I had done only the basics: Nicotine, alcohol, psylocibin, THC.

About a year ago I developed multiple kidney stones over the course of a few months. (Kidney stones, if you've never had them, are hell on earth. Passing a kidney stone has been described as 'some of the worst pain the human body can endure and survive.') I was prescribed percocet to take as needed. I didn't like the idea of taking an opiate-because of potential addictiveness--but after passing two stones in three days I was ready for a morphine drip if I could get a hold of it. My prescription said to take one tablet every 6 hours as needed. As I woke with a third stone in the middle of the night (3am) I crawled to the kitchen and retrieved the bottle. Immediately, I downed four (the amount I would have taken in 24 hours).

I didn't feel the percocet hit me at all--it snuck up from behind and crawled into my body with no warning. One minute I was in immense pain, and the next I was blissful and calm, the pain still there but somehow unimportant. I think that I was fully 'high' (though 'dreamy' is a better word) by about 30-45 minutes after I took the pills. I don't really remember the transition very well--my thoughts were jumbled and irrelevant.

I find codeine is a lovely drug (provided you're not allergic, which many people are), and the feelings I felt that night were less of a dulling of pain than a total forgetfulness of any bodily sensation. My speech became slurred, and when my mother woke up to get ready for work at 6am (I was home from college for the summer), three hours after I had taken the pills, I was giggling happily while watching the cartoon network. She told me later that there was a small trail of drool streaming from my chin, but I don't remember this. I do remember feeling like nothing could hurt me, that my body was wrapped in a warm fleece cocoon, and that the kidney stones could fuck themselves.

I started to come down around noon, and as I felt the drug wear off my body was exhausted and I felt sweaty and itchy (codeine makes me really really itchy all over). Also, the pain was returning, and nausea was on its way. I was home alone at this point, and the stabbing agony in my back--which was traveling slowly down to my bladder--was nearly unbearable. I sat on the floor of my bathroom, my legs wobbly and cold on the tiles, my head resting miserably on the toilet seat. It occurred to me that I still had 8 more percocet in the bottle, and I thought, what the hell, I don't have to work today. The come-down was getting more and more intense, and I started to think I might throw up. Also, I was starting to cry, for no apparent reason. Panicked, I went into the kitchen and took two more.

I should note here that even as I took the second dose of pills I felt the percocet coming back on...I found the drug's effects comes in waves, and this is one reason it's so dangerous.

By 1pm I was stoned out of my mind; I remember going to make food in the kitchen and laughing hysterically at the fact that I was nauseated and that my back hurt. There was no real euphoria, just a calm, tranquil, wise feeling. I felt like a jolly old gnome. I felt untouchable. I thought I was an angel and could save the world. I vowed on the spot to get my prescription re-filled (though the bottle said in huge letters no refills), inventing more kidney stones if necessary. Life was grand and I was queen.

I got addicted--I really did have several more kidney stones that summer (one kidney is almost entirely useless now), and getting my prescription filled again and again was easy because my physician was a friend of the family and my ivp's (intravenous pigmentation--iodine dye is shot into your veins and your urinary tract is x-rayed) showed that I did indeed have more stones on the way. By the end of the summer (2 months after my first percocet adventure), I was fully hooked. I took percocet to work, popping pills throughout the day as I tended bar and in the car on the way home. My standard routine was: 2 Pills upon waking, 2 pills by noon, 2 pills after dinner, 2 pills before bed.

I was functional--surprisingly so--but my health was in shambles. I couldn't escape the fact that if I didn't get my constant percocet fixes, I was so nauseated that eating was unthinkable and sleep wouldn't come for hours. The stones hurt, yeah, but they didn't hurt that badly. I knew I shouldn't be taking so much percocet. Finally, one night I caught myself wishing for the drugs to work faster and actually chewing a pill whole (it was so bitter) right before a party. At that moment I realized that the drug was controlling my life. My mother was getting very suspicious, and my friends didn't really like to hang out anymore because all I wanted to do was take percocet and watch tv or listen to quiet music. I stopped going out, forgot to shower, and eventually lost my job. I woke up one day--broke, alone, and feeling like shit--and realized that if I didn't quit soon I wouldn't make it out alive.

So, I stopped. The stones were agony, but I smoked a lot of weed, and in a way it seemed to help more than the codeine because the come-down wasn't nearly as rough. The withdrawal symptoms were awful--I wouldn't wish them on anyone...Constant nausea, headaches, tremors, cold sweats, diarrhea, intense disorientation, irregular heart beat, trouble breathing. Eventually they went away, though, and now I can say that since I quit cold turkey I haven't gone back. It's tempting sometimes, but I find that cannabis and an after-bowl cigarette really help curb the urge.

One last thing: Never drive while or after taking percocet, and don't ever mix it with alcohol. I learned this the hard way when I woke up vomiting in my friend's car after having a glass of wine in a restaurant. The drug is nice, it's friendly, but it's also very possessive and likes to win. Don't let it--it's just an addiction, and if you want to badly enough, you will get through it. Friends, light foods, lots of cool water to drink, and calming music in a dark room are a great way to get through withdrawal.

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 6072
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 8, 2002	Views: 289,170
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Oxycodone (176) : Addiction & Habituation (10), General (1), Alone (16)