DOSE:

repeated

insufflated

Cocaine

BODY WEIGHT:

200 lb

I thought I would just reminisce a little on my cocaine use. It started in the spring semester of my senior year in high school, more specifically during the spring break of that year.

My best friend James who incidentally, I won't say got me started on any new substance I have done, but he did happen to be there whenever I tried something new. Anyway James who I greatly admire and respect, although he assuredly has a problem with drug use, had been doing blow fairly regularly for about a year. I had always kind of been against it, my distorted perception being that it was some insanely intense drug like LSD that had the addictive power of pure heroin. However I never berated James for doing it because by the time of my first use he had never seemed to let it become a problem. Then one night at a party James and I somehow ended up in the bathroom together, I think that he wanted to show me what cocaine actually looked like. I was fairly drunk at the time but was definitely sober enough to say drive or speak very coherently. Anyway James busts out this little bag of coke which looked really dusty inside the bag, he emptied out a little onto the back of his hand and snorted it through a rolled up dollar bill. He then yelled 'YOWWWWCH!' I asked him if it hurt and he jumped up and down and said no that it was great. Now prior to this I had taken a 'Nummy' before where I rub some cocaine on my gums and it numbs them for a few minutes but that was it.

James seemed to be really enjoying himself that night and I really looked up to him and wanted to be as close to him as possible so impetuously I just said, 'Can I have a go' and he was like 'you wanna try it?' I said sure and that was that. I did a little bump off the back of his hand and was surprised that I did not immediately launch into some frenetic ecstasy and that I really didn't feel it going up. After a while James asked me if I felt anything and I said not really he said that that was probably because I was a pretty big guy and probably needed a bigger bump. I'm about 6'2' and at that time weighed about 230lb. So we went back in the bathroom and he loaded me up a 'fat line' and I obediently snorted it. After this I definitely felt it. I was a little surprised at the intensity of it, or lack thereof, because it really is not that detrimental to my functioning, I just start to feel very good and feel really alert and energetic. Later that night I ended up having some fantastic sex with a girl at the party and the blow definitely improved it, although it did take me a very long time to 'get it up' which I'm not saying was from the blow but that had never before been a problem, so I think it probably was.

The next few months I really had nothing to do academically. I was already into college and was just whiling away the days partying and generally letting loose. Throughout these last school months and first few weeks of summer I did lots of blow, usually with James although I was not opposed to getting it whenever it was around. Usually what would happen is that I would go down to James' pick him up at his house we would blow a couple lines of whatever he had around then go pick up some more and start cruising the parties. It was great, some of the best times of my life and I do not regret it. Every time me and Jake would ride around together snorting a line of a CD case or sneaking into the bathroom at a party to surreptitiously snort a couple lines, I felt exhilarated not just from the drug's effects, but from the secrecy of it, the fact that me and Jake had this little secret which made us have a better time at parties then everyone else, and more importantly it was something that I could do with my best friend that I really did not do around other people. In a way it brought me closer to him, although on looking back I do wish I could have gone about that in another way.

After the first few weeks of summer I embarked upon a post-high school European back packing trip for five weeks with three of my good friends. James was not one of them. Prior to this trip I was when I had been doing coke most often, pretty much every night for about two and half weeks leading up to the trip. The friends whom I was going with, knew that I had done coke although they were under the impression that I had only tried it once or twice, and none of them had done it or were open to the idea of it. So as a cocaine user I was alone on this trip.

The trip was amazing, we went all over mainland Europe and the British Isles for about five weeks, including a weeks stay in the fantasy land of Amsterdam. During these weeks I did not do cocaine once, I didn't even see it. I'm not that good at talking to strangers and consequently I'm really bad at networking and finding substances on my own without a lead in. The first week or so it was fine and the absence of cocaine did not really seem to faze me although I did notice that every time I drank I got really tired. This I now directly attribute to the fact that prior to the trip every instance of my drinking alcohol had been in conjunction with cocaine use and the stimulant coke would often amp me up out of the downer alcohol. However in Europe, where we started in the British Isles consequently doing lots of pubbing, I began to start craving some blow not even so much of the effects I really just wanted to snort something, to feel that white powder enter my brain via nostrils, to smell that indescribably but authoritatively distinct coke smell. And I couldn't and one night I kind of broke down, I didn't really freak out but I ended up confiding in one of my friends that I would do just about anything for a line and he listened and we had a nice bonding moment. A funny thing about that night was that when I was really, and I mean really, jonesin' for some blow, my friend C, who is a cigarette smoker, took me outside and gave me a few cigarettes and man, they really helped, and I then and now hate cigarettes but that night I could not get enough of them.

The rest of the trip passed uneventfully, that one night in London with C, where I actually seriously considered snorting a line of laundry detergent simply because it was a white powder, seemed to be the breaking point for, I won't say addiction because I don't think it had quite come to that, but definitely my desire. I was able to drink and carouse the rest of the trip with only minor and scattered cravings for some blow.

I mentioned that we spent a considerable amount of time in Amsterdam on this trip, where I ended up having a very introspective mushroom trip, that ended up being being very illuminating to me with concern of my personality. And when we came home I had affirmed in my mind that I was done doing blow, not because of any moral or health conscious reason, but because in my separation from it I had truly felt the pang of addiction and did not want my life to be defined, even in the slightest way, by a substance, which if even though is a lot of fun, is really not worth it in my opinion.

However I had been back a week and no sooner had I seen James for the first time than we were at a party doing blow and all manner of things. I actually ended up tripping molly (pure mdma) for the first time that night and so was already quite inebriated from the E and alcohol that I didn't really know what was going on with the molly. But even after this reunion with James and the White Girl, there were a couple instances more when I was with James and he had some blow and I didn't do it.

Then it was getting time for me to go off to college and I was having what would ultimately be my last pre-college party with James and the 'old gang' James really wanted me to go to his friend Don's house, who was a much older (about 40) guy who lived in the suburbs but really like to party and whom James had sold weed to a few times but was now partying with fairly regularly and James wanted to introduce me to him.

So me, James, and a couple other guys, went to over to Don's house, we actually went to his poolhouse, and proceeded to party our asses off. Don's house was totally decked out imbedded neon lights and flat screen tvs in the walls, a club sound system and lots of nice leather furniture. Don also proved to be a very gracious and charming host and spun some sweet jams for us and provided us with a mountain of blow and beer and weed and all manner of things. That night I estimate that we each probably did about 4-5 grams of the white which for us was a ton. By the end of the night, about 5:30, I was driving everybody home and we didn't say a word, I was so coked up I had no idea what was going on, I couldn't feel my extremities and my mind was at once racing at lightspeed and quagmired in fog of confusion, we were all really out of it and I'm glad to say we got home safely. This served as my 'blow out' end of partying type schinding and I went off to college about a week later, and I'm there write, pardon the puns, now about 2 months later and I'm proud to say that I have not done any blow since I left.

[Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!]

Overall cocaine is a helluva drug, one who's power is very easy to lose sight of. At the time when I was doing it I didn't feel like its that intense, but each wonderful snort of powder just brought me closer to addiction, and ultimately what would have been enslavement. Now I am sorry if any of this has been melodramatic because I know that there are people entangled much more deeply with coke than I ever was but I feel as if I truly glimpsed what it's like to be addicted to a substance and do not ever want to feel that way again. I still smoke a ton of weed and trip on various psychedelics from time to time, which I thoroughly encourage but am now 100% natural in my substance use. To be honest I think cocaine is really not worth it, it is a lot of fun and a great little amp while partying or something, however its phenomenally expensive both monetarily physically and mentally. I once bought blow from a guy with James who literally had not eaten in a week and had not slept for four days, and happily demonstrated how he could stick three fourths of pencil up his nose. He later died from a heroin overdose. But that's neither here nor there, what is, is that I heartily encourage all forms of experimentation but with the case of bam-bam, white girl, china groove, snow and the countless other alluring titles which are collectively cocaine be extraordinarily careful and do not fool yourself by thinking you are immune to addiction, which really goes for all drugs. Just be educated and safe in your experimentation and do not be afraid of a little self analysis and you will be fine, whatever the word is to you.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 66181
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 29, 2013	Views: 19,151
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Cocaine (13) : Addiction & Habituation (10), Club / Bar (25)