Hear ye’ hear ye’ . Gather round bartards, and listen to my tale.

Alright, here’s a very long and depressing story, similar in many ways to the experiences we have all endured as super anxious people at some point in our lives. My anxiety is a monster. A behemoth residing in the depths of brain that I can barely control on my own and reign in with my own will. I reached a point in my panic where my day started out by waking up and immediately running to the bathroom to puke out the stomach acid that had built up during the night’s restless sleep. Then with the stomach emptied, the hunger came. But, my anxiety was not through with me yet, and soon I found that even the thought of food and the action of eating unbearable. So that hunger turned to nausea, again, driving me to the toilet to purge my gut. Soon I found myself in the hospital, dehydrated, malnourished, and weak. The medical staff performed blood tests, gave me an ultrasound to check for appendicitis and gall stones, but they came up empty handed. Once the staff was finished and had vacated the room, the doctor told me that what I was experiencing was a result of two possible culprits, one being a viral infection, and the other anxiety. He soon followed up with, “DarkEthereal, we scanned and tested your blood, you don’t have a viral infection. Despair set in.

My anxiety had taken me to the edge of a cliff, and soon I took the plunge into the ravine. My primary care scheduled me for a follow-up visit from the hospital and stated that it was time for us to get my anxiety under control. This is where I met the drug that brought chemical chaos straight into my bloodstream. Prozac. At first it appeared to be working fine, for the next two or so days, I felt better. Then came the brain zaps. My doctor insisted I give it time, that it would reach its full potential after three to four weeks. The first week, I was met with persistent suicidal thoughts, which were scary but, I knew this was a side effect of the Prozac so I tried my best to ignore them. Then came the second and third weeks. Prozac soon began supercharging my anxiety causing it to rise to a completely new level, like magma erupting from a volcano. It was crippling. Forget college, I spent most of those days alone in my dorm crying and paranoid, sitting in the corner of my room, lost in my own mind, trying to muffle my sobs so my roommate wouldn’t hear me. My heart was pounding out of my chest and if I laid down horizontally, it felt similar to skydiving. The feeling of falling down at such a fast rate, only instead of the bright green field designated for the skydivers to land on, I was falling into a black abyss, one from which there appeared to be no escape. I had reached my breaking point. Trembling, I walked to the nurses office at the school, desperate for some advice on how to stop feeling and acting like a miserable piece of shit. She asked, “Have you considered a short term anxiety solution?” I hadn’t, I didn’t know what could help me, I was scared and desperate. So I was handed a script for a medicine that I was told would end this turmoil; it was called Xanax.

I filled the script and made it back to my dorm. I look back on how foolish I was. I didn’t realize that what I had in that bag was gasoline to my unstable mind, a pile of tinder, IF I didn’t adhere to my prescription. I took my first dose and about an hour later, I was completely dumbfounded. I felt normal again. It had been so long, I had felt like I’d never feel this way ever again. I could breathe easier, my heart rate returned to normal, I could lie down and finally get some long needed sleep. A great weight had been removed from my shoulders. But soon that gasoline that was abuse ended up being poured on the tinder, and ignited. My scripts went from peaches, to footballs, and finally to bars. My script was for 180 2mg bars every 60 days. In the timespan of three weeks I went from crippling anxiety, to relief and subsequently, to what would cause my life to spiral out of control. Going exponential with the prescribed dosages, the effects ravaged my body and mind. Soon the negative side effects reared their ugly face. I was having regular blackouts, slurring like a drunken Irishman on St. Patty’s day, bumping into things. It was too much, too fast. And with my use, came the thing we all despise: tolerance. I noticed that having gone from exponential dosing to plateauing, that it was becoming less and less effective. Going from 0.5mg 3x a day for a week to 1mg 3x a day for a week, finally to 2mg 3x a day, my prescription was taking me to new heights. But at such a height, a fall would be sure to cause me terrible pain, and soon I slipped. Slowly, the darkness the Xanax was keeping me away from was scratching and clawing it’s way back into my psyche. Under no circumstances was I going to return back to that place, that terrible hell. Logically, I figured I had only two options: either stick with my prescribed dose and return to that hell I had lived for the past four months, or just take more of the Xanax to stop it. One choice offered insanity and the other offered peace. So, quickly, 6mg became 7mg. And when that stopped being as effective, it became 8mg and so on. Soon I reached the point where I was burning through pills as quickly as a plural pack-a-day smoker finishes his latest purchase. I burned through half of my month’s prescription in a week and a half. I was NOT going to run out, so I began taking DPH to potentiate it; to save as many pills as I could. My school work, my semester, my relationships, my future was put on hold while I succumbed to the tiny green pills. Blackouts were daily rituals. When I came to, I would look through my phone and find numerous phone calls and text messages I couldn’t recall making or sending. I would fall asleep in my chair and end up in my bed, covered in only a towel, unsure of when I made it there or when I had showered. Soon, my adventure would change course drastically.

One night, while home for spring break, during a late night blackout, I was on FaceTime with my best friend. Apparently, (this is all 3rd party information, I remember 0.0% of this happening) I was mid sentence when my eyes rolled back into my head and I dropped my phone face up to the ceiling. Passed out, he thought that I’d OD’ed in front of his very eyes, so, terrified, he calls my father and mother, leaves them each a voicemail, texts them, and when he got no reply from either of them, he began screaming at my benzo’d out body, begging, pleading for me to wake up and to cease this self-destruction. My mother, a light sleeper who had risen out of bed to use the bathroom heard the commotion coming from my room and she found me sprawled out on my bed. My friend spilled the beans to her, tears rolling down his face. I was soon shaken out of my Xanax comatose. My mother sat down next to me, asked me what was going on, and I told her what had been transpiring for the past month. Funny enough, the one thing I was thinking the most was how fucking annoyed I was that my friend had snitched on me.

My spring break became spring breakdown. My mother out of fear took my pills from me. This was a mistake that also nearly cost me my life. She did not know that Xanax could not be stopped abruptly, and with the amount I was taking daily, stopping so quickly, would cause withdrawals and put me at risk for seizures. That was an understatement. After begging and pleading to give me only half of my daily dose, the prescription dose, not MY dose, that was the last I would ever see my beloved chemical, and after taking the measly amount, 3mg, compared to the 16mg, 18mg that I was taking daily, the withdrawals came swift and with force. Hot and cold flashes, skin that burned like napalm, muscle aches that put the flu to shame, headaches that felt like a continuous lobotomy. It was worse than I could have ever imagined, worse than I could ever describe with words here.

I spent the rest of the week withdrawing and going between doctors and therapists and doctors and therapists, ping ponging back and forth until I ended up in an inpatient treatment facility. I spent 48 days there, learned a lot about the 12 steps and met some really great people, all with stories similar to mine, regardless of their age. But I failed to realize the that I could not use benzos safely anymore. Imade it home, successfully completing the program, making an empty vow to not touch benzos anymore, when really I had already planned out my relapse. My friends and family welcomed me home, believing that I was a new man, one free from the grip of addiction. But all the treatment center did for me was give me a bit a leash from my affliction, it was still there, like a tyrant watching his people, distant in power but close in proximity. I soon began talking to some people I used to use with back when I was in school. One offered to send me a gift, an opportunity to replenish the stock that I was forced to surrender when I departed for treatment. Though, this wasn’t alprazolam, it was a much more potent RC chemical. In a few days I had a small dropper with 100mg/10mL of clonazolam in my possession. Upon receiving the package, I could feel that mental tyrant grin in excitement, leaning forward in his throne and beckoning me to present it before him. I was both excited and terrified. I had listened to my “friends” speak of its potency, often listening to them when they themselves were using it, and often our conversation would devolve into a laughing fest, as the other person soon became a slow speaking, slurring idiot, gone. If Xanax was gasoline, this stuff must’ve been C4. And about two months out of rehab, it detonated. Fast forward to this past Saturday, and I finally had a chance to unleash the beast.

I had left my parent’s cabin early Saturday morning with my brother, conversing and jesting the whole way home, and soon I found myself alone in my house, on Discord with my one of friends who had experience using it. He instructed me to drop one or two drops under my tongue and to screw the cap back on and place the bottle back, and to NOT touch it anymore. I placed one drop under my tongue, telling myself I would not do anymore. I was pushed a little further by my friend to do one more drop and to put it away. I did so. Soon, that tyrant was laughing maniacally, and about an hour into the activity, that feeling of anxiolysis, the wave of calm washed over me again. But with that wave came the rip current that would drag me down into the deep below. I was convinced I was in control, and feeling as good as I was, I decided that another two drops wouldn’t hurt. Then like my prescription of the past, two became three became four etc. The last thing I recall was my friend telling me that I had done twelve drops, equating to about 3mg of clonazolam and warning to strap in for a wild ride. This all happened on Saturday early in the afternoon. I woke up in a daze, IV in my arm, in a bed, with a nurse at my side and the head nurse at the foot of my bed. He told me I was in the ICU at a hospital near my house. He told me that I was admitted due to an overdose. I didn’t understand. I could not put two and two together. My body hurt very badly, I had bruises all covering all over, an oxygen tube in my nostrils, saline drip entering my veins. I was a fucking mess. He told me that the only reason I didn’t stop breathing is because of my size, I’m a hefty individual who can handle a little more than the more physically fit. My mother arrived as well as my girlfriend and my friends. We joked for awhile, while my mother sat in quiet disappointment and fear. They told me what happened.

For context, my girlfriend was having a house party that evening that I was going to attend. My best friend and I were going to have dinner with his mother to celebrate her birthday. My other best friend, whose parents were out of town, whose house we were going to crash at post-celebration began to tell me what happened after I blacked out. They had called me when it was time for dinner, and got more worried as more missed calls accumulated. So they hopped in his truck and drove over to my house. After knocking for a couple of minutes, they punched in the garage code, opened the door and went into my room, to find me passed out under my desk. Luckily, I was still breathing. I hadn’t split my head on the stereo on the floor or my desk. I hadn’t cut an artery and bled out. I hadn’t aspirated and choked to death on my own vomit. Realizing that I had actually overdosed this time, quickly my friend called 911 and the paramedics came. They tried to hit my veins several times and failed, causing blood to spill all over my sheets. I survived a stupid fucking mistake I had made that nearly cost me my life. The head nurse on the floor of the ICU said it to me straight, his words piercing like a needle into the flesh. “DarkEthereal, you are an addict. You are lucky to be alive. If your parents or loved ones choose to send you to another treatment center, you nod your head and you say, “Thank you.” because you need it. You need help. You need to go to NA tonight. Get with the people there who can help you. I’m also in recovery. Alcoholism cost me my family, my children, and five years now I have my children back, and I am on healthy terms with my ex-wife because of the program and working the 12 steps. You are an addict, and there is no guarantee that next time you’ll be lucky enough to make it to an ICU in time. And if I see you here again, I’m going to be pissed.”

The gears turned, this was my bottom. I had to go up from here, otherwise the bottom I hit next will be six feet under the ground, as my friends and family gather around to watch the corpse of someone who had so many opportunities, so much hope for the future, be lowered to rest in the soil, knowing that those hopes and dreams would decompose alongside my body beneath the ground.

So today, I’m in recovery. I’m three days clean as of today. I’m working the program. This is my last shot, this is strike two. I either succeed or lose everything and everyone close to me. I can damage and strain those relationships to their limits, cause so much tension that the cords anchoring me in place snap, and I fall as the anchor does, sinking to the bottom inevitably reaching its final resting place on the sea floor. I have to do this for myself now, honestly, because if I cannot do this for myself, I cannot do it for the ones I care about most. I will continue to go to meetings to get the support that I need. My family and friends still stand behind me, even after betraying their trust so many times, and I am so fortunate for that. I cannot bear the burden of disappointing them once again, because there is no more chances after this.

My message to all of you who can use responsibly, as prescribed by your healthcare professional, continue to do so. Benzodiazepines offer so much benefit to those who have the crippling anxiety as I do, and can help you to live out normal, stable, healthy lives. But to those who use for recreational purposes, please, be safe. Don’t try to push your limit the next time you do so. I would not wish my experience on anyone, and I do not wish anything similar to happen to anyone of you. And to those who cannot stop using, the dependent, please, get the help you need. If you’re fortunate like I was to get a chance to go to a treatment facility or detox, take it. That opportunity is one that few people get, and failing to act could cost you a whole lot more than the money spent on your habit or the cost of your treatment.

This was my experience. To any who take the time to read this, please absorb what you can and utilize it. Thank you for allowing me to share this with you all.