I remember when I was 19, living with three of my high-bastard friends. My one buddy comes home with a jar of 500 5mg valium. He says, “the cool thing about this shit is you can’t OD on it.”
Well, well, well, we’re gonna test that theory. And he would know, after all, because his mom’s a nurse. Hell, that makes him almost an expert.
Over the course of 4 hours I took 24 of those little yellow pills. I was gulping them down, laughing, 3 and 4 at a time. About the 6-hour mark I stopped moving. I vaguely remember conversation, hearing “man, I hope he’s not dead,” followed by a lot of laughter. At some point, I remember looking down. I was floating about 6 feet above everyone. At the time, I didn’t comprehend what was happening. I just thought, “How cool, I’m having an out of body experience.”
Looking back, I know I was floating away to death. My breathing had stopped. Well, shit, I had ingested 120 mgs of valium. I was going to off to meet…God perhaps? Addiction’s a bitch, a bitch that comes after you in an unrelenting manner. It plays dirty. It knows you. It knows what it wants and does anything to get it.
A person can overdose on aspirin let alone valium. But the voice of addiction tells you, insists in fact, that it’s ok. TAKE IT. GET HIGH. TAKE CARE OF ME AND I WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU. Lies and bullshit, but the pull is excruciating. Fate must have interjected on my behalf that day. 12 hours after I started this assault on myself, my eyes popped open. I heard someone say, “Wow, you’re alive!? We thought you were dead.” Great friends, eh? Problem was, they were all too high to do anything about it. I lurched my body out of the chair and ended up on all fours. I crawled down the hallway and into my room. Made it to my bed, which was a mattress on the floor, and flopped out. I didn’t budge for another 24 hours. My girlfriend had to hold her compact mirror under my nose to make sure I was breathing. When I finally woke up I went looking for a joint. Addiction is a BADASS! Addiction is a motherf-
DANIEL THOMAS, JR 