What I Learned From Drugs

The Blue Shark's at it again! Middle Zone Musings has another project for people. "What I learned from ________" Basically, I'm going to tell a story about what I learned from drugs (as the title indicates.) Namely, triazolam, vicodin, and another drug whose name I can't remember.

So, over spring break this year, I got my wisdom teeth out. Yeah, fun spring break. They were infected and compounded, which means I was on penicillin for the infection and vicodin for the pain. I took two triazolam a couple hours before going to the dentist, since triazolam knocks you out. And gives you amnesia. Let's focus on triazolam first.

So, about this amnesia... it's pretty weird. For instance, I watched Pulp Fiction after I woke up at home. Now, I say I "woke up," but I have it on good authority I was never really "unconscious," so to speak. But I couldn't remember the past couple years, so I figured I'd just watch some Pulp Fiction. The only problem was, I couldn't follow it. I don't even think it's really that complex of movie. I just couldn't remember what the previous line of dialogue was. My short term memory was basically destroyed at the time. In fact, there's not much that I directly remember from spring break.

However, the stuff I do remember, it's not a straight memory. I can remember remembering something. Like, after I finished Pulp Fiction, I remembered some of the stuff from that morning. Taking the triazolam, getting out of the car at the dentist's office, getting novocaine injections, having a tooth pulled when the novocaine didn't completely cover the area (that hurt, but I was too out of it to say anything.) I must have been awake the whole time, since the dentist kept giving me instructions on how far open my mouth should be, and I kept following them.

The thing is, I no longer directly remember those memories now. I can only remember thinking about them later. I can't feel the pain of the tooth being pulled, but I can remember thinking about it and squirming uncomfortably. I can remember laughing at parts of Pulp Fiction, but I can't remember any of the parts. (The only thing I do remember is something with Samuel L. Jackson becoming religious or a pacifist or something near the end? I don't know.)

What did I learn from this? Well, mainly, that memories are freakin' weird. Have you ever thought about it? Somehow, the connections your neurons make allow you to pull up millions upon millions upon millions of images and ideas and words and thoughts and, even, remembering itself! So, even if you can't remember something directly, try remember thinking about it, and you might get enough information to act on. Like, where you put your car keys this morning.

Vicodin. Oh, vicodin. How I loathe you except when I'm on you. Vicodin makes me not care. Like, my house could've caught on fire, and I would've just watched the fire spread kind of not care. Probably would've only left the house after extensive thinking about how in two weeks I would want to have not died in a fire. But at the time, it'd be purely academic. Anyone seen A Beautiful Mind? Know when he's on his schizophrenic drugs and he's all zombified? That was me. And I couldn't think complexly. I could do 2 + 2 = 4, but if you asked me to give you the square root of 169, I couldn't have told you 13 without a calculator. And I'd cry for no reason. Not even, "I spilled milk, and I just lost it and started crying." No, I'd just be sitting around, reading something on the internet, and suddenly water would be falling out of my eyes. And I'd be sitting there going, "What is this? I don't cry. I've cried maybe once in the past 10 years." And I'd have to just sit there, crying for no reason. Mom would walk by, "Oh my God! What's wrong?" *in a cheery voice* "Nothing. Stupid vicodin making me cry. It'll stop in a while." This all continued for about two weeks after I stopped taking the vicodin. Then, after I'd detoxed, I woke up and went, "So... that sucked more than I thought it did yesterday..."

Then, my phantom drug. This dates back to six years ago when I got my tonsils and adenoids out. (I asked to keep them, but apparently they were a "biohazard." Hence why I was getting them out!) I don't remember what the drug was called (it was six years ago, and I couldn't even pronounce it,) but I do remember it was the best drug in the world, and it was an opiate (think morphine or heroine.) It makes you not care so much that you don't care about not caring. I tried to go off it after a couple days since the pain was nearly gone, but I woke up feeling like there was a dagger shoved in my throat, so I figured I better start taking it again.

Here's what I remember from that couple of weeks (other than it's an opiate, I didn't care, and the pain thing): we moved a mattress downstairs so I could just lay all day and watch tv. I had this Star Wars: Droids book that I was reading while watching Gone in 60 Seconds, and it got to the part where... *tries to keep this G rated for the Blue Shark* the couple is getting physical while Nicholas Cage and Angelina Jolie are stealing their car. This was sometime at night. My mom came in to say goodnight, and went, "You're watching porn?!" And I went, "No, I'm watching Gone in 60 Seconds. It's PG-13, Mom." "Well, I don't remember that part!" And then she went to bed. That's all I remember.

So what did I learn from vicodin and mystery opiate 101? Drugs suck. Really. It's hard to actually say just how much drugs suck. It's like being in this severe depression, only with the pleasure centers of your brain shooting off constantly. You don't realize you're depressed until you detox, though, which is the real problem. You think, "Lalalala. La. Lala. La." Then you come off it and realize how depressed you really were. And that makes you more depressed just thinking about your drug-induced depression! So now you're really depressed and don't even have the pleasure centers of your brain firing.

Basically, taking legal drugs is what's going to keep me off illegal drugs, and get me to stop taking legal drugs as soon as physically possible, and only take them if I really have to take them.