One problem I had over the years is the amount of drugs I would consume on a given night and the lack of caution I exercised when mixing various drugs.
At the time, I didn’t think much of it. But it wouldn’t be uncommon for me to consume more than three or four drugs on a given night, and a few times that number even exceeded six.
How I’m still alive today, I’m not quite sure.
Alcohol, weed, ecstasy, cocaine, meth or Adderal, synthetic powders, painkillers, heroin, acid, and mushrooms are some of the drugs I would mix together.
I remember the first time I did too much cocaine. I was a junior in college and I was fighting through the crowd of the party I was at, just as I hit the back porch I just projectile vomited what appeared to be foam.
It scared the shit out of me, and my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest or possibly burst if my heart rate increased any higher.
Once I felt I had everything under control and I was capable of walking back inside, I went back to the room to find my friends I came with me to the party. They were doing more cocaine, and I remember just sitting back down and doing another line, like what just happened outside never occurred.
The closest I ever got to overdosing was at a house I was living at in St Paul, just after I graduated from college. I was around 23 years old, but a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to do some molly (which is a form of ecstasy), and even though I was already flying high on cocaine and a bunch of alcohol, I said sure.
So he proceeded to take the molly out, placed it on a little portable mirror we had for the living room, and he set it on the floor. He started going to work breaking it up, moving it into a line, chopping away more with his card, and pushing it back into a line, and he kept repeating these steps while telling a story at the same time. I wasn’t listening to the story; I was watching each time he chopped and then made the line and waited for him to get out of the way so I could snort it. Well, I found my window, and I jumped in with my rolled up bill and took the line down. The story stopped, and I heard him say, “Bergland, what the fuck?”
I looked up at him and I saw terror on his face, which confused me. After-all he asked if I wanted some molly, he laid the line out, and I snorted it, so now what is the big deal?!
I quickly found the answer to that question as my world started to spin, and he said, “Dude, that was for everyone, that is literally the most molly I have ever seen anyone do!”
I remember thinking, “OH SHIT,” as I looked around and saw a circle of three other people, and I had no idea where they came from. I thought to myself, get to your room Noah so you can lay down. I stood up I didn’t even make it to my third step, and the lights started to go out as my body collapsed to the floor.
I woke up over three hours later, and it was pitch black. I had no idea where I was and as I started to move around, and I quickly realized that I wasn’t alone in the room and heard a girl’s voice say, “it’s okay, Noah, you’re alright.”
It was a girl I treated badly and who I ended up leaving for her friend. And here she is making sure I don’t stop breathing or choke on my own vomit. Something I didn’t deserve (so if you’re reading this, I am so sorry, and thank you.)
When I was 25 is when I started hanging out with people who were shooting up (using needles), and that really opened my eyes to how easy it would be to overdose. Sometimes I would watch a friend go back and forth between shooting heroin and cocaine, trying to find some sort of sweet spot. The cocaine would take them too high, so they would take a shot on heroin trying to bring it down a notch, but then when they would go too low, they’d go back to cocaine.
The most careless I ever saw someone be firsthand, was with a friend of mine. She was on a trip where they didn’t have any heroin and started to withdraw, so they found a doctor who gave her some low-grade painkillers to get her by. When they got back to Minneapolis they ran to the needle and told her friend to give her a big ass shot, so they did.
I was sitting there 10 minutes later, like, “Is she going to be okay?!” And the friend who shot her up said, “Oh, she is going to be fine.” I didn’t believe her, and I got up and decided it was time for me to go because I didn’t want to see anyone die that day. Luckily, she made it. But that day was one of many reasons I decided not to take it to the next step in my drug use and never used a needle.
These experiences showed me just how high someone could get when they inject the drug directly to the bloodstream. I wondered why someone would ever want to get that high and that fast because heroin would just melt them into the couch, and they wouldn’t be capable of doing anything for the foreseeable future.
These are just more examples of how invincible you feel when you are young, dumb, and using.
You think you know exactly how much drugs your body can handle, but usually, it’s too late before you really know you did too much.
The drug game is a dangerous game that we just continue to play and take risks. I know people who have died from overdosing, and I know a lot more that should have, including myself.
Be smart, be safe, and don’t take that first drug if at all possible.
Thanks for listening!
Noah
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