BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

A long time ago when I was just a little kid I had an unexplainable experience when I was in preschool. I still remember it vividly to this day, I was in line following the teacher down the hall when I totally lost perception of the physical reality. It’s like my perception drifted into an eternal reality within my own mind. Just like existing in the physical world I had known, I existed in an alternate cartoon universe in which I was in a cave with my classmates following the teacher, who was holding a lantern. Except everything was an animation, it closely resembled the Disney film Snow White. Except besides the dwarves following Snow White, I could see myself and all my classmates following our teacher and I could have sworn it was actually happening. It was short lived, but unexplainable. I’d never had another natural hallucination so powerful until twenty years later.

Life was looking up for me. For the last two years, I had been attempting to quit heroin once and for all. Of course, this was easier said than done. I found myself going to rehab, getting out and going to sober living, being completely miserable in the Alcoholic Anonymous program and thus relapsing. This cycle would repeat itself over and over again for the entire two years or so until I finally was able to stay sober for quite a while.

Life was finally looking up! I had gotten my car back, had a good job, a good girl and decent checking account. Everything was coming together perfectly. I had no reason to use and honestly hadn’t thought about it in quite some time. Though as I sat in a required AA meeting for sober living and the educator went on and on about God and sobriety I begin to experience a familiar feeling. A very alien feeling, as everyone else seemed super into the popular instructor at that particular meeting, I felt as though I was the only one who really was just there because I had to be. I felt emptiness.

Slowly, I begin to tune everything out, I couldn’t control it. The instructor’s voice, the laughs from other A.A. members at the instructor’s jokes, all of it begin to fade away until it was nothing but like a whisper. And as I stared blankly across room, I noticed an open window. Then something strange begin to happen, a light descending from above outside the window got closer and closer to the opened window. The light became more and more vivid, and it seemed as though as it was calling me. I slowly got up, ignoring the lecture and the people listening to it, but they didn’t seem to notice me. I walked over slowly to the opened window to get a better look on what was outside of it, and as I got to it I saw the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. A beautiful female angel was descending from the sky slowly approaching me, it was like something out of a dream. Her majestic presence got closer and closer until I could notice she had her hands out holding an item as if she was presenting it to me. As she finally arrived right in front of me on the other side of the window, I could see that she was holding a syringe full of a lovely brown solution that could only be the love of my life, the answer to my problems, the feeling of a lifetime. It was at this point that I realized that life truly is overrated, I could have all my old childhood dreams come true but, in the end, it would never compare to the feeling of a good heroin rush. And just like always it had drawn me over like it always does.

Twenty minutes later I had already left the meeting, I was driving out of where I always used to go to for the best dope in my area. I knew I was probably making a mistake. Some say it’s the disease concept, others say it’s some preexisting mental disorders that keeps us addicts coming back, others say it’s just selfishness. I’m really not sure what exactly it truly is, and I honestly don’t really care anymore. All I know is that nothing really compares once I’ve had truly good heroin. Nothing had in the past and I was certain nothing would in the future. I glanced over to my passenger seat where the bag of dope sat along with the needle and bottle cap like it always used to and smiled as I pulled into the Wendy’s right outside of where I always shoot up after I score some dope. I know I wasn’t detoxing and had been sober awhile, but I still couldn’t wait any longer, whether I realized it or not I had subconsciously been waiting a very long time for this.

As I pulled into the parking lot I begin to get really anxious and excited. I parked in the same spot I always used too. It was facing a large field across from the Wendy’s parking lot. I was super excited and went to cook the dope up when I noticed some people standing in the field. As I looked up I was able to make them out, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I could see my Aunt and my grandma standing next to each other. I couldn’t grasp why they would be there, so I closed and wiped my eyes only to look and see the same figures there again. I thought about leaving, but I did something I never imagined. I put the dope down, didn’t shoot up and got out of the car. I begin to walk over to my Aunt and Grandma when I noticed many more people. They were standing in two parallel lines facing one another. I could recognize every one of them, I saw my cousin and my friends. I begin walking in between them glancing at everyone as they simply smiled and waved at me like they were expecting me. I passed my Mom, my Dad, my Sisters and even my rehab instructor. At the end I saw three people standing in front of the two lines facing me as if they had been waiting on me for quite some time. It was my best friend Brandon who had killed himself two years ago from meth psychosis, my ex-girlfriend who overdosed and died on heroin four years ago and a dear friend of mine who just died two months previously from a heroin overdose. They were very excited to see me, and I couldn’t help to be so relieved to see them again. I wanted to cry I was so happy. Then Brandon reached his hand out seemingly for me to grab it. Tears in my eyes I unquestionably grabbed his hand, I had been ready for a long time.

I awoke and begin crying. I was wrong I thought, I wasn’t ready to die, Heroin isn’t better than the things I can accomplish in sobriety. I stopped crying, I looked around and had no idea what had happen or where I was. Though I quickly came to the realization I was obviously in the hospital. What had happened? Had I overdosed yet again? It felt like it had been years. I looked at my hand to see if it had aged, but it appeared the same as far as I could remember. Though I couldn’t remember much from the last 2 months or so. I was later explained I had been in a drug-induced coma for the last six days and that I was found unresponsive and blue in my car at the Wendy’s parking lot by a pedestrian. Through some miracle I did not suffer any long-term brain damage or medical conditions and over time made a full recovery.

I am not sure if the things I’ve said in this experience actually happened, but over time this is all I can truly remember. Though its rare, and not necessarily a heroin-induced spiritual/mystical experience, it definitely was the essence of an unexplainable event that I cannot explain and something that only exists in my memories.

I’ve been sober ever since and have no desire to use again, but then again I do not know what the future holds. I can only hope this is the end of it.

Thank you for letting me share my story.

Exp Year: 2017	ExpID: 111849
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 24
Published: Apr 29, 2018	Views: 3,430
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Heroin (27), Endogenous (86) : Entities / Beings (37), Overdose (29), Addiction & Habituation (10), Hospital (36)