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Cocaine and pills...three dead in two months

edited June 2007 in Strut Central
Man oh man, another acquantaince of mine just died the other day from mixing coke and pills. That's three in two months. Folks are going out and partying hard, then coming home and thinking it's ok to pop a vicodin or an ambien to take their edge off. It's like playing russian roulette. Somone on here definitely has more medical knowledge on something like this, I had heard from someone last night that it's akin to speedballing. I'm sure there are a handful of strutters who mess around with the coke, please be careful at the end of the night when you are looking to come down. Two out of the three that died were perfectly healthy (besides the drug use that is) and no one saw it coming at all.Be careful my friends.

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  • Sorry to hear that, man..sad stuff for sure.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    I'm sorry for your loss.

    I noticed you have been popping up on some other threads and wanted to say Welcome back. You are a great guy who has dealt with a lot of grief. I appreciate you being here and your what you bring.

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    I'm sorry to hear that.

    A friend of mine had a cocaine induced heart attack a few months back and damned if the very night he was released fom the hospital he wasn't out doing coke at a party for all to see.

    Point being, coke sucks and it turns previously rational people into complete asshole dickhead idiots.

    I can't tell you how many of my old friends from college have since turned into addicts.

    Dammits all around...

  • DJ_EnkiDJ_Enki 6,471 Posts
    First of all, I'm sorry for your loss, Sween. That's the kind of story you never want to hear, and it's a terrible tragedy.


    Point being, coke sucks and it turns previously rational people into complete asshole dickhead idiots.

    Point being, coke sucks and it turns previously rational people into complete asshole dickhead idiots.

    Point being, coke sucks and it turns previously rational people into complete asshole dickhead idiots.

    Point being, coke sucks and it turns previously rational people into complete asshole dickhead idiots.

    Point being, coke sucks and it turns previously rational people into complete asshole dickhead idiots.

    Amen to that.

  • rootlesscosmorootlesscosmo 12,848 Posts
    damn z"l to your friends. I hadn't heard of this phenomenon. hopefully someone with chemistry knowledge can break it down.

  • GuzzoGuzzo 8,611 Posts
    RIP to your peeps...
    lost been dying from doin coke & OxyContin also

    I've been sitting in on AA meetings lately and this kind of combination seems to be pretty popular.

    It's scary how nonchalant some of these people are in telling these stories.

    Drug addiction is a frightening thing

  • im sorry about your loss sween, hopefully this will open your other friend's eyes to what might happen to them if they continue down the paths theyre goin.

    this is actually something i think about all the time. one of my good friends definitely has a cocaine problem. he only does it on the weekends but when he does it he does it full force. this past weekend we were talking about it and i was telling him how he buys lots of it so other people will do it with him so he doesnt feel as bad about doin it. he knows its wrong, he knows it makes him feel like shit but if he has other people to do it with it somehow makes it ok. he seriously will supply anybody who wants to do it with him. multiple 8balls a weekend and shit. one time he said he wasnt gonna come down to houston(he stays in beaumont during the week) at all that weekend. come to find out he did come down to help his parents move something and on his way back to beaumont he bought and 8 ball and stayed up til 3:30pm the following day and did the whole fuckin thing to himself. i really don't see him stopping unless something bad happens to him as hes been this way for about the last 10 years.

    thankfully he doesnt mix the shit with pills.
    im also curious about what makes this such a deadly combination. is it something about mixing highs with lows?

  • Options
    im sorry about your loss sween, hopefully this will open your other friend's eyes to what might happen to them if they continue down the paths theyre goin.

    this is actually something i think about all the time. one of my good friends definitely has a cocaine problem. he only does it on the weekends but when he does it he does it full force. this past weekend we were talking about it and i was telling him how he buys lots of it so other people will do it with him so he doesnt feel as bad about doin it. he knows its wrong, he knows it makes him feel like shit but if he has other people to do it with it somehow makes it ok. he seriously will supply anybody who wants to do it with him. multiple 8balls a weekend and shit. one time he said he wasnt gonna come down to houston(he stays in beaumont during the week) at all that weekend. come to find out he did come down to help his parents move something and on his way back to beaumont he bought and 8 ball and stayed up til 3:30pm the following day and did the whole fuckin thing to himself. i really don't see him stopping unless something bad happens to him as hes been this way for about the last 10 years.

    thankfully he doesnt mix the shit with pills.
    im also curious about what makes this such a deadly combination. is it something about mixing highs with lows?


    Thanks for the thoughts everyone, it's a shit situation and I really feel bad for this last guy's family.

    I'm curious too about what makes it such a lethal cocktail, but I think it's as basic as amphetamine vs. barbituate, which is what killed John Belushi (and probably 100 other famous people since then, but for soe reason he is sticking in my mind). I remember in an 8th grade health class the teacher was pointedly telling us not to mix amphetamines with barbituates, basically giving in to the fact that a large percentage of kids are going to experiment and there was nothing she could do but give us this one little tip.


    The main reason I posted up about this is to put it in the back of the head of people who get loose like that "once in awhile", the recreational users who are definitely among us (5000+ registered users, play the percentages). It seems like an innocent "no way it can hurt me" type thing. The randomness of it is what scares me.

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    There's not much a cokehead likes to do more than turning another person on to coke. It's like they vicariously get to experience that first high again by watching their new recruit go through it AND it absolves them of much of the guilt they feel for being such losers...as in "at least previously reasonable friends a, b, and c are on the same (dispicable) page as me."

  • There's not much a cokehead likes to do more than turning another person on to coke. It's like they vicariously get to experience that first high again by watching their new recruit go through it AND it absolves them of much of the guilt they feel for being such losers...as in "at least previously reasonable friends a, b, and c are on the same (dispicable) page as me."
    I've seen this happen many times, not neccessarily just with coke. It's all a matter of misery loves company...

  • Mr. CasualMr. Casual 953 Posts
    im also curious about what makes this such a deadly combination. is it something about mixing highs with lows?

    something about mixing highs with lows?

    something about mixing highs with lows?

    something about mixing highs with lows?

    something about mixing highs with lows?


    Imagine your brain telling your heart to speed up pushing it to pump like you are running a marathon... and then all of the sudden your brain getts another signal to put everything to hault.. you are basically pulling your heart in two different directions at the same time.. it doesn't know what to do... I gotta admit .. I've done it before.. the only thing you want to do is come down and get some sleep.. But I haven't touched that white devil in a while and have no plans of touching it again.

  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    I'm not speaking from experience, but from what I understand, the attraction of the speedball has a lot to do with maximizing different kinds of highs. The coke hits you fast, takes you up fast but you also crash fast but that's when the heroin (or similar drug) takes over, helping you drift away, blissfully. Of course, once that high gives out...time to re-up.

  • yuichiyuichi Urban sprawl 11,331 Posts
    There's not much a cokehead likes to do more than turning another person on to coke. It's like they vicariously get to experience that first high again by watching their new recruit go through it AND it absolves them of much of the guilt they feel for being such losers...as in "at least previously reasonable friends a, b, and c are on the same (dispicable) page as me."

    I agree. That peer pressure shit is hella weak. It's like the person is validating their existence by having others stoop to their level.

    The main reason I posted up about this is to put it in the back of the head of people who get loose like that "once in awhile", the recreational users who are definitely among us (5000+ registered users, play the percentages). It seems like an innocent "no way it can hurt me" type thing. The randomness of it is what scares me.

    Very good point. Now, how do you get my brothers and his "recreational users" to stop? He loves doing coke on the weekends and he's gonna be moving in with his druggie friends in a couple months. I've seen friends who've gotten out of it. When do you know it's serious?

  • Damn. This is sad and scary. What happened to just smoking a good ol' joint to come down at the end of a cocaine night?

  • GuzzoGuzzo 8,611 Posts
    Very good point. Now, how do you get my brothers and his "recreational users" to stop? He loves doing coke on the weekends and he's gonna be moving in with his druggie friends in a couple months. I've seen friends who've gotten out of it. When do you know it's serious?

    you know its serious when people do it n non-recreational settings or overdo it in recreational settings. If you see that moderation is not being practiced its time to worry.

    People in those postions won't stop for the most part until they hit some sort of bottom. their mind has convinced them that their actions are pretty much ok and outside talk will do very little to color that

  • yuichiyuichi Urban sprawl 11,331 Posts
    Very good point. Now, how do you get my brothers and his "recreational users" to stop? He loves doing coke on the weekends and he's gonna be moving in with his druggie friends in a couple months. I've seen friends who've gotten out of it. When do you know it's serious?

    you know its serious when people do it n non-recreational settings or overdo it in recreational settings. If you see that moderation is not being practiced its time to worry.

    People in those postions won't stop for the most part until they hit some sort of bottom. their mind has convinced them that their actions are pretty much ok and outside talk will do very little to color that

    Makes sense. These dudes are bright kids, with a drug problem. They love to party, hang out with their equally "don't give a fuck" girls, drink, have sex, listen to rap, have barbeques, smoke weed, etc. All of these things reinforce the fact that they have fun when they're doing coke. And when that reinforcement is strong, it's hard to break habits.....so what does a brother do?

  • yuichiyuichi Urban sprawl 11,331 Posts
    Man oh man, another acquantaince of mine just died the other day from mixing coke and pills. That's three in two months. Folks are going out and partying hard, then coming home and thinking it's ok to pop a vicodin or an ambien to take their edge off. It's like playing russian roulette.

    Somone on here definitely has more medical knowledge on something like this, I had heard from someone last night that it's akin to speedballing.

    I'm sure there are a handful of strutters who mess around with the coke, please be careful at the end of the night when you are looking to come down. Two out of the three that died were perfectly healthy (besides the drug use that is) and no one saw it coming at all.

    Be careful my friends.

    Matt,

    Really sorry to hear about all that man.

  • GuzzoGuzzo 8,611 Posts
    Very good point. Now, how do you get my brothers and his "recreational users" to stop? He loves doing coke on the weekends and he's gonna be moving in with his druggie friends in a couple months. I've seen friends who've gotten out of it. When do you know it's serious?

    you know its serious when people do it n non-recreational settings or overdo it in recreational settings. If you see that moderation is not being practiced its time to worry.

    People in those postions won't stop for the most part until they hit some sort of bottom. their mind has convinced them that their actions are pretty much ok and outside talk will do very little to color that

    Makes sense. These dudes are bright kids, with a drug problem. They love to party, hang out with their equally "don't give a fuck" girls, drink, have sex, listen to rap, have barbeques, smoke weed, etc. All of these things reinforce the fact that they have fun when they're doing coke. And when that reinforcement is strong, it's hard to break habits.....so what does a brother do?

    OK it's share time:

    I hope this story doesn't ramble on to much but I find it fitting to tell here

    My girlfriend has an addiction problem, as an enabling boyfriend I often didn't say much and it didn't help that I like to get stoned as well. For most of our time together it hasn't been an issue, we were thick as thieves sending most of our days together.

    She managed to make her life work around her addiction, she's always worked jobs that would not blink if she came in drunk or high. her friends were all people that seemed nice enough, but in truth they were all heavy into alcohol, & coke and enabled each other to keep on going until they would black out.

    Things started taking a bad turn for us a couple months back. we had a bad fight while she was plastered and she she tried walking to a bus station over a mile away 10:30 at night through a bad neighborhood. I found myself having to restrain her from leaving and doing some harm. I ended up calling her friends to come pick her up. I felt I was doing the right thing by protecting her from a potentially dangerous situation but in her head I was outing her issues and physically abusing her. She ended up breaking up with me and telling security at her job to bar me from the building. It hurt tremendously to deal with and I really didn't understand how she came to her conclusions but there was nothing I could do.

    Time passed and we eventually became friendly again and resumed our relationship. I continued to turn a mostly blind-eye to her use. 2 weeks ago she told me her friends were throwing a big house party in San Diego, she she wanted up both there for it.

    Once we got down there I quickly saw that this wasn't my kind of fun, everyone was drunk and/ or coked up. I ended having a conversation with a young lady doing lines in a bathroom which she told me all about her son. There was another guy who just got out of the hospital a few days earlier for alcohol related issues wit his liver. He told me this story while chugging down a couple longnecks. Characters like this were all over the party house and my girlfriend quickly joined in with them. Her behavior starting going from cutesy drunk to disgustingly wasted. things got really out of hand and I felt humiliated at her and her friends' actions. After trying to babysit her for hours I eventually gave up realizing that it was pointless and found a room in this house to hide for the night. Several hours later someone dumped her unconcious body next to me. She was passed out and gurgling. I thought about calling 911 but decided against it when I got a halfway coherrant response out of her.

    In the morning she told me she didn't remember the night before, she went downstairs and poured herself a couple more drinks. Her friends told her about some of the things she did and she came back to me sounding really apologetic. I just didn't want to face the situation so I tried to not talk about it. She saw I was uncomfortable and went back to where her friends were. She made a couple return trips to my little hideout room but with each trip her attitude changed. She was getting more and more drunk, her liquid confidence changed her tone from apologetic to more of a "how dare you be mad at me for what I did". I stood up and told her she needed help for this and its not healthy to black out, wake up, and go right back to drinking and coking up. This did nothing but make her leave the room once again.

    After a half hour of sitting in a room by myself I joined the rest of the party people in the living room, everyone had a drink in hand and they were laughing and having a really good time. People kept asking me if I wanted a mimosa or some other drink and I kept saying no, finally my girlfriend asked me "what DO you want"?

    I replied "I want you to stop drinking"

    Never have I seen a party come to a screeching halt, all the laughter stopped and it became cricket-chirp silent. My girlfriend told me that it was time I leave. and pointed to the door.

    It did not matter that I had driven with her, it did not matter that I was 100+ miles away from hom. All that matered was she was with people that were ok with her drug & alcoholic behavior.

    I packed up and left.

    The next couple of days she tried to call me but I wouldn't answer. This was me giving up on trying to maintain a relationship with a girl with substance issues. She sent me an e-mail a couple days later saying she started AA and we began to speak again.

    Currently she is 9 days sober and in her sobriety she has told me things about her alcoholic behavior that she would not have been able to while in the height of use.

    The point of this story is there is nothing you can do to stop an addict, only they can stop themselves.

  • covecove 1,566 Posts
    Damn. This is sad and scary. What happened to just smoking a good ol' joint to come down at the end of a cocaine night?

    Damn. This is sad and scary. What happened to just smoking a good ol' joint to come down at the end of a cocaine night?

  • canonicalcanonical 2,100 Posts
    Intense story Jewbacca and I'm sorry for what you've gone through, but it confirms a longstanding theory of mine that you cannot just ignore the bad traits in the people in your lives. With enough time they will manifest themselves. It's your duty as a friend (or individual benefiting from someone else's company) to be openly critical of your friends' behaviour.

    If they truly feel what they are doing is justified then they will respond to the criticism positively and it will help form a more intimate and positive relationship by dealing with that conflict. If they do not then they are either in denial or are going to continue this poor behaviour until it costs them a relationship.

    I am sorry for the loss of lives in this thread but if I had a friend doing cocaine I would approach them on it immediately. I would support them in whatever measures they took to get off the drugs but if that behaviour continued without effort to resolve it I would stop being their friend. The relationship ceases to be of benefit to you when you end up in situations like Jewbacca.

    Perhaps it's because I have a family with bad associations with drugs (sister, brother, father, mother, everyone except me, I have no idea how I escaped it) but I do not tolerate that shit in my life whatsoever. Everyone experiments and sometimes gets lost in it or are pushed into it by means they cannot control, but to turn a blind eye does someone a lot more damage in the long run.

  • canonicalcanonical 2,100 Posts
    Very good point. Now, how do you get my brothers and his "recreational users" to stop? He loves doing coke on the weekends and he's gonna be moving in with his druggie friends in a couple months. I've seen friends who've gotten out of it. When do you know it's serious?

    you know its serious when people do it n non-recreational settings or overdo it in recreational settings. If you see that moderation is not being practiced its time to worry.

    People in those postions won't stop for the most part until they hit some sort of bottom. their mind has convinced them that their actions are pretty much ok and outside talk will do very little to color that
    That is the truth. People generally don't change their philosophies (read: life outlooks, read: hobbies) until they fail them. I am in the process of having to watch someone close to me fall apart owing to cocaine and it's fucking tough. But it's past the point of this person listening to rationality, they have to fail before they will move on. I haven't given up though, but it's hard watching someone go through it.

  • phono13phono13 842 Posts
    Man, I just posted in your appreciation thread. Sorry about your friends. Good to let folks know.

  • mylatencymylatency 10,475 Posts
    vicodin and drinks is still ok though, riiight?

  • there is nothing you can do to stop an addict, only they can stop themselves.

    Truth.

    Jails, 2 rehabs, lost friends, many, many broken relationships, car accidents, hospital visits, being given up on by my family, selling everything I owned several times, a few hairs short of dereliction...

    I could go on and on.

    That lifestyle was a long time ago.

    Props to those who overcome their addiction and love to those with addicts in their lives. It's a frustrating and baffling disease that affects everyone the addict come in contact with. A favorite addict lie is "I'm only hurting myself". Bullshit.

    Peace,
    Sonic

  • billbradleybillbradley You want BBQ sauce? Get the fuck out of my house. 2,885 Posts
    Cocaine isn't usually funny at all but I thought this picture was hilarious:



    Cocaine-addled driver destroys entire cornfield on run from police

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=464320&in_page_id=1770

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    there is nothing you can do to stop an addict, only they can stop themselves.

    Truth.

    Jails, 2 rehabs, lost friends, many, many broken relationships, car accidents, hospital visits, being given up on by my family, selling everything I owned several times, a few hairs short of dereliction...

    I could go on and on.

    That lifestyle was a long time ago.

    Props to those who overcome their addiction and love to those with addicts in their lives. It's a frustrating and baffling disease that affects everyone the addict come in contact with. A favorite addict lie is "I'm only hurting myself". Bullshit.

    Peace,
    Sonic

    Wow, props for overcoming like that. Shit is rough.
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