Drugs

So I'm having a bottle of wine again.  I shouted at my computer and then cried because the internet was being slow and I was trying to email work.  I feel ridiculous and therefore I am having a bottle of wine.

But one thing I can say in my mental health favour is that I no longer take drugs.  

That is, no longer.  I used to, primarily in the heady days of university and then for a good few years following it.  And as it was in grades, so it was in drugs: only class A.

No, that's a lie.  I got a 2:1.  Or a B.

I've never been hugely into weed.  I'm paranoid enough as it is and that green, pungent bastard only serves to tip me screaming over the edge.  Last time was in Amsterdam, and while the best part of the evening was lovely and I laughed about those tiny bananas until my face hurt, it ended, as ever, in tears.  I darkly recall lying in my lumpy hostel bed with my arms in the air, mouthing nonsensical words to myself to convince my unbalanced cranium that I was not, in fact, suffering a stroke.  I also once had sex after weed and it was a languid and disheartening affair that confirmed to me I am not well receptive to its charms.

Perhaps magic mushrooms would have been more appealing, if I had not ill-advisedly taken them directly before an international flight and spent three hours shivering at the airport, foaming at the mouth with tic-tacs and vomiting fluorescent-yellow bile that I self-induced with three fingers down my throat.  As it is, I have declined to partake since.

Ketamine was a one-off affair.  Having learnt from the mushroom venture, I took it at home with a friend, with no flights to catch and no high balconies in the vicinity, and we watched the news.  We took ketamine and we watched the fucking news.  I don't know what the hell we were thinking but I should've guessed from the absurdity of the idea that it was all going to end hip-deep in bollocks.  The Queen was on.  I fail to remember what the report was about, because I became rather distracted when she crawled out of the television.  Much like The Ring she hauled herself, nightmarishly, out of the set and, being only about two foot high, dashed about the back of the sofa and concealed herself there.  I searched in vain for many hours; she was nowhere to be found, and I could only assume that she had hidden herself in the larder, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

As it is, I have failed to discover her spot and am forced to accept that this Miniature Queen is still loose and biding her time in some dark corner, two foot tall and full of malice.

Cocaine was the only thing I took regularly, due mainly to being friends with a dealer when I was a mere slip of seventeen, and therefore on the 'mates rates' that sounded so delightfully cheap.  It appeared a bargain and I am a sucker for a bargain.  That's why I just bought ten ladies' shavers from Lidl.  They were half-price and I assume they work on a face like they work on legs.  But in all my time taking cocaine I only had one truly horrific experience, when I snorted about a gram one night in freshers' week and woke up at seven am the following day with numb nostrils and my heart at 200 beats per minute and I sat in the shower crying for an hour wondering whether to call an ambulance and suffer the disownment of my parents or simply give myself over to death and miss out the telling off.

Since then I have had no further brushes with the Reaper because of it, and only a couple with the law that resulted in me being escorted from the premises and ejected onto the street without arrest.  So my decision to stop was not the direct result of bad experience, or tears, nor a sense of moral obligation nor even, alas, the acquisition of a level of maturity that has thus far eluded me.  Once again, it was due to a fear for my health, though not, this time, entirely irrational.

Anxiety gives me frequent bouts of tachycardia and heart palpitations, which is a grossly unpleasant sensation and has more than once sent me weeping to A&E.  So, science.  Cocaine contains a naturally-occurring  psychoactive chemical called benzoylmethylecgonine that produces the high, and while benzoylkdsfoiwenflasdn isn't especially dangerous on its own, the powder you buy on the streets can be mixed with anything from amphetamines to caffeine to baking powder to arsenic.  Without getting too deep in the science, because I've already given up on spelling benzoyelfaksjdfo;n, some of these ingredients can have adverse effects on the heart and on one's mental state.  So you combine all this with an inclination towards anxiety and tachycardia and suddenly you have a heart going Super Saiyan, and I don't know if hearts can literally explode but if anything is going to make it happen, it is that.

There was a time when I believed the drugs might have caused the problem.  I would go to the doctor and inevitably one of their questions would be 'do you take any illegal drugs, particularly cocaine or amphetamines?'  To which I would answer 'no.'  Clearly this was an outrageous lie and one that could possibly have caused serious detriment to my health.  But I was still promised to the army at that stage, and if my medical record had showed 'cocaine user' then I would've been out on my arse before I got the chance to say 'but I don't really want to join the army anyway.'

So I stopped taking it because it coincided with, or possibly contributed to, the mental side of things.  I have since been told that there is no damage to my heart, which is a relief, but serves to reinforce the fact that the symptoms are psychosomatic.  So I'm not physically ill, but nor am I well.  Hip, hip, hooray.

That said, I also get tachycardia from cigarettes, but that has yet to stop me.  Excuse me while I go and light up.

She waits.