Can one be too young to be an addict?
When we reach adolescence, we tend to have an exuberant period during which we try to discover who we are and what we desire to be. I was only 18 when I went to my first rave beach party and discovered that all I wanted to do was pretty much party. The music was great, the girls wonderful and the atmosphere delightful. Each weekend I would travel with my friends to the nearest beach resort and have a blast, drinking till we passed out and taking a little something to enhance our party mood. Among the stuff that we took was Tramadol, which I later found out was just another opiate drug. But that did not stop me and in just a couple of months, I had grown a fondness for it, just like my buddies. We did not realize that we were fools, destroying what should have been a beautiful period in our lives.
One night we decided to join in another party that was on the beach and took some Tramadol a dude had brought. After several pills mixed with vodka, we started to feel really excited and euphoric; it did not take too much for us to realize that there was room for more stupid things to do and so we jumped in the water. From what I can remember, there was a great feeling being in the water and just floating, even though the waves were quite high and they kept on coming without stopping. I must have floated for half on hour or so when I saw my best friend, David, practically being smashed to the rocks of the pier. Without thinking, I swam to him and fortunately I succeeded in dragging his body out of the water. Blood was running from his forehead and I was incredibly scared. I called 911 and hoped for the best.
At the hospital, David was bandaged and doctors were positive that the head injury was not so serious. Still, they were amazed at the quantity of Tramadol that was in his body and had to perform urgent procedures to remove the drug from his system as there was a risk for overdose. They quickly noticed that I wasn’t feeling so good myself and found out that I had taken about the same number of pills as he did. In fact, the two of us and two other friends who had gotten lost on the beach split a bottle of Tramadol. I was admitted to the hospital as well and the doctors did the same thing to me, freeing my body of Tramadol.
David awoke the next morning with an impressive headache and a general state of confusion due to the head injury. The one thing he was sure of was that he needed some Tramadol for the pain and unfortunately, I felt the same craving, even if my headache was not that severe. The doctors talked with us and in just a few minutes, it was settled. When you hear the word addiction from the mouth of someone who has seen the worst, it’s practically like a cold shower, at least so it was for me and David. We wanted to stop taking Tramadol right that minute and never touch it again. Still, the doctors warned that abrupt discontinuations can very well lead to similar symptoms of overdosing and that is not indicated at all.
We continued to take Tramadol at doses that were gradually decreased and at the same time, became active participants in group meetings for drug addiction. We told our parents about the mistakes we made and pleaded for forgiveness; fortunately, we both had the greatest mom and dad in the world, they stood by our side through a painful and extremely long recovery process. Today, both me and David are students at prestigious universities, have serious girlfriends but we still attend the meetings I mentioned earlier. We never want to get back to the way things were before and we are satisfied with our current lives. I guess it’s a story with a happy ending, after all! Don’t you think that?
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