Note: This turned out to be a lot longer and lot more uninhibited than I thought it would be. It's a quick look into what it was like to be addicted to cocaine, but for those of you who have experienced that, you know there is so much more to it.

I would love to not be an insomniac. The fact of the matter is I have always been able to stay up for more than 4 consecutive days with no problem, since I was very young. When I was older, I discovered cocaine. After going through a break up, I thought it would be a good plan to always be high. As my dealer would call it, I was feigning my life away. The longest I ever made it while sober was about 6 days. The longest I made it on cocaine was double that.

I have heard from many people that on the eleventh day of no sleep, you go crazy. That is far from the truth. You actually start to lose it around day 3, with or without drugs. When you "quit" things you have a physical dependency on, the third day is always the hardest. Since my mind and body are too fucked up to be a whole entity, they are always in competition with each other. On the third day, my body would be beat, but my mind knew it had something else to accomplish. My body would be like what the fuck? And my mind would be like, yeah bitch, you have shit to do, now start cleaning. (As you can see, my mind, while sleep deprived, operates much like the average chauvinistic ebaum's user). So I would push myself to get up and literally strip down whatever room I was in. Everything bothered me at that point: if pictures weren't hung at the perfect angle, I would tear them down and put them in a closet. If something didn't smell right, I would clean everything with pure bleach. My hands would be raw by the break of day, and then I would go to class as if it were just another typical night. Unfortunately those nights were getting much too typical, and more common.

As days would go on, my sensitivity would grow and more and more things would piss me off or irk me. These days it is hard to imagine not having a single bite to eat for 12 days, but at the time I can't remember even thinking about food. My parents were so pissed when they finally saw me, I had dwindled down to nothing. I decided to take my roommate to the hookah bar which was 45 minutes away and the whole way there, cars kept flashing their lights at me. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. When we finally pulled in, I looked down at my dashboard to find I had been driving the entire way there with my highbeams on, while my roomate did lines of coke off the glove box. It was a Friday night, days before spring break.

Since everything happens much faster on coke, I had a 2.5 second freak out, walked into the hookah bar, went straight to the bathroom and cut a line right on the sink. Then I walked out into the lounge, and like magic: it was as if nothing had ever happened.

I said how people claim you lose your sanity at day 11, but I know it happens far sooner than that. I had been losing it all that time, and once day 12 rolled around, I was a goner. I had sat in my bed all night, watching Requiem for a Dream over and over again. Everytime the old lady got electro-shocked I would scream, and the Resident Advisor (dorm rooms) would come running over to see if things were OK. How in the Hell did I not get caught? I was a shell of myself. I was literally wasting away at every part of my body.

4 in the afternoon rolled around that day (I think it was that day, but I had no idea what was day and what was night at that point), and my roommate and I sat in each bed, staring at each other. She had missed all of her classes that week, and I told her she needed to go. She got up and started throwing her books all over the room, and tried to brush out a huge knot that had accumulated in her red hair. I was holding onto my knees and shaking, I couldn't think about anything. At this point, our former friends knew something was wrong. I remember about 5 different people coming in and out of our room that morning, trying to help her get ready for class. I didn't have class until 6pm, so I just sat there and continued to stare. One thing my roomate was too good at was lying -- she coerced them all into thinking we were fine, and continued getting ready for class. As she was nearing the door, I started crying out for her... I was so scared. I said, this world isn't real, don't step on the ground. The ground is not there. She looked at me and I could see tears streaming down her face. All she said was, I know, Cas. And then she left.

I pulled the blankets over my head and cried myself to sleep. It was that last conversation I had with my roommate that did it. After she walked out of the room, those words just kept echoing in my head, over and over. So I shut my eyes, and got exactly 45 minutes of sleep -- waking up in enough time to go to class.

You'd think a 45 minute nap after being up for over 250 hours wouldn't do much, but when I woke up I felt like I was on top of the fucking world! So what did I do? Well, shit I did another line, what the hell else was I going to do?

That night, after class, I overdosed. It was about fucking time I learned my lesson too. My roommate and I had just gotten back from wherever the fuck we were, and since we had both had time to get naps, we decided to do a celebratory line together. Since I had always bought, it was customary that I got the bigger line and she got whatever was left. I didn't see how much she did that night, but I remember my line being as long as the keyboard on the laptop, and a little less than a half inch thick. I wish I could say I was exagerrating, but that's what I felt I needed.

Did our lines, and walked downstairs to have a cigarette together, having a normal conversation. I look at her and say, Hey -- I don't feel well. She laughs, can't tell if I am serious or not. Then, my face hits the pavement. There is still snow on the ground even though it is almost spring, and my forehead melts it all into a puddle underneath me. My roommate screams quietly, panicking. She knew there was coke in my pockets and all over me, so she picked me up (cocaine is like spinach to Popeye) and carries me up two flights of stairs to our dorm room.

As she lays me on the bed, I open my eyes. My entire body is itchy, and I need water fast. I take off all my clothes and just lay in bed for an hour, guzzling water bottle after waterbottle. My heart is pounding so hard at that point, to this day I am not exactly sure what happened other than the obvious. My dealer came over to check on me, and he decides he isn't going to sell to me for another month; he says, if you really want to have fun doing this, then you can't be addicted. So our party ended.

This happened to me about two years ago, my first year in college. Since my overdose, I haven't touched cocaine, I rarely smoke pot or drink, and just a month ago I gave up smoking. I think everyone gets one chance in their lives to turn themselves around and that was probably my last chance. So far so good. I'm writing this to say when you get your chance, don't abuse it, because maybe you won't get another one after that.

Picture 1: My roommate and I, pretending we were cool because we did drugs and smoked.

Picture 2: I shaved my head to symbolize quitting my addiction and to watch my hair grow as progress. I told myself if I ever did coke again, I'd have to deal with my ugly Bic'd head again.

Pictue 3: No longer an addict, and my hair grown out after two years. Hell if I can do it, anyone can.