The following is why I no longer do coke. I used to be the hook-up for a friend who liked to shoot coke. I'd get him and 8-ball twice a month, he'd give me 2 nice shots for my trouble. I have lousy veins for iv-ing anything; nurses and phlebotomists have trouble hitting me, and I can't hit myself, although I can hit others. But my friend usually did a good job with me, and I trusted his judgment.
I tend to be conservative on the first shot, testing the potency, then go for broke on the 2nd. The dude I got it from said that it was good shit, so when my friend put out a nice-sized dollop in the spoon and I added the water, I only sucked up about 3/4 of the fluid in the spoon. I thought that I had mentioned this to my friend, but he later told me he had no idea. He hit me, and I was rushing fine, the train was coming and I was enjoying the buzz. My friend offered to prepare the 2nd shot for me so I could enjoy my buzz fully. Also, my hands were shaking, making it hard to perform fine finger motions. He added a generous portion to the spoon and drew it all up, including the 1/4 from shot number one that I'd left in the spoon. After the intensity of the first rush passed (about 20 minutes or so), I was ready to go again and he hit me up. Big mistake.
It was too much. Way, way too much. My legs crumpled beneath me and I fell out on his kitchen floor, my legs jerking convulsively against the linoleum. My vision was just...gone. Total blackness. Heart rate through the roof. I thought I was dying, and managed to stutter the breath-to-chest-compression rate for 1-man cpr to my friend, '15 to 2! 15 to 2!' I was gagging, but having eaten nothing that day, didn't puke. We were both terrified: here in his kitchen was a junkie's worst nightmare unfolding. He later told me he was worrying what he would do with my body! As I lay, kicking spasmodically on the floor, my vision returned to some degree. It was like the horizontal rolling of a tv set gone awry. It was horrible. I guess the worst of it lasted about 10 minutes. During those 10 minutes, I was trying to prepare myself for my death. I was praying and asking for forgiveness in my mind. I want to stress that at no point was any of this pleasurable. It was frightening and uncomfortable as hell. After about 20 mins, I was able to sit up. After 30 or so minutes, I could shakily stand, and I figured that if I was going to die, I'd have already done it.
That was it for me. No more intravenous cocaine in my veins. It's just too easy to miscalculate a dose, and to me no high is worth death.
