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3 Experiences with Memory Loss
Alprazolam (Xanax)
Citation:   Annonymous. "3 Experiences with Memory Loss: An Experience with Alprazolam (Xanax) (exp65685)". Erowid.org. Oct 15, 2009. erowid.org/exp/65685

 
DOSE:
  repeated oral Pharms - Alprazolam (pill / tablet)
BODY WEIGHT: 265 lb
I have three experiences relating to alprazolam, all dealing with memory loss, but I'll start with the most recent. An important thing to note is that I'm bipolar, so my brain chemistry may create different experiences than other people's experiences. I'll start with the most recent of these experiences.

Me and my room-mate decided to go get an early dinner. It was 5 PM, the night was young, and I was thinking about two prior experiences this summer. I saw the pill bottle I'd found in some old luggage, and it still had 9 tablets left. Being a young college student, there is significant availability of hard liquor, and I figure that with some shit that'd happened this summer, I wanted to be safe and be sure I didn't have enough to pull off anything stupid. I wasn't just gonna let 'em go to waste, so I took five of the 1 mg tablets at once.

I remember walking out to get dinner and sitting down, but then everything gets hazy. For the next five hours after that, all I really have is a confused blur of faces and images that don't seem to fit into any reasonable sequence of events, and a general sense of euphoria and joy. I remember sitting on a field on campus and smoking cigarettes with four strangers. I don't remember what we talked about, but I remembered they were glad I had newports. I know I talked to a lot of women, but I have no idea what about. At some point, a chick friend of mine caught me smoking and was angry at me for some reason. I remember being at a cafe somewhere with a friend of mine named A. I saw a chick I knew there playing pool, and she didn't seem the type, so I was surprised. I remember sitting in a dorm with A and some stranger talking about how easy the intro courses were. My memory starts getting more coherant around then. I remember everything after that, and later that night, me, A, and some mutual friends of ours got really toasted, but the effects had worn off, so it didn't matter.

The other two experiences are a bit stranger, and both happened before this one. When I first got the prescription, I figured it was weak, because the effects of 1 mg were exceedingly minimal. My friend wanted to try them out, so I spotted him 3 mgs. He weighed about 130 pounds at the time. He drove us over to his house, and he was driving okay. He was lucid the whole time, and we talked about old video games and music for maybe an hour before I asked him to drive me home. [Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!] When he was driving home, he swerved a bit, and was a bit slow, but he told me the pills were barely having an effect, and that he was a bit disappointed. He seemed to be mostly okay, so I didn't worry about it. He dropped me off and drove off. Maybe a half hour later, he called me and told me that the shit was kicking in harder than he'd expected, and that he'd be willing to buy some of the pills off me sometime. That's the last I heard of him that night.

The next morning, he calls me up, telling me that I need to help him. He says the last thing he remembers is chillin in my room maybe ten minutes after taking those pills, and that his night is a complete fuckin blank. I promised him to help sort it out, and it turned out that he had gone out with some friends that night and had a tiny bit to drink, had had a huge fight with his girlfriend, and had gone off the road twice when trying to drive home. He had no recollection at all of any of it, and he said it was the single most horrifying thing he remembered. When I told him that he'd offered to buy more off me, he just laughed and said he'd never take anyone else's prescription meds again. He had a complete memory lapse between taking the pills and waking up the next day.

Because of this experience, I decided the pills were stronger than I thought, so when I decided to kill myself, I decided a benzodiazepine that I had easy access to ought to do the trick. I didn't want them to just be able to pump my stomach, so I decided I'd take it slow, and take one pill at a time until it was in my system well enough that finishing off the bottle and chasing it with some vodka would probably kill me even if I vomitted, or they pumped my stomach. This isn't quite what happened.

I decided to take one every ten minutes until I was fucked up enough, and then I'd finish off the bottle of pills and chase it with some vodka. I lose my memory after the third pill, and the only other memory I have of the night is of trying to act sober in front of my mom, and of falling in the dirt somewhere at a park.

My friend called me the next day and explained that he'd called me while I was in the middle of things, and he'd come to pick me up. I'd gone out with him and some friends and even had a fun night. He told me I was acting like I was drunk, but he said I didn't do anything too stupid. The main thing is that there's this gigantic hole in my memory, and I still don't know how many pills I got to.

So those are my three experiences relating to alprazolam, all of which relate to memory loss.

Exp Year: 2007ExpID: 65685
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 15, 2009Views: 19,906
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Pharms - Alprazolam (98) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Not Applicable (38)

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