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What Was I Thinking?
Nitrous Oxide
Citation:   Mookie. "What Was I Thinking?: An Experience with Nitrous Oxide (exp30065)". Erowid.org. Nov 2, 2017. erowid.org/exp/30065

 
DOSE:
  repeated inhaled Nitrous Oxide (daily)
BODY WEIGHT: 200 lb
I'll be the first to admit that I'm a drug addict. I have a long history of drug use ranging from marijuana and alcohol to bouts with meth torment but most recently, those cartridges. They have consumed me. Literally. I have spent every last dime chasing this demon I call N2O.

It starts out as it does with all drugs. This really great euphoric feeling. I hear harmonics in my head, reverberating thru my body. What I see, I can feel and I have a peaceful sense about me. My only real concern is if the neighbors can hear the very loud noise my whip cream dispenser makes and how many more doses I have left. Then as quickly as I got high, it was over.

What a blessing for a former meth addict who's runs would be weeks at a time. Now I've found something to give me the 'WaWa's' and then when its done its done AND I can eat and sleep.

Boy was I fooled. I'm literally now scared for my life.

My use of N20 picked up in August, 2003 and it started out as a box here and a box there. Then it turned into a box a day. Now I'm up to 4 boxes a day and when I really want to keep it going, I head across the street where conveniently located is a head shop and I buy more. I'm such a great customer that a normal person off the street gets them for $15 a box. I get them for $10 so imagine my delight at how much farther my money will go.

Anyways, for all the years of my drug and alcohol abuse, I have never feared for my physical being. I didn't realize that what I was feeling was n2O related but after reading on the internet a bit further about N2O, what I feel is definitely related, and now I'm scared.

I likened the feelings I get in my feet and hands to tendons snapping. Then came the pins and needles that I feel every time I stand up and after this bit of research I did, come to find out that I'm suffering classic symptoms of someone who's abusing N2O. Well no shit, my wallet knows that I spend more money on this crap then I do on food for me and my kids. That I'd rather cuddle up to a box than to be a mom to my kids. That's I'd rather sit and tell myself 'just one more box'. All the lies and the promises I made to my kids only to break them. And my daughter, she's begged me not to get them. She's thrown out the canister and I've turned around and dug it out of the garbage.

Sick and madness. And now I'm feeling these odd sensations and I'm scared shitless. So here I am, day 2 of my 'no huffy things' and my skin is crawling. I literally feel amped on meth and I haven't done that in I can't tell you how long.....well I can but its not relevant! I just don't feel right and I don't like that this attacks my bone marrow. I don't even know what bone marrow does other than make blood. But whatever it says it does it's doing and that scares the shit out of me.

This stuff, I thought was the greatest drug ever. Virtually legal, lasts a second, doesn't taste or smell too horrible and you can't really detect it on someone. But I'm learning, at the age of 35, that this stuff is going to literally kill me if I don't stop.

And that brings me to the addiction part of it all. I can't stop. I get sick when I don't have it. I'm not a heroin addict. I don't know what dope sickness feels like but I'll bet you it feels like I've felt the last few days. Tingling everywhere and nausea. NAUSEA from not having a drug...this is a new concept to me. My nausea was normally related to ingestion of drugs, not a moment of abstinence.

I'm going to the doctor in a week and going to be honest with him about these tingles and twangs I have and I'm done, I'm sooo done with this stuff.

-------------------
Addendum, Three Months Later - Nitrous Is FAR from the Perfect Drug

Well my experience got much worse... I am a nitrous oxide addict and lost my children behind my disease.

Aside from losing them, I have no feelings in my lower limbs, I mean no feeling on the skin. I also have numbness in my fingers and I have no reflexes in my knees. My strength is gone and my balance not good.

Also, when I bury my chin into my chest, I get this reverberation feeling, kind of like a warm electric vibration that goes thru my entire body. If I nod my head, my feet pulsate. Its an ever constant reminder of the nerve damage I've done in just a few months time. The docs told me that it may take 6 months to get nerves back and anything not right after 6 months is going to be permanent.

I started using a box a day in July 2003 then got up to 8 boxes because I was a good customer and got these at near cost.

I use to think Nitrous Oxide was the perfect drug...I have likened it to smoking Crack only you don't have the comedown and you can eat. The problem is that my seeking to get it was as intense or more than scoring crack cocaine. But after losing feeling and having these strange sensations and the feelings like my skin is literally crawling, I'm deathly afraid of that shit and was thankful for my arrest.

When I went before the judge, he hadn't ever had a case like mine. The DA, the Public Defender, the Drug Assessment Officer and even Social Services hadn't ever had a case where Nitrous was the drug of choice. Aside from them not knowing how to charge me at first, they told me that they have no way to test for this drug. That scared me because in my sick mind, that metallic taste arrived as my stomach turned and I thought for a moment that N2o was the perfect drug and I could go get high and no one would know.

I'm now on a new path. I just turned 35 and I plan to live the last half of my life drug and alcohol Free.

Exp Year: 2003ExpID: 30065
Gender: Female 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 2, 2017Views: 2,725
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Nitrous Oxide (40) : Alone (16), Addiction & Habituation (10), Retrospective / Summary (11)

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