What It Really Feels Like To Spend A Night High On Cocaine

I was addicted to cocaine for over a year in my twenties. The following is a description of what it's like to spend a night on cocaine based on my personal experience.

Before opening up the bag, I made sure it was all powder.

Sometimes, particularly if was good quality, there were little clumps or rocks that needed to be crushed up, I took the back end of a lighter to crush it until it was a fine powder. Or else I held the bag against the wall while rolling a full beer bottle on it.

Once it was powder, I dumped it out into a small pile.

If there were any lingering rocks, I crushed them up with a credit card or razor blade before dividing the coke into lines. (Sometimes I did the oh-so-classy "key bump," and scooped up a tiny pile from the bag with a key.)

Before snorting the first line or bump, I could smell the coke, which has a very distinct chemical odor. If you've done cocaine before (or if you do it regularly), you know what I'm talking about. 

After the first intake, my nose became slightly numb.

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About a minute later, I felt nasal drip entering the back of my throat. I felt heightened, perky and content. I became more social and interested in what others had to say. (And at the very least, I was more interested in telling everybody else what I had to say.)

The second and third lines typically made me feel even more talkative and elevated my mood even more. 

I felt less self-conscious and more confident about myself. My level of euphoria was dependent on how fat my lines or how big my key bump was. I became more focused and my perspective seemed clearer. If I felt foggy or unsure about anything before, my trepidation dissipated.

Next line, even better. I became a social butterfly and the happiest gal you've ever met.

But then ... the rest of the evening went downhill. 

Once I hit the fifth or sixth line, I became a bottomless coke pit. The more coke I did, the more coke I wanted.

The feelings of euphoria caused by new lines seemed more intense than the lines before it, but the feeling didn't last as long.

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I started thinking about the next line and how and when I could consume it. Is there a long line to the bathroom? Will people be suspicious I'm on drugs? I began to feel increasingly antsy about doing more coke.

I did more. When that next bump started to wear off, conversations and people that seemed so interesting an hour before aggravated me.

I started to wish I was home, alone, listening to my favorite music, not the crap playing at whatever stupid establishment I found myself in. My jaw began clenching and I got a little jittery.

The next line merely quieted my irritability but there was no more euphoria. I became a bit grouchy. I felt exhausted yet had boundless energy. I had little interest in holding down any conversation; the only thing I was interested in was coke.

I went home, usually at around 4:30 a.m. and looked at my almost empty coke bag, alone in my bedroom.

The sun was started to come up and I dreaded the impending and inevitable coke hangover. My heart beat fast and I was shaky. I looked high — and was — but didn't feel it.

The sick thing was: I still wanted more cocaine.

I finished the rest of the coke in my bag and became more jittery. I laid down and tried to sleep but couldn't. At this point, paranoia crept in.

Sometimes I worried my roommates knew I was high. Maybe they were listening to me snorting coke in my room and discussing my addiction problem.

I got sweaty and started feeling my own pulse, wondering if my heart was beating too fast.

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I desperately wanted to relax. I still wanted more coke even though I knew it would make relaxing even harder. I wanted to shower but I was so amped up and paranoid, I worried taking more might cause a heart attack.

Sometimes, when I was desperate, I looked around the room for any cocaine crumbs that fell on the ground.  

The day after doing coke, it was hard for me to become interested in anything.

I felt restless, exhausted, and indifferent. Things that would piqued my interest simply ... didn't. My favorite food didn't entice me, nor did seeing my friends.

And, well, that's the hell of going through a gram or so of coke by yourself in one night. It's fun at first, but it quickly crumbles into mental anguish and severe physical discontent.

Don't do it.

Gina Tron's memoir about her time in a rehab and psych ward, "You're Fine", was published in 2014.