I act like this picture is part of a long story, but really it's pretty short.

* I was driving cross-country back from Burning Man with a disposable camera in the truck

* I took this picture

* Sometime shortly afterwards I overdosed, passed out at the wheel on an Interstate, and woke up from a coma six hours later in an Indiana hospital

* I got better, and there were amazingly no negative repercussions except inside my own head and a dent in the truck from where it grazed a semi.

The spooky part is that if things had not turned out so well, this would be the last photograph of me that was ever taken. There was some light leak in the camera, all the pictures of me looked like this.

It was a mistake, of course, most overdoses are. I drank from the wrong bottle, at least I think that's what happened. When I was lying in the hospital bed doped up on anti-convulsant medication, I told my family to go get rid of the rest of the drugs in my truck. My Mom now likes to tell people she loves me so much she'd commit a felony for me. I can't disagree.

Most of the people I spoke to afterwards, friends and family -- most of whom didn't even know I was doing drugs much less doing a lot of them -- seemed to want to discuss whether I had learned my lesson, or learned some lesson. I thought, and still think, that the only real lesson I learned is that I don't know my limits. They want to know if I still do drugs. I generally make them wait for the answer, which is no, just to see how they take it. I figure I can be stupid in my own life, but I'll never live down having scared the crap out of my Mom who got a phone call and thought I would be dead before she'd ever see me again.

The weeks I spent at home in rural Vermont, weaning myself off of Dilantin, without a car, were the worst in my adult life, bar none. Something about my brain working slowly made me question a lot of the other choices I had made -- not having a regular job, a regular boyfriend, a regular place to live, a regular haircut -- and I lacked the mental power or the mobility to even address these things if I had wanted to.

Once I got off the medication, and I found I wasn't going to be charged with anything, I started to perk up. I told the story a lot, not in a bragging way but also not in an "I really blew it" way. I miss the drugs most days, even though I think I never really had a problem with them. I am aware that most people who have drug problems think this, but I'm resolute. I don't even really drink anymore. I still sometimes see my friend who I used to call my pusher, really just my supplier, and he always asks if I want some and it's not tough to say no. I've just made up my mind, even if I'm sullen about it.

The truck driver who saw me weaving down the highway and called the cops, even before my truck had run on to the median, probably saved my life. I write him a letter every year thanking him.

This submission has been viewed 2180 times.