[Continued from "Alcohol (Part 4)."]

On one of my weekend outings someone else had some alcohol that wasn’t wine cooler.  It was liquor.  Peppermint schnapps.  It tasted like drinking toothpaste and felt warm when it hit my belly.  I liked it instantly.

The next time I put in an order with my sister’s boyfriend, I requested a small bottle of peppermint schnapps.  After he delivered it to me at Chuck E. Cheese’s.  A couple of friends and I went out to the empty lot behind Chuck E. Cheese’s and proceeded to drink the whole bottle.

On that particular night, my step-sister also happened to be at Chuck E. Cheese’s.  I was none too pleased.  I wanted to have my own friends and do my own things without her around.  We were the same age and had been going to the same schools since I moved in with the family when we were 11.  We rarely had classes together, but because we went to small schools we couldn’t help but see each other at school.  We got along fine, and even hung out during class breaks and lunches, but I was itching for my own identity.

She had something that I didn’t have, sex; she had had it, I hadn’t.  I wanted my own friends and my own thing.  So when she wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese’s Teen Night, too, I was irritated.  I didn’t know then that if she wasn’t there I probably would have died.

I drank almost all of a flask-sized bottle of peppermint schnapps; I wasn’t too good about sharing that night.  I drank it fast, because that’s what 14-year-old kids drinking in empty lots behind Chuck E. Cheese’s do.

I went into Chuck E. Cheese’s.  I woke up in the hospital.

What I didn’t know until my step-sister helped me piece together the evening, was what happened in the roughly 12 hours that I couldn’t remember.  She said that I hit on her boyfriend.  This was very uncharacteristic of me because I was so shy around boys.  I did have a crush on her boyfriend, and was devastated when they began going together, so it made a kind of sense.  Drunken sense.  She told me that at one point I was sitting on a bench and my eyes rolled back in my head.  She knew there was something very wrong.  She called my dad.  Before he showed up, the find folks at Chuck E. Cheese’s called an ambulance.

When I woke up in the intensive care unit I was completely disoriented.  I didn’t know where the fuck I was or why.  A nurse was nice enough to tell me.  She told me I was in the hospital and she said, “You fucked up.”  Direct quote, I promise.

I tried to talk, but she told me I would be unable to do so since I had tubes down my throat.  She must have seen the panic in my eyes.  She told me that I had overdosed on alcohol and that I had a machine helping me breathe.  I was fucking thirsty, but I couldn’t drink water; instead, she put ice chips in my mouth.

I was very groggy, and confused.  I didn’t know one could overdose on alcohol.  I didn’t know that the faster it goes in the more damage it can do.  I was clueless.

My dad and step-mother came by.  They had concerned looks on their faces.  They told me my mother and DJ were driving up from LA and would be there soon.

I learned a few things about what happens to someone when she overdoses on alcohol.  The clothes I had worn the night before, a shirt and sweater I had borrowed from my sister, had been cut off of me; I would not be getting those back.  My pants, which I had not borrowed from anyone, were fine.

I learned that my stomach had been pumped full of charcoal, which aids in soaking up alcohol.  I learned of the charcoal when the tube was removed from my throat.  I turned on my side, and a nurse pulled out the tube along with a lot of very gross black stuff.  Charcoal continued to visit me for a few days following; it did not come out my mouth.

I learned that the reason I had tubes down my throat was because I had had a respiratory arrest.  According to DJ, I had gotten my lungs drunk and they wanted to take a nap.  I had nearly had a cardiac arrest.

I learned what a catheter is.  It hurt when the catheter was removed, and I was very glad I was unconscious when it was put in.

I was sent home from the hospital later that day.  The ordeal was far from over.

[To be continued ….]

I swear.  True story.

  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •