“I don’t feel like the Xanax is working anymore,” I lied.

“You’re on an extremely high dose, but if you need more, I’ll up the dosage,” my shrink replied in disbelief, shaking his head.

A smile began at the corners of my mouth but I held it in; he couldn’t know the Xanax was my only source of joy, of pleasure. I was now on six milligrams of Xanax a day, twice the recommended maximum. I had long since moved up from the blue, football-shaped tablets to the slender white pills known as bars. Also a psychopharmacologist, my psychiatrist prided himself in his knowledge of drugs and dosages, yet I was playing him for a fool. I left his office clutching the prescription in my hand, hesitant to put it in my pocket, hesitant to let it out of my sight whatsoever.

It was a beautiful day. Staring across Fifth Avenue into the park, I was jealous of all the people seemingly having fun: Women pushing baby strollers and carrying their Louie bags, and men strutting around in suits. I wished I could be like them. I wished I could be “normal.” Instead, I was wearing dirty blue sweatpants, a long-sleeved shirt, and sneakers. My hair was greasy as all hell since I hadn’t showered in who knows how long. I usually didn’t go outside. I usually didn’t get out of bed. But for my monthly prescription of Xanax, there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do.

The subway home seemed to take forever; it always does when you’re waiting for something extra special at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t go to the pharmacy on my block because I once broke into a psychotic rage, accusing the pharmacist of insinuating that I was a crackhead after I’d finagled another prescription just days after filling the original. After popping the entire bottle in only a few days, I told my doctor the Xanax fell down the drain after I sat it on the sink. It was a sorry excuse.

I’d simply have to go to a pharmacy down Queens Boulevard, also known as the Boulevard of Death. I used to be an uppers girl, but that grew tiring after a while. Because of my bipolar disorder, I could get pretty high on my own brain chemistry. I preferred to take my daily maximum dosage of Xanax around 5 p.m., a few hours after I woke up. My depression killed me; I could not stand being aware. After taking the Xanax, I would return to my dream world for the remainder of the day. That was definitely better than being awake. Lying there, in that bed, in that dark room, in my dirty apartment. I stopped telling others how I felt. No one understood anyway, and I doubt anyone really cared. “Get a job,” “Go back to school,” and “Clean the apartment” were phrases I couldn’t bear to listen to any longer. What “they” failed to understand was that I couldn’t do anything. I was surprised every time I arose to take a shit, rather than simply doing it in bed. It was more than depression.

I threw up when I was forced to listen to my mother talk about how well her Prozac was working for her and how I just needed to find what drug would work for me. I wish I had her “depression.” Well, Mommy, I’ve been on every medication there is and none of them work for me. I vomited when I saw the Zoloft egg jumping around the television screen, talking about not feeling like “your old self.” I say “Fuck off” to my mother and the egg, and to my boyfriend, who is an uncaring bastard, to other family members, and even friends. Once they’ve been bedridden for five months, showering every other week and eating nothing, then I might take their well-meaning advice. I waited the obligatory half-hour to get my prescription filled, took 10 milligrams, and proceeded to slip into unconsciousness.

July

“Baby, please get up. It’s Fourth of July — let’s go to the beach,” my boyfriend urged. I remained motionless under the blankets with my eyes closed and thought about how much I hated him.

“You love the beach.” Reid was always pleading with me to do something, while reminding me of my interests. Rarely did I care to appease him. But that day, I tried. “We’ll smoke at the beach. Don’t get all ‘Xanied-out.”

“Your weed sucks,” I replied, which to him was the ultimate insult. I decided it was useless to shower since I was going to the beach. I really could care less that my legs were hairy, but drew the line at leaving the house looking like a French woman. When I looked in the mirror I saw my eyebrows were crying out to be waxed.

“Reid, I can’t go, I look like shit.” Whining had become the permanent tone of my voice.

“You look beautiful,” he yelled from the other room. Shut up, dickhead, I thought. I was infuriated since he hadn’t even looked at me.

I yelled, “Don’t say that to me. I look like shit!”

“You’re always beautiful. Hurry up!” I got incensed at him, yelling at me to hurry up, and since I hated him, I spat in his face when he entered the bathroom.

“Alexis! You have to control yourself!”

The notion that I could control myself was humorous and a foreign concept. Self-control was impossible even with the aid of numerous mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, anti- psychotics, and anti-anxieties. I felt nothing but intense anger. What caused this, I didn’t know, but I kept it at bay with Xanax.

Reid took me by the hands to comfort me, but I took everything out of context and felt, irrationally, that he was going to hurt me. We often took our constant fighting up a notch to physical confrontations. I began to scream for him to get off me, mixing in profanities at every available opportunity. I reminded myself of The Exorcist, and although I knew I was acting crazy, I didn’t know how to stop. My emotions, my mind, and the physiological aspect of my brain were all working on different pages. If I had been living with anyone else, I would have probably been committed to an institution. But Reid knew how much I despised mental hospitals, and he didn’t have the heart to admit me. Not yet at least.

After I had plucked my eyebrows to death for nearly an hour, I was ready to go. As soon as we arrived at Long Beach, I wanted to return to the apartment. The sun, the people, everything was too much for my tired brain to comprehend. I dragged myself out of the Honda Civic and languidly pulled myself to the beach. As Reid was setting up various blankets and towels, I retrieved a water bottle from my beach bag and shoved 8 milligrams of Xanax down my throat, relieved that in about 20 minutes I wouldn’t know what the hell was going on.

I opened my eyes to Reid, and was surprised to see he had a terrified look on his face. He was yelling at me, but I was foggy from the Xanax and everything took a few moments to register. Where was I? Unlike the bedroom, it was sunny and people were staring at me. Shit, I was at the beach.

Finally, I could distinguish Reid’s voice from all the ones chattering in my head. He was asking me what I took, but I was too exhausted to answer. “You have sauerkraut stuck all over you.” I slowly sat up and looked down. The sauerkraut had dried to crust in the sun and was stuck to the corners of my mouth, my chin, my chest and my hands. How did I do this? “You were eating a hot dog, I fell asleep, woke up, looked next to me, and there you were, looking like you were dead. I couldn’t wake you up.” Reid led me to the ocean, and we cleaned the crusty sauerkraut off my body together.

September

I had various corners pressuring me to attend school. I knew I was in no state to return, but I obliged. By now I had coerced my doctor into upping my Xanax to 8 milligrams a day. To the average person, 3 milligrams is the maximum, but I kept asking for more and the prescriptions kept coming. He was a very giving person, as he was seeing me for free. Usually the doctor charges $500 for 45 minutes. I couldn’t attend the full first week of classes. I scheduled an emergency appointment with my doctor. “I’m having trouble, a lot of trouble — it’s practically impossible. I can’t get out of bed for anything,” I explained. “It’s the depression part of the bipolar. You have a severe mental illness. Perhaps you shouldn’t have gone back to school. You really should consider returning to an institution. If you came to my hospital, I could keep a closer eye on you. I also think it’s time for you to consider electroconvulsive therapy for your condition.”

“Maybe at the end of the semester, but I need something now. I’m failing out of school. It’s my senior year.”

“Alright, I’ll give you a prescription for Adderall,” he said, with slight hesitation. “But once the semester’s over, you have to do something about yourself.” I left his office that day, and now I wonder why neither of us made the connection that I couldn’t get out of bed because I was on such a massive amount of Xanax.

I didn’t want to discontinue using it, but I secretly wished he would have forced me to stop. I thought I couldn’t get worse, but my descent into prescription drug addiction had only just begun. I didn’t know what I wanted. I was going on my ninth month in bed. I didn’t necessarily have the desire to get out yet, but I definitely didn’t like being confined there.

I didn’t know what I wanted; all I knew was that we had tried every single one of the “new generation of medications designed for mood disorders,” and none of them worked. He talked electroconvulsive therapy up like it was a miracle, and a miracle is what I needed. Too bad I didn’t believe in them. No one knew how deep and scary my depression had grown; even more frightening was the thought of the mania destined to come after.

By keeping myself drugged up, I could stave the mania off — the voices, the visions, and everything else that accompanied it. Suicide was a constant thought in my mind, but I didn’t want to hurt those around me, so I continued lying in bed and taking a shitload of Xanax.

It was only slightly after 2 p.m. when I got home from the city. I had a few hours until Reid was off work and about 20 minutes until my prescription was ready. I won’t lie and say I had the best intentions concerning the Adderall, but I didn’t let myself admit what I was about to do, until after I picked the drugs up from the pharmacy and was standing in front of the kitchen counter with a spoon in my right hand and the bottle of Adderall in my left.

The idea occurred to me as soon as my shrink mentioned the stimulant. I flirted with Ritalin my freshman year of college. My suitemate supposedly had Attention Deficit Disorder but didn’t want to take her medication. After a few months of living there, a friend and I discovered a stockpile of the uppers in her nightstand drawer. These came in handy on the eves of paper due dates and after long nights of partying. But the first time I tried coke — with coworkers in the now-deserted Pacific Sunwear on Sixth Avenue — well, that high turned the Ritalin into a long-forgotten fifth grade playmate.

I had heard Adderall was like cocaine without the bloody nose and headache. I poured all 30 of the 15-milligram pills onto the countertop. I placed one blue tablet away from the others, covered it with a spoon, covered the spoon with my hand, and pushed down. Immediately the pill morphed into light blue powder. Using a maxed-out Visa and a rolled-up dollar bill, I proceeded to push the blue powder into a fat, straight line, and then sniffed it up my nose.

There was no burning sensation, no chemical smell. I was in love. I walked through the dining room to the living room futon, and waited to feel something. I’ll give it 10 minutes, and then I’m sniffing more, I thought to myself. The first change I noticed was the total absence of sound in my apartment, except for a barely audible thudding. Relaxed on the futon, I spread out and no sooner than I had lain down, I was back at the kitchen counter.

This time, I’ll do three at once, I thought. After three, I waited about five minutes, then snorted two at a time until they were gone. I didn’t set out to do them all, and I couldn’t believe I had just sniffed 30 pills in a matter of minutes. But I hadn’t felt this awake and energized in months and found myself laughing out loud. I ran to the bathroom, looked at my reflection, and laughed some more, not knowing what was funny but loving the sound of my laughter. I was giddy feeling these emotions, like seeing a lover after months apart.

I knew this joy was fake, simply a byproduct of the pills labeled Amphetamine Salts, but I embraced the joy, happy to experience the forgotten emotion regardless of where it came from. I had no conscience to listen to, and instead concentrated on the thudding sound which filled my ears. As I curled up on the couch, I realized the sound was my own quickly beating heart.

Two weeks later, I had my next appointment with my shrink. In the waiting room I was calm and collected, but I was on a mission. The mission was to get a higher dosage of the Adderall. Like all addicts, I was a good liar. “I only took the Adderall for a week because it didn’t do anything helpful. I still couldn’t get out of bed. You have to do something, I’m failing out of school.”

The desperation in my voice was not a lie; I needed more Adderall, and there was a chance, however slim, that he would not provide it. As though he were a well-trained dog, my doctor replied, “You must not be on a high enough dose. I’ll double it to 30 milligrams a day. You start with that, but I’ll write the prescription for 60 milligrams a day — that way if 30 doesn’t work, you can try 45, then 60.”

I was shocked, I was moving up from 15 milligrams a day to 60? This was too easy; my doctor was either an idiot or a drug dealer. Both possibilities worked to my advantage.

December

I had been speed-balling on prescription pills for over three months, and didn’t know up from down. I somehow received three C’s and one D for the semester, although how I managed that, I was not sure. Two of our friends lost their jobs and apartment and moved in with Reid and me. It was then that I began to care about my “problem.” While alone in the apartment I could act like as a big crackhead because nobody could see me. But with Lynn and Dylan staying home with me every day, I realized I needed a change.

This need crystallized one night when the four of us decided to eat KFC for dinner. Having refrained from taking pills for a couple of days, I wanted to reward my good behavior and snuck off into the bedroom while Lynn and Dylan were gone and Reid wasn’t paying attention. I took my Xanax out from the bureau drawer and dumped the remainder of the bottle’s contents into my hand. Seventeen bars fell out, equaling 340 milligrams. My tolerance was ridiculously high, and I wondered what effect such a high dose would have.

Out of nowhere tears began rolling down my face as I realized what a pathetic life I led. And how pathetic my options were. I could admit myself to a hospital and get treated like shit from all the staff because once you were in there, you were crazy and nothing you said mattered to anyone. Reid would visit me on visiting days, him in regular clothes and me in my thick socks with the rubber gripping on the bottom, a thin cotton hospital gown, and a paper robe; or I could pretend I was Frankenstein’s monster as I received electric shocks to my temples.

I tried not to feel sorry for myself, tried to realize people had it worse, but that was no comfort. I felt all my dreams for a future fading away. I thought I would never get better, get out of bed, or do anything worthwhile. I simply wanted to be left alone.

As I heard the front door open, I poured the Xanax down my throat and got into bed. I heard footsteps thumping on the wooden floor of the hallway and wiped my face on the pillow. Lynn came into the room. “Lex, are you going to eat with us?” She was so sweet and caring. I loved Lynn, so I got up and followed her into the living room, all but forgetting I had just taken a shitload of Xanax.

Following my friend down the hallway was the last thing I remembered. Then I heard laughter, guys laughing and Lynn’s voice urging me to get up. I opened my eyes and lifted my head. Lynn was standing next to me with a wet towel and Reid and Dylan were sitting on the futon, attempting to hold back smiles. I tried to get up and couldn’t work my legs. I felt my head falling; I was passing out.

I woke up in bed, with Reid sitting up next to me. “Do you remember what happened last night?” he asked. I tried unsuccessfully to shake my head. I couldn’t remember anything about anything whatsoever. “You passed out in KFC with your food in your mouth and almost choked. You looked ridiculous — you had mashed potatoes all over your face.” Feeling immense embarrassment I rolled over and passed out again. Within a few days I was out of the fog and out of Xanax and Adderall. I had a friend with serious Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and a Xanax/Oxycotin addiction. She started letting me have some of her pills and my addiction continued.

In early 2004, I traveled home to California to visit my family; my trusty Xanax came along with me. Bored in Galt, with absolutely nothing to do, I took a large dose one night and passed out. In the morning, I discovered my younger sister had tried to wake me during the night and was unable to do so. I had scared her. This instance was the first time I had ever felt remorse at taking the drugs; sorry for myself, yes, but remorseful, never. That was the end of my Xanax addiction.

Once I got off the Xanax a lot of things changed. I was able to remember yesterdays again. I could get out of bed. But when the depression hits, it’s hard and fast. A bullet from a Glock. If I were presented with the same set of morbid circumstances, I am not sure I would do anything differently. This is not a story of recovery; it is simply a retelling of some of the events taken from six months of my life.

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