Journal Entry: How I Almost Lost Everything to Cocaine

I don't even know where to start with this. Some days I still can't believe I made it out alive, honestly. I keep thinking about writing this down because maybe it'll help someone else, or maybe it'll just help me process what the hell happened to my life over the past few years. I was that guy who always said I "just did a little coke on the weekends" - you know, the casual user who had it all under control. I used to roll my eyes at people who went to treatment, thinking they were being dramatic or couldn't handle their shit. Turns out I was the one who was completely delusional while my life was falling apart in slow motion.

The thing about cocaine is that it doesn't just show up one day and destroy everything. It's so much more insidious than that. It whispers to you, makes you feel like you're ten feet tall, gives you this incredible illusion that you're untouchable and productive and confident and more alive than you've ever been. And then gradually, without you even realizing it's happening, you wake up one day and realize you don't know how to function without it anymore. That's when the real nightmare begins, because by then you're already so deep in denial that you can't even see how far you've fallen.

I have to be honest - it started out genuinely fun. That's the part that nobody talks about, and it's probably why so many people get hooked. Cocaine isn't scary at first, it's absolutely electric. I'd do a bump and suddenly I was the wittiest, most magnetic person in the room. I could talk to anyone about anything, stay out all night partying, wake up early the next morning, crush it at work like some kind of machine, and still have energy left over to do whatever I wanted. I felt like a fucking god walking among mortals. The confidence was intoxicating, maybe even more than the drug itself. I thought I had found my superpower, this magic key that unlocked the best version of myself.

But then the god complex would wear off and I'd find myself curled up on the floor of my apartment at 4 AM, heart racing so fast I thought it might explode, jaw clenched so tight it hurt, completely paranoid that someone was watching me even though I was totally alone. Those crashes were brutal - like getting hit by a truck made of every negative thought I'd ever had about myself. And the only way to make that voice shut up was to do more coke, which just made everything worse. That's when I started to realize that I wasn't using cocaine anymore - cocaine was using me.

The lying started gradually and then became constant. I wasn't a junkie, right? I wasn't shooting up in alleys or anything. I still had my job, still paid my rent on time, I didn't even drink every day. I just "needed a little something to take the edge off" - that's what I kept telling myself while I was blowing through my entire paycheck in 48 hours and calling dealers I had sworn I would block after the last time. I'd show up to work sweaty and anxious, grinding my teeth, pretending I was just tired from staying up too late. I started canceling plans with friends, ghosting people who cared about me, waking up in this fog of shame and cold sweats that felt like it was suffocating me. My phone would be full of texts I didn't remember sending, half-finished thoughts that seemed profound at 3 AM but looked completely insane in the daylight, screenshots of songs that I thought held the meaning of life when I was high.

I genuinely hated who I was becoming, but I felt completely powerless to stop it. The person I saw in the mirror wasn't me anymore - it was this hollow, twitchy, paranoid version of myself that I didn't recognize. But I didn't know how to get back to who I used to be, and the idea of trying to function without cocaine felt impossible. It had become my crutch for everything - social situations, work stress, boredom, sadness, celebration. I had forgotten how to just be a normal human being without chemical assistance.

The worst part was the cycle of it all. There's the high - maybe 15 or 20 minutes of pure euphoria where you feel like you can conquer the world. And then there's the comedown, which is like having your soul slowly drained out through a straw. This hollow ache settles in, followed by this creeping darkness and a voice in your head that tells you you're worthless and always will be. It's like selling your soul for a sugar rush and then getting emotionally demolished afterward. And the only way to shut that voice up is to do more coke, which just perpetuates the whole nightmare.

I didn't have some dramatic rock bottom moment like you see in movies. There was no overdose, no police showing up at my door, no screaming family intervention. It was just this one night when I was standing in my bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror, nose bleeding, jaw twitching uncontrollably, and I had this moment of clarity where I thought: "This can't be my life." I wasn't even high anymore at that point - I was just sad and empty and completely disconnected from myself even though I was stone cold sober. I didn't want to die, but I couldn't keep living like that either. I was exhausted from my own bullshit.

Asking for help was simultaneously the most uncool, humiliating, and necessary thing I've ever done in my life. I didn't walk into recovery with hope or optimism - I walked in with pure desperation and this fear that they'd tell me I wasn't "bad enough" to be there. Instead, they told me something I'd never heard before: that I didn't have to lose everything before I could decide I wanted more for myself. That was revolutionary to me.

The intensive outpatient program was hard as hell. Having to talk about all the stuff I'd buried and pretended wasn't affecting me was even harder. But it was also the first time in years that I wasn't pretending to be someone else, and there was something weirdly addictive about that level of honesty. I moved into a sober living house and shared a room with this guy who snored like a chainsaw but talked about his feelings like it was as natural as breathing. The other guys there weren't perfect - they were raw and broken and trying to rebuild their lives just like me. But for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel completely insane.

Now I'm still me, just undrugged. I still get anxious sometimes, still have days where I want to disappear from the world, still hear that voice occasionally telling me I was cooler and more interesting when I was using. But now I know it's lying to me. I don't need cocaine to be interesting or confident or lovable - I was always enough, I just forgot that somewhere along the way. Recovery didn't give me a completely new personality, it just gave me back my fucking soul.

If you're reading this and you're still using, I want you to know that you're not hopeless - you're just stuck. I don't care how long you've been doing it, I don't care if nobody in your life knows about it, I don't care if you've tried to quit twenty times already. If you're tired of feeling like you're disappearing, if you want more than 3 AM bathroom stalls and fake friends and the never-ending crash that follows every high, then say something to someone today. It doesn't have to be eloquent or perfect - it just has to be honest. That's where it all starts.

-Joe