http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alprazolam
I've always enjoyed the odd xanax when passed to me by a friend. Though, a little while ago before heading to the u.s I went looking for a prescription to call my very own and it didn't take me long to find at all. Actually it was the second doctor I visited. The first didn't even let me finish my plea and just pointed to a sign on the wall about not giving out drugs to desperate pseudo junkies, gave me a script for sleeping tablets and pointed to the door. I slithered out but only had to walk three doors down to a little out of the way hole in the wall doctors office in the heart of the city where I was quickly welcomed in by a funny old little man who kept staring at me funny. I gave him my story (a true story!) about having to embark on my first overseas jaunt that would include *gulp* performing and singing in my band in front of real live Americans and that although I was excited I was shitting myself and wondering how I would actually cope as I'm prone to anxiety and worried about the strange behaviour that it produces. He wanted to know about my anxiety and asked if I had depression. I said I didn't feel depressed. He looked at me a little while and asked if I'd heard of John Denver and in particular a song called 'Perhaps Love'...I said I hadn't so he printed out the lyrics for me (the pages had pictures of various flowers on them) and suggested I find the song somewhere to listen to. I wasn't sure what he was telling me but I looked enthusiastic as I could feel myself getting closer to drugs.
He paused a moment, sizing me up and then with the sizing up part of the meeting over, relaxed and asked me what it was I wanted. Awlright! It was like the shutters went up on the tuck shop windows and all the colours and flavours of the rainbow were mine to sample.
Walking towards home I popped a brick (a brick is the largest bestest ass kickingest xanax there is) and considered starting on the the cymbatal, an anti depressent, that'd he'd also prescribed to me, but decided to wait a day or two and just dig the one thing for now. an hour later I was passed out drooling on the couch. Bliss.
So I took these little guys on my adventure of California and they seemed to really help me with the nerves before performing at each show. Especially with a shot or three of gin and some local beer. Oh and some medical weed and hash we managed to get our hands on.
Gerald was buying lots of packs of cigarettes and was calling them "social currency" which I was right... you could give them out to new friends and to the homeless. Xanax became my social currency. Not for the homeless...just for chemical minded new friends. I'd watch them melt and feel some pride. The guys from Sleepy Sun and Assembled Head In Sunburst Sound came to our Frisco show and I passed them one each with the warning to maybe just take half for now. They didn't listen and came back asking for another. I noticed while playing that they'd started to nod off and watched them trying to stagger to the bathroom and back to the bar and then just vanish all together by the end of the set. Ha! I later got a text from one of them which read something like: "what was in those Aussie xanax??? You guys sounded liek a choir of heavenly freaks before I orbited somewhere past Jupiter!" Goal! Take that hippies!
So we were gone for nearly three weeks, and I kept on eating them everyday unaware of the growing dependence. Those puppies, combined with cymbatal (which I later found out caused suicidal thoughts), fine weed and hash, plenty of alcohol and constant morning coffees had me at a nice crazy balance if I could lay it out all in the right order.
I came home jet lagged and confused and on a right high and dove into the Halloween party planning and the catching up with family and friends. I went over and stayed at my rad friend H*****'s place, not getting out of my pyjamas and just eating xanax drinking heavily and rolling joints. I was in and out of consciousness for three or four days like an opium dreamer from a Tin Tin comic before I decided I should actually get on with life and see what was happening in the real world.
So I never read the writings on the side of any packet of anything and didn't look up any dangers till today. I'm a pro. Apparently kicking a xanax is no walk in the park. That also goes for anti depressants like cymbaltal (I popped 2 one night for fun and woke the next day to my body jolting violently for a few seconds! gross!). Maybe even weed or alcohol or coffee perhaps? Is stopped 'em all one beat. You should ease off these things gradually. I did (or im doing) nearly two weeks of cutting cold. Now I realise why I literally didn't sleep for 4 days, bizarre scary fantastic colourful dreams when I finally did manage to close my eyes, bouts of crying, hostility, despair, suicidal thoughts and worst of all, from waking up to falling asleep, feeling like I was walking around in a dream or an acid flashback, with distorted vision and ghostly figures all around in the corner of my eyes. I even tried a Stillnox but there was no sleep only endless tentacles spiralling out of the walls and millions of strange invisible beetles on the floor. If it was anyone else who'd not had years of drug experience surely would've ended up a puddle on the floor.
Also, anyone in this state should not have access to a mobile phone or a facebook or any other communication device. In fact you should probably be locked in a box (or a coffin) for a good three weeks until you promise you are not in monster form anymore. Even then...don't believe the words of a monster.
