The song says the drugs don't work. That's incorrect. I had been taught my entire youth that doctors know best, and doctors number one solution for any problem I ever had was drugs. Anxiety: drugs; depression: drugs; bad back: drugs; sleeping problems: drugs; nasal congestion: drugs; skin rash: drugs. Drugs are always the answer. My culture, like many others, embraces the power of drugs and their ability to solve all problems.
At school, they taught us about the dangers of drugs. They told us why Leah Betts died from Ecstasy and made us all promise that we'd never take party biscuits and have a good time —because we would die otherwise. They showed us videos featuring people who droned on about their torturous lives and how they used drugs to numb the pain, saying that it wasn't the way to deal with serious underlying mental issues. That was news to me, because if I'd told my doctor I was experiencing severe emotional pain, he would have given me drugs because they work.
Drugs do work. They make boring occasions fun; they make you forget; they make you tired and sleepy, and sleep is very important; they make you cry with laughter, and laughter is the best medicine; they can give you energy and make you more talkative, which is great for shy people. Drugs do work, but the problem is that they're oh-so-very bad for you.
Thailand had lots of drugs, but most of the fully-illegal ones were rubbish. The weed was weak, the cocaine was worse than mediocre, and the meth was not for me. But the grey area narcotics were my kryptonite; I fucking loved 'em.
Valium, Xanax, Lorazepam, Codeine, Tramadol, and Diazepam (for the pussies) were all my friends. I had dabbled enough in the pleasures of pharmaceuticals back home to know which one I would enjoy, but that involved illegality. In Thailand, it was sort of legal. You could buy them easily in most pharmacies, but possession of them was a bit sticky. Luckily for me, a packet wouldn't last long enough to get caught, and even if I was searched and happened to have some on my person, most police had a reasonable price for turning the other cheek. They didn't have such a price for proper illegal stuff back then that would guarantee you a long and most unpleasant stay in a filthy Thai prison — a haven for misery and bum rape.
One consistent issue with purchasing happy tablets from the pharmacy was deciphering their authenticity. In my western mind, I assumed that a pharmacy was a legitimate enterprise whose business model was to serve people with the medication and healthcare products they needed to live a happy and healthy life. Not in Thailand; this is a wacky country.
There was an abundance of fake Valium, Xanax, and sometimes Tramadol; in fact, there was an abundance of fake everything. It was estimated that around 8–9% of all medication sold in Thailand was counterfeit, with the majority of fake drugs being ones for treating diseases such as antibiotics, malaria drugs, and even drugs for TB. How nice. I was pretty sure I had been given fake antibiotics before, and it was merely a placebo effect that cured my ailment. Drugs do work, even when they're not supposed to.
Spotting fake Xanax was easier as they usually came in a strip of ten tablets; the real ones were a dead give-away as they had the Pfizer logo on them, and the tablets actually looked like Xanax bars. On one occasion, I was presented with three different versions of Xanax and had to keep refusing and asking for the "other Xanax" until I got the real deal. Whatever those other ones were, I don't know, but I'm sure I'd had them before, and they were okay-ish. It's not like the fake Xanax they have in America today that's laced with fentanyl; those fake Thai ones were just Chinese knock-offs made in the factory down the road from the real Xanax factory.
The fake valiums were tricky to spot as they didn't usually come in strips. The key was remembering what hue of blue was real and which hue was fake. The lighter blue ones were fakes, and when I say fake, I mean just duds — they didn't contain anything nasty nor good.
On one occasion, I bought four duds on a Thai island I shall not name. I left two of them on top of my bedside cabinet. When I awoke in the morning, I found a weird splurge of blue all over the cabinet — the valiums had melted, which is never a sign of good-quality drugs.
As for tramadol, well, that was dangerous fun; highly addictive and easy to overdose on — I used to much them down like a kid eating a secret stash of Haribo. I loved the relaxing feeling of my body being heavier than dense lead. Pure slow-motion vibes.
Popping a few benzos and having a few drinks in Go Go Bars was my jam. It was a blissful experience of pure relaxation and escape. Even the loud, obnoxious playlists of either Dad rock or EDM for twats — is there any other kind? — were not a problem when I was swept up into the cuddly cloud of benzodiazepine warmth. I had dreams as a child about being in my version of paradise, but I'd never managed to find it. But I did manage to find the physical feeling of paradise, all thanks to Big Pharma's exploitation of the broken human brain.
According to the experts — or Silicon Valley search engines — all of these fun-time tablets were illegal without a prescription. Tell that to the girl who worked in my favourite pharmacy! All I ever had to do was say that I needed a few sleeps.
"How many sleeps?"
"20 sleeps should do it."
After a while, I was a frequent customer. There are no loyalty points there, though. Every two days, I'd rock up with a new injury and make it rain for the broken brain biscuits. To her credit, the pharmacy girl — she was not an actual pharmacist — eventually gave me an intervention: "I think you sleep too much, Mr." It wasn't much of an intervention, but it was concern; concern that was soon eased by me making it rain once more.
I did have a problem. I couldn't enjoy the Go Go Bars without popping them thangs. Hmm. When I think harder, going to bars, restaurants, and beaches is difficult without benzos. I was addicted.
Then came the dreams. Oh, the dreams. They weren't exciting, mad dreams. They were very lucid, but they were as dull as you like. The issue was that I couldn't wake up properly. I would awaken in my bedroom and be surrounded by all the familiar and dull everyday stuff. Getting out of bed was impossible because I was still asleep and couldn't move a muscle. Then the realisation would wash over: I was still asleep. I'd force myself to wake up again and be confronted by exactly the same ordinary room with its ordinary stuff, but I still couldn't get out of bed, so I had to wake myself up again, and even then, I may not have been fully awake yet and have to force yet another awakening. It wasn't cool. Sleep paralysis, they call it (by the way, who are these they anyway?).
Once I admitted to myself that I had a serious problem, I didn't do anything about it. It took me having to leave Thailand and pop back to the UK to kick the habit. There, in the United Kingdom of Once was Greatest Britain, I discovered how serious an addiction it was. I developed a flu-like head cold for a month. At first, I believed I must have contracted the silly virus — the one Magic Johnson had — as this was one of the symptoms the experts told me about (yes, the same ones from the Northern California valley).
I never went to the doctor; I went to the clinic. I got the all clear — they send a text to your phone that starts with "Woo-hoo, you're in the clear!" — and then did more digging on the search engine that rhymes with Dougle. There were another 7 possible things wrong with me, and, as usual, I thought I had at least 6 of them. It was a friend of mine who suggested I had developed an addiction to benzos and showed me the symptoms related to withdrawal. Whoops.
There was a silver lining, though. In order to scare me into committing to sobriety from Big Parma's party drama, my friend showed me an article from a news site. A teenager had died from an overdose of Valium and Tramadol. Tragedy. However, he had taken 5 Valium and 6 Tramadol. Pussy. I'd neck that before I even took a pre-night out shower. I was a soldier. For the first time in a very long time, I was thoroughly impressed by myself.