The Downward Spiral of Addiction: My Untold Story

A male police officer came close to me and asked if I was me by my civil name. I immediately knew what that meant and nodded. We entered my apartment together, and two female officers were already inside, talking to my ex-partner. They were all so happy to see me that my mind got seriously shocked. My ex-partner held me in a hug for like 3 minutes straight. They asked me if I was alright and where I had been, so I told them the crystal clear truth. They also said that they had to call an ambulance to check my health condition, and I realized I suddenly became very submissive and obedient in front of law enforcement, such as the police, standing in front of me in my apartment. But I was also somewhat happy to be back at home as well, and I felt kind of excited. Don’t forget that I had like eight glasses of Coca-Cola with Morgan in my stomach, which I drank up over the last seven hours, so my perception was shifted a bit. To shorten the waiting time, I showed the officers my room, my fursuit, and our plushies. The police girls were clearly interested and loved all of the fur around, as well as our modern and huge apartment. They were behaving really kind to me, and I was grateful enough to ask if I could hug one of the girls, and she agreed. It felt so good, and I have no clue why. My ex-partner showed me that they knew where I was through Apple’s native Find My app. This move was really smart, and even smarter from Apple. Later on, I found out that Apple devices constantly scan the area for Bluetooth beacons from other devices and send the information to Apple servers. So having Watch offline didn’t help me stay missing. Whoa, good job, Apple! Once the ambulance arrived, we walked outside, and I jumped in the vehicle while being excited that this was the first time I was sitting in an ambulance. I underwent the alcohol breath test by the paramedics, and the result wasn’t that bad, just 1.14 ‰. So I finally knew what it felt like as a reference point for myself. They also tested my blood from a fingertip for sugar level, and the result was normal, which was good to know. I was informed that they have to take me to the hospital for an examination immediately, and I was reconciled, thinking that I have no issues getting back home using public transport even at night after 1 a.m. since I live at the edge of the Prague city center. Besides, two hospitals are located so close that I could even walk back home and arrive in a relatively short time. I remember a favor the paramedic did to me while he was writing a medical report. He told me that to ease my complicated situation, he omitted to mention that I was still under the effects of HHC oil, and instead he wrote that I am an occasional user, but I did not take it today. I was not sure how exactly this would have had affected the overall outcome of the situation, medical records, treatment suggestions, or any other consequence for the near or distant future, but I found it interesting to mention it here. So thank you, unknown Sir.

Our bed is not large enough to fit our entire domestic ZOO, since doggos Rex and Howl took the most space >:3 Happy #FursuitFriday ^^ pic.twitter.com/wmh26s3c15

— The Jumping Drolf (@TaikuDee) January 19, 2024

While we were waiting for paramedics to do their paperwork, I asked the police officers whether I could sit in the police car parked next to the ambulance, in the shotgun seat, and they permitted it, yay! My excitement level skyrocketed in an instant. They showed me how to turn on the emergency lights and what buttons control the sirens. They let me turn the lights on and off, woooo! One of the girls looked around and noticed there was a group of visibly drunk people 50 meters away from us walking while being a little bit louder, so with a grin on her face, she asked all of us whether we wanted to scare them off a little bit. When we all gave her a loud “YES!”, she came to me while I was still sitting in the car and pushed one button for a short siren burst sound. Poor guys, they got visibly terrified by our little prank, haha! Shortly after, paramedics acknowledged that the paperwork had been done and we were ready to depart. I asked my ex-partner whether he could bring me some of my belongings, like a power bank, because my iPhone battery was nearly dead, and spare vape¹ batteries just in case. Luckily, he was way smarter than me and returned with a backpack full of spare clothes as well. At that moment, I was questioning myself about why. I hugged him tight and that one police girl, who consented earlier, again, and thanked all the police officers for doing their job well to make me feel safe, especially how the police handled the horrible school shooting that happened in Prague on December 21st, 2023. The ambulance departed for the hospital with me sitting in it on the back seat. This evening, I’ve gained two little personal achievements: sitting in a real police car and riding in an ambulance with the blue emergency lights on. I was amazed by how well public services in our country do work and how coordinated they are. In a few minutes, the ambulance parked in front of the hospital door, and I immediately recognized those doors, as I’d been there months ago to visit a friend who had some mental health complications and was hospitalized for a few days. Cold sweat moistened my skin immediately, and intense fear had surrounded both my mind and body. Oops… is it really… that psychiatric clinic?! I was expecting a hospital-y hospital… not this!

Inside a Black Hole: The Living Hell

You bet this was a psychiatric clinic within the General Faculty Hospital, you dumbass! You passed by it just one hour ago! I sat on a bench in the corridor and was waiting with one of the paramedics who stayed with me. We talked about his job since I was curious, maybe because I was trying to not think of what might come next. He was open to me, and I didn’t forget to appreciate the difficult career he chose. Shortly after, we said goodbye to each other, and he wished me luck. What a pleasant person! They called me into the acceptance room. There was a young, visibly annoyed doctor who was filling out my upcoming hospital card on a computer, asking me questions about how the hell I appeared there in front of him at 2 a.m. He also asked what I’d wish right now, and I promptly responded to get back home, have a shower, and flop on my bed, forgetting that this little incident has ever happened. What he answered to my wish deepened my fear to anxious levels. “I am afraid that is not an option, sir. We’ll keep you here for a week or two, and then we will see if we can release you.” What he just said had burned into my cerebral cortex, my skin, my spine, and my flesh. Everywhere… I was screaming inside, refusing to believe that he had actually said such a thing. I froze in time and panicked, but since the rest of my body was still very submissive and obedient, I didn’t say a word. He told me to wait in the corridor for a person to escort me upstairs. I knew what it looked like upstairs. I’ve been there as a visitor once, and I hated that place after just a few minutes. Corridors and rooms full of people from all social classes with unknown diagnoses, some of them engaging in totally unpredictable behavior. I didn’t want to go there, but hey, I had no other choice. Fuck. If I escaped, they’d call the police, and I bet they would bring me in handcuffed in no time. Despite the fact that I consider bondage exciting and arousing, such a kind definitely doesn’t belong to either the same or similar category. I called escaping off my mind, flagging it as not-an-option. After a few minutes, a handsome bearded man escorted me upstairs and locked the door behind me. So this is it. I am locked up in a facility that is not a prison but certainly meets similar criteria. Another shock shattered the remnants of my dignity in just a few seconds when I was asked to give in all of my belongings: my iPhone, Watch, vape, power bank, wallet, everything. I felt so miserable when watching a lady who was pulling everything out of my pockets and cataloging it. A small part of my consciousness was laughing at her because she was not able to recognize an iPhone at all, and she was struggling with how exactly to catalog those five debit cards she just pulled out of my wallet. She also found things I didn’t even know I had in there. After my stuff, I was asked to put down and give in my pants, hoodie, and t-shirt, receiving ugly hospital pajamas in return. I signed a transfer protocol with the full list of my belongings, and that handsome man then took me to my bed in a big, dark room. I didn’t see much inside, but I definitely heard at least three people snoring, and at least one of them very loudly. My assigned bed was anything but comfortable. It was, in fact, creepy because, on top of the sheet, there were limb restraints for both legs and arms. The man smiled when seeing my pale-colored face and said that they wouldn’t restrain me, but you can’t imagine how uncomfortable it was to lay on something like this beneath you. So uncomfortable that I’d almost have preferred to be restrained than to be lying on it. As the room door closed and the darkness with relative silence (except snoring) surrounded me, I had nothing else but a window with fixed steel bars to look through and the moon illuminating the cloudy sky. The worst night in my entire life had just begun.

I miss words to describe how miserable and humiliated I felt while lying on that bed, locked up on the fourth or fifth, I don’t know, floor inside a psychiatric clinic. There was no way I could fall asleep, absolutely not. I counted five unknown people lying in their beds in the same room as me, snoring and making weird sounds, and apparently no one was restrained. I was horrified. What if one of them suddenly gets up and starts throwing things around, yelling? What if one of them decides to “greet” me with violence? It didn’t seem that anybody from the hospital staff was around, and the feeling of loneliness and anxiety had tightened my stomach and throat. I didn’t dare to move yet, but lying on that modified hospital bed was so uncomfortable. My universe had shrunk into the view of the night sky through well-visible steel bars, which were constantly reminding me where I was. Alone and desperate, I was counting seconds, playing music on an imaginary piano, and singing to it in my mind. I just wanted to go home, please! But no one heard my mind screaming, of course, and mainly, no one cared. I did what I did, and this was the consequence I had to accept. With so much free time, I began to reassess my life. Thoughts were flowing in and out, and my brain was doing its best to save my own sanity. The night was endless, literally endless. I had no idea what the time was because, well, I couldn’t look on my own and totally lost track of it. Once in a while, I was hoping to finally see the sky getting dusky, but only the moon was the culprit for all the sky illumination I was a witness to. Hours and hours passed by, and still nothing had changed in the sky. In one particular moment, when I was becoming sleepy and I actually had a flick of a dream while my eyes were still open, fear kicked in, and I was perfectly awake again… and hungry. As the night didn’t want to end and I was sweating heavily due to the higher room temperature with no chance to have a shower, only horror thoughts about how long I was going to stay locked up were flowing inside my mind. I was told absolutely nothing, and the feeling of not knowing what was going to happen was eating me alive. Suddenly a sharp light lit the room, and the same nurse, who did not know what an iPhone looked like, entered the room.

It happened shortly after I was recognizing noises from people talking behind the room doors, so I realized it must finally be morning, or at least hospital morning, which would be between 5 and 6 a.m., maybe? The nurse was walking from bed to bed and waking some of my roommates up. She took the blood of one person, and I was thinking that maybe she would want to take my blood as well, given that I arrived drunk. But no, in a few minutes, she brought an alcohol breath analyzer and asked me to breathe out into the tube. I still had 0.32 ‰. Her response was a short “Hm” and then she left. “Hey lady, I want my phone and watch back. Can I go vaping in the smoking room (bathroom), PLEASE?!” was the sentence in my head, but I didn’t dare to ask. I had no idea what I could or could not do, dare, or ask for, given that no one told me anything! My nicotine withdrawal was significant after so many hours, and I craved to take a deep breath from my vape so badly. The room lights shut off, and it was dark again. I was pissed off at myself about still not being sober, so I took my plastic cup, gathered enough courage to get up, and went to the bathroom to drink up like one liter of tap water. Then I wrapped myself in the blanket to sweat the alcohol out of my body as soon as possible. Finally, I could see the dusky sky! It seemed that I had survived this terrifying night, probably one of many… But from now on, there will be doctors present in the building with whom I can talk and beg them to release me, maybe? I hoped while crying in my mind. At 8 a.m., another nurse came in and called for breakfast. I raised my head, hoping that I might finally get something to eat, but when she came closer to my bed and asked for my name, she said that I didn’t have any breakfast yet. Yeah, right, because they hospitalized me at 2 a.m.; that makes sense, I guess. I had my last meal at 4 PM the day before, but on the other hand, I am used to staying without any food for more than 24 hours, as not feeling hungry is one of my first symptoms when being under pressure and stressed, surprisingly not this time though. At 9 a.m., when daylight had settled, a doctor came into the room. Finally, a doctor, and not just any stupid nurse again. FINALLY!

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1. A slang term for an electronic cigarette. It vaporizes a liquid with a bit of nicotine and a flavor. The same liquid is used in smoke generators. ↩︎