How Close Did I Come to Overdosing?

Factual Questions
1

When I was in my early 30s, I spent a lot of late nights drinking whisky and snorting cocaine. Looking back, there was one night in particular where I probably over did it, and I’m curious whether I cheated death.

That night, I’d certainly don’t a lot of coke, but I couldn’t guess how much. After getting home, I went straight to bed, but after 15 minutes, I got up to got to the bathroom. I stood up and took a few steps, and the next thing I knew, I was falling to the floor. I stood up, passed out momentarily again and found myself heading for the floor. This happened several times, but I managed to crawl to the bathroom and return to bed. The next morning, I woke up feeling fine.

How worried should I’ve been at the time, and how luck am I to be here right now.

2

In my (decidedly unprofessional) definition, you had an overdose when things turn out badly, as they apparently did. As to the underlying question (“how close did I come to death?”), my (again, decidedly unprofessional) wag is “not that close”. Hell, you made it home and made it to bed. On the other hand, if you want to tell your friends that you narrowly escaped death, go for it. A good story trumps truth any day.

3

This is sort of a WAG because I don’t have any real world experience with drugs. That said these two cites put the LD50 of cocaine at roughly 8.5 grams for a 200lb person and $80-$100 per gram respectively. So, while ignoring the alcohol because I don’t know how it would factor, you probably would have had to consume about 200 dollars worth of coke to get you in the neighborhood of “I could have died.”

That sound like a lot to me, but like I said I don’t have any actual experience.

4

Were you drinking whiskey also, or just doing coke? This kind of thing has happened to me, with just alcohol alone.

If you were doing drinking whiskey and doing coke, it was probably the effects of the alcohol alone that caused the experience.

5

We can’t know from your description. We don’t know enough about your medical background.

For instance: Before I knew I was prone to Atrial Fibrilation, one night I was drinking heavily, got up to urinate, got really dizzy and fell down, knocking myself out. Turns out that booze can trigger a-fib, and a-fib can make you dizzy.

I am not saying that is what happened with you. I am just pointing out that other things could have been in play. Or as mentioned, booze by itself can make you dizzy enough to fall down.

6

Using your numbers it’s more like $700.

7

Thanks for the replies. It sounds like I didn’t come close. That’s a relief, because I’ve always felt like a jackass every time I thought back to the incident and wondered if I came close to accidently killing myself for something so stupid.