My drink was spiked and my friends just thought I was drunk

Last September I had my drink spiked on a night out in my home town. I luckily got home safe and sound but its an experience that has enlightened me to the binge drinking culture that most young adults are a part of.

Having fun, drinking and dancing on a Saturday night is typical of any 19 year old. With only a couple weeks before I was about to move over a 100 miles away from my closest friends, we all just wanted to have a good night. On top of all of that, my best friend was turning 20 which meant lots of drinks, in lots of places.

Now before I go any further, I do not condone drinking anything more than what you can handle, and normally I follow that rule. (Apart from all the terrible mistakes I made as a fifteen year old.) And if anyone takes anything away from this, please watch your drink.

The night started in a casino, I have never been in a casino and have only ever played the lottery , it was safe to say I was out of my depth. I quickly lost my free £5 bet and instead sat next to a friend on a machine sipping on a cocktail. A couple drinks after we left to go to a bar, then another bar and then finally a new bar that I really liked. Everyone was dancing and having a really great time, and so was I. I didn’t feel massively drunk and it wasn’t too late into the night either. I was in control and enjoying myself.

From this point onward I don’t remember a lot. I have a vague idea that we left suddenly, one of my friends desperate to go to a certain bar and that is it. The next recollection I have is waking up at 9 am the following day in my own bed, my head pounding and my eyes blurry. Everything else that I know about from that night is from a secondary source, yet I was there the entire time, which is unsettling.

From what I was told and from what I can make out from the times on the texts I sent, is that as we were leaving I had sent my boyfriend a text that I had drunk too much and needed to go home. We got to the club, I sat down on a couch while most of the group went to get drinks and “fell asleep.'” After this Harley (my boyfriend) had rang my phone, someone had answered and said I was sleeping on the couch and that I should probably go home.

Trying to write this all down is pretty weird. I’m writing about something I was present for but have no idea of anything that had happened. Everyone could have made up this story and I would be none the wiser. But what is the most humbling part of this is when I finally looked at my phone the next morning, there were lots of pictures of my sleeping face surrounded by various friends.  Despite everything that had happened, what scares me the most when looking back, is how unfazed my friends were by what I was doing. Social drinking has been glorified through social media to a point were we no longer see the adverse side effects of binge drinking as an issue.

It wasn’t that my friends didn’t care what was happening to me, they obviously thought I was safe with them and that when my boyfriend did come and get me, I would still be safe.  But they didn’t see the immediate danger in my unconscious body on a sofa in a bar as anything strange, and who doesn’t? As someone who goes on a night out semi regularly, seeing unconscious, sloppy or puking strangers is part of the experience. But take that those aliments out of that situation and apply it to a day time event, people would be startled, maybe even offer help.

What my friends didn’t see is that after my boyfriend got to me, he realised that I wasn’t acting normal and something had definitely happened. On the drive back I started to twitch aggressively failing in and out of consciousness.  The rest of his night was spent hovering over me with my mum, making sure nothing terrible happened.

Which leads me to question, why has this become normal?