It’s time for an uncomfortable story today, but the tale is only half as bad as it could have been. If there was ever a lesson to watch your drinks, including soft drinks, this tale is most definitely it… because my soft drink was spiked. [Warning: the clue is in the name.]
Or I was drunk?
I suppose it depends on who you ask. Why don’t I just start at the beginning and you can make your own minds up?
That Time My Drink Was Spiked
One night, me and my first ever boyfriend went to a big bonfire fayre. A couple of his male mates accompanied us, and we met up with a handful of my female friends on arrival – somewhere around 5pm. On the way there we’d popped into a fish n’ chip shop and grabbed an extra-large portion of chips for us to share along with a two-litre bottle of Coca Cola. Irrelevant? Unfortunately, not.
Sometime after 11pm my very first boyfriend dumped me at the front door of my [parents’] house, tapped on the door, then legged it down the street.
What happened between the hours of 6pm and 11pm are, but for a few fleeting memories, a complete mystery.
Here’s what I know:
I woke up with bright red handprints on both sides of my face – and man, did I feel like shit. Death… barely warmed up, in fact.
A pile of clothes sat on the floor. Trainers, socks, jeans, pants, bra, t-shirt, and that oversized Eisenegger jacket that I was absolutely obsessed with. This jacket is relevant to another story, but we’ll get to that in due course.
The front of the jacket was covered in white paint – a smeared and smudged box that went all the way down the front. That same white paint also coated the front of my jeans from the knees up, the bottom of my hair, and a little on the fronts of my trainers.
And, once again, I felt like death.
Much of the morning after was a blur, but my parents filled in some of the missing parts.
What I learned:
My parents could smell Bacardi on me and my breath and thought I was drunk out of my mind.
My mother chased my very first boyfriend down the street, all the way to his house, then either punched him or almost punched him, depending on whose story you listen to. She demanded answers. My very first boyfriend told her that I’d disappeared, then came back absolutely obliterated – on what? He (and the group of people we were with) had no clue.
My mother had slapped me around the face, apparently, followed by my Pops – not out of anger or rage, but because I was practically unconscious on the living room floor. They tried and failed to wake/rouse me. That explained the two red handprints on both sides of my face.
They found two firecrackers in my jacket pocket, and I’d lost one earring.
I also repeatedly slurred, “Coke and chips.”
All manner of tests had apparently happened after my mother called a friend, then another nurse friend. I wasn’t raped. I was drunk. They also found something else in my blood, which the nurse friend later explained was “likely amphetamines.”
What the girls said:
Remember that 2-litre bottle of Coca-Cola from earlier? I remember sharing that bottle with my girl mates, and I vaguely remember some other lads being there. I also think I remember hearing that they were from a rival school and were in the year/two years above us.
Those rival lads had also shared some of the bottle of Coca-Cola, apparently. It was/is assumed that one of those had popped a little something extra in the soft drink, either deliberately or accidentally.
My friends also said that I’d finished the bottle after that, then disappeared. None of them had brought any alcohol to the event, so they had no clue where the Bacardi smell (etc.) had come from.
The flashbacks:
Little pieces of the night came back to me over the coming days. I remembered being in someone’s bedroom with my boyfriend and his friends. Whose bedroom? No idea. Definitely not my boyfriend’s, though.
I also remembered being in a garden, and I’m fairly certain we lit firecrackers out there. It was bonfire night, so there was all manner of burning and sparkling things around. Whose garden? Again, no clue. I assumed it was the same house as the bedroom, but who knows?
Images of a blue plastic tumbler kept popping into my mind, so perhaps I drank Bacardi out of that? I hadn’t even started drinking at that point. Smoked weed, sure. Drinking, though? Not yet. Not even White Lightning on the field yet. Not even Lambrini at Nan’s house yet!
My drink was spiked: a lesson learned
I have been paranoid about my drinks ever since that night, though it’s hardly surprising, really. I rarely order drinks that come in glasses or plastic tumblers and always go for a bottle of something. It’s fruitless when you think about it; my Coca-Cola was drugged – a two-litre bottle, not a glass.
I have tried to drink Bacardi on only two occasions since the time my drink was spiked, and I vomited both times. I’ve avoided it ever since. Even the smell makes me feel sick.
I am beyond lucky that nothing worse happened.
So, yeah, be mindful of who you share your Coca-Cola with.
The next blog post in the dating timeline is this one: That Time I Got Nicked.
Thanks so much for reading my blog today! 🖤
You can read all about The Very First One, from start to finish, right here.
If you’re in the mood for more disastrous dating stories, you should check out some of these:
