Ambien Danger

I don't think of myself as a pharmaceutical industry "frequent flyer", but when I travel I like to have a couple of essentials with me. One of these is Excedrin, for bad headaches and sore throats. The other is Immodium, for sudden and uncontrolled anal activity. (Actually, in each case I buy the unbranded version, as only a moron would pay the extra for the brand-name). No sensible traveler would be without these; I once ran out of Immodium in Belgium and the useless staff at this allegedly upmarket hotel explained that "Non!" they did not have any, and "Non!" the local pharmacy didn't open for another two hours, by which time I would be on a train with my arse cheeks clenched. You'd think that in a country where they serve the kind of shite food that makes your arse turn inside out they would be constitutionally required to provide relief, but this is Europe, where the customer always wrong and service an unknown concept.

Other than that the only thing I use is Ambien. For those of you not familiar, it's a mild prescription sleeping tablet which will get you to sleep in about 30 minutes and supposedly assure you of about 6-8 hours. Actually it never gets me more than about 3 hours, but it will get me to sleep. One of the lesser-known side-effects of Ambien is that you can find yourself engaging in activities while asleep that you cannot remember afterwards. I am here to tell you that the danger is real. I don't mean that I drove a car while asleep (although this is supposedly possible); the situation was more frightening than that.

I only take the stuff occasionally as it's habit forming and you can quickly go from taking a tablet to get to sleep, to not being able to sleep unless you take a tablet. From there it's only about two steps to cooking meth and forging scripts for oxycontin, as far as I can tell. Having got back from China, however, I was about 12 hours out of synch, so I took a tablet last night. This morning I went off to work as usual. Fast forward through the day (it wasn't that interesting) and I'm back home; the spouse was now awake. She informed me that as I was falling asleep last night I did the following:

Informed her that I find some Asian girls VERY, VERY attractive.
Began singing "I Like Chinese" by Monty Python.
Suddenly fell asleep and started snoring.
Woke up and asked for a drink.
Refused to sit up to drink it.
Drank it and fell asleep again.

This may not sound like a particularly dangerous incident, but think about it. I'd been in China, in the karaoke bars, surrounded by young, attractive Chinese girls. What if I'd shagged one? The bedtime might have gone something like:

Took Ambien and went to bed.
Informed spouse that I find Chinese girls very attractive.
Especially the one I shagged after the karaoke.
Whose breasts were larger than I had expected.
And very firm.
Asked for a drink of water.
Got handed a glass of water with my dick in it.

Shouldn't there be a warning on the side of these things? Men and (presumably) women everywhere are popping this innocuous pill, thinking only of a good night's sleep, and risking a full-out disclosure of any recent indiscretions. What's worse, they won't even know what they said. A good improvisor can probably explain away 95% of all incriminating evidence but it's got to be hard to retract an unconscious confession, complete with details.

The good news is that my behavior is, of course, saint-like and so there was not much I could say to fuck myself. But I've been known to take this stuff on a plane so that I can grab a few hours sleep. If its effect is to make you speak the truth, what might I say? What have I already said (but no-one told me)? Given a certain propensity for thinking the worst about people around me, I suspect the following are possibilities:

To Flight Attendant:
Why are you all so fucking old?
How about not banging my knee with the trolley again you witless bitch?
Forget the lifejacket demo - if this thing goes down, we're all dead anyway.

To Neighboring Pasenger:
That's my armrest - fuck off.
Why didn't they make you buy two seats, you fat wanker?
If you snore I'm going to slap you, OK?

There are times when honesty isn't the best policy, and it's always better to have the choice. So if you travel a lot and are tempted to take Ambien you might want to consider a change. Or at least consider not shagging strangers on your business trip. If you wake up with your dick in a glass don't say I didn't warn you...


Copyright 2007 Edward Bison