My friend had her drink spiked

There's probably only one thing worse than having your drink spiked - realising that your friend has had their drink spiked, and you hadn't had any idea.

My few brushes with drink spiking have essentially been quite tame - the drugs were recreational or party drugs, thankfully not anything too dangerous - and whoever did it on each occasion was obviously only doing it for a laugh at its effects... but still, it's dangerous for the drug-ee and definitely very scary for their friends.

My friend Zara was the first.  We'd been to a party at the residential college where we both lived, and noticed a few strange people lurking early in the night.  Zara, not reputed for being the most alcohol-tolerant gal I knew, was getting decidedly too drunk too quickly, so I helped her to bed and filled her water bottle, made her toast to try to absorb some of the alcohol and left her to sleep.  About 6 hours later I was woken by my phone, Zara ringing to ask me to come over because she felt so ill.  After she had vomited for 30 minutes continuously I rang an ambulance.  They did a drug screen and sure enough, she had ingested a notorious party drug, albeit without her knowledge.  She had been drinking pre-mixes from bottles, and hadn't left her drink - but somehow she had been drugged.

The second time I saw the horror of drink spiking was with my friend Lexie.  She always held her drinks pretty well, and was the type of girl who was really cautious about drink spiking.  We noticed a guy following us around a bar we used to hang out at for a while, and when Lexie went to get a round of drinks, he started talking to her at the bar.  I thought nothing of it, knowing she would tell him to get lost - and when she arrived back at the table I took my drink and downed it.  Within about 15 minutes Lexie was all over the place, acting like a particularly bad drunk.  We hopped in a cab and headed home - within 20 minutes I was calling the ambulance while my friend was fitting on the floor.  Sure enough, another party drug was responsible for her uncharacteristic behaviour.  The thing that really scared me about that incident was that Lexie was unlucky enough to pick the spiked drink, and it could just as easily have been me.

The thing about having your drink spiked is that it can have one of many effects on you.  You could vomit a bit, act more drunk than usual, pass out at the drop of a hat, or even have a fit.  That's why it's so important to stick with friends, to watch your drink, and not to accept drinks from strangers.  Vigilance is the only way to avoid this fate.

Have you ever experienced drink spiking amongst your group of friends? For more info on what it is and what it does, check out some ReachOut fact sheets and stories...

• Drink spiking(Fact sheet)
• Drink Spiking ROTV (Video)
• Drugs, drinking and the law(Video)