I Took Viagra When I Was 18 and the Results Weren’t What I Expected
By: Joe Duncan
Tags: Sexuality, This Happened To Me, Recovery, Drugs, Sobriety

Her eyes were clear and blue. They stared up at me with a wide smile plastered across her face, a grin that hinted at indulgences to come. What a night we’d have in store for us. Everything was funneled through the optimistic rose-colored glasses of untarnished youth, where the mind can dream much more than it can ground itself in reality. We’d scheduled that night, a Wednesday night if memory serves me correct. It would be the night I’d take Viagra at eighteen years old and we’d have a romantic rendezvous.

It was only days prior that her and I had found ourselves at her mother’s house. Her mom’s boyfriend had erection problems, the kind that come with age and not a heart condition. He’d been prescribed the little blue pills and told they’d clear his condition right now. Take two and call the doctor in the morning kind of thing. But no dice.

Their relationship was strained to the point where sex just wasn’t in the cards. Between arguments, financial problems brought about by his complete refusal to work, and the conditions of stress that poverty can impose, no action was going on between their bedsheets.

He had been given the maximum strength possible. I don’t remember the milligrams off-hand, but I know they were potent. We ended up on the conversation after I cracked a joke about wondering what would happen to a young eighteen-year-old who took Viagra.

“He’s got some if you want them,” the girl’s mother piped up. I could see her boyfriend, the guy to whom the pills were prescribed was embarrassed. Beneath his red ginger beard, I could see the caveman-looking cheeks of his turn a bright hue of red.

It took a moment before he worked up the courage to say, “Yeah, I don’t ever use them, here, take them.” He jumped up with excitement and fetched me a bottle of four.

We stayed and enjoyed a few laughs and then called it an evening. We set the date, a few days later on that Wednesday.

Back to that stare that pierced right through me the night of. Her and I thought we were in for an incredible time as I took her by the hand, and we went to my bedroom. I’d just downed two, not one, two of the Viagra pills a few moments prior.

We got undressed and hot and bothered. My favorite part of the sex began as I made my way down to give her oral sex. I was aroused and my nerves were on fire with unwavering anticipation. My body flowing with the sweet juices, hormones of youth and sexuality.

Her smell aroused me further. Her skin was soft enough as it is, but her fragrant scent of pheromonic seduction riled me like an ancient warrior preparing for battle. I was ready for the meds to make me into a superman, the kind of a stud my naive 18-year-old brain thought I needed to be in order to be attractive.

But just as soon as I was getting settled into a comfortable groove, dishing out oral pleasure, I felt odd. I felt a sense of panic overcome me. It was the kind of fear that’s unstoppable, something you can’t shake.

It’s strange because true panic has no object. Fear and terror do. When you’re in a state of fear, you’re afraid of something. But panic happens for no reason. It just creeps up on you and the harder your mind scrambles to find a cause, the worse it becomes because you always return empty-handed. Like quick sand, the harder you struggle to find the cause of your nervous system feeling wrecked, the worse it gets; the more trapped you become.

Getting carried away, the pills in my system were all but forgotten, that is, until I had to sit back and take a breather from what I was doing to collect myself.

As I stared up at my own ceiling, I noticed it was much dimmer than usual. Instead of the usual white walls, I was looking at a manilla color. Do you know that feeling when take opiates and your nose gets itchy and the whole world around you seems to dim? Everything seems a little bit darker, a little more plastic, a little more remote. That feeling overcame me. Only minus the euphoria.

That’s when I began to get dizzy. Slapping my leather pants on, I headed for the kitchen to fix myself a glass of desperately needed water. I was parched. I felt high. My breathing was tough and intentional.

The vision that had been a dim yellow began to color everything a slight blue hue. To be sure, it wasn’t hallucinations. I don’t think so, anyways. I don’t quite know the cause but all I can gather is that my blood pressure was kicked up through the roof.

It took a couple of hours for my body to process everything. I had to sit uncomfortably through the rest of the miserable experience.

When you’re young, healthy, and don’t have E.D., you probably shouldn’t be taking Viagra. Trying to undo a problem that doesn’t exist is a recipe for disaster.

I’d experiment with drugs and sex throughout the years. I had as many bad times as I did good ones. And there’s a moral of the story, here. The moral is that drugs and alcohol don’t necessarily make sex better. They sometimes make it worse. A lot worse.

I’ve seen it time and again, so many friends of mine took a drug that they thought would make them sexual superstars, only to find out that it totally killed the mood and ruined the night.

Conversely, I’ve been sober for years now. I don’t do AA or NA, I just stopped using any substance that would alter my mind. I’ve found that my sex is a lot better without it. The connection is more real. The attraction is more visceral.

I can be present when I’m in my senses and capable of experiencing it all. Sex is a wonderful, beautiful thing. Being clear-headed and present for it makes it better than I could’ve ever imagined.

Why would we want to numb ourselves out for it? That makes no sense. It’s like taking a pill that instantly makes you forget a great movie you just watched. Why would you do that to yourself?

I think a lot of people turn to substances for different reasons, but most of them have to do with performance anxiety or calming their nerves. Socializing can be a pain, sexual pressure can be a pain, but in most cases that I’ve witnessed and experienced, the things we turn to that we think are going to alleviate these problems only compound them and make them worse.

No drug can give you self-confidence.