[Names and minor details changed slightly for privacy reasons. This is a sad story, don’t read it if you are down]

Yesterday me and another friend stumbled onto the semi-conscious body of a dear friend of ours, S/he was face down, face white as a ghost, lips so blue they were almost black. I thought for sure my friend was already dead. But when we carefully turned the body over a slight exhale came out. I had 9-11 on the phone, I’m certified for CPR. So were trained and went through the classic routine, putting my head on the chest and looked, listened, felt. When I heard/detected a barely audible thready pulse and shallow breathing I almost cried out in relief.

EMS arrived and s/he was semi conscious, sort of coming around when carted off. S/he’s doing fine now, but the reason that emerged for this desperate act made my blood boil. I’m still livid thinking about it and I could use some legal input.

My friend has been battling substance abuse their entire life and had it licked for a number of years. But she met a predator who posed as a caring person, s/he was vulnerable and lonely and quickly fell in love. Apparently, the scumbag who reignited that habit eventually persuaded my friend to engage in some activity s/he would normally never do, naturally he did this when they were both using heavily, when my friend was impaired and not thinking straight, which damn near borders on rape in my opinion even though s/he wasn’t unconscious or anything. When s/he decided to kick the habit once and for all several months ago, I was very proud, that takes a lot of guts.

But the instigator began trying to drag my friend back into that lifestyle, first with offers of free dope, pushing any buttons he could think to push. When s/he declined and finally cut that person out completely, the scumbag grew more cunning, saying he had items s/he needed to get back and he would throw it in the trash if s/he didn’t come get it. He began alternating promises of undying love with horrible vulgar threats, then he started bragging that he had pics of them engaging in drug use and other embarrassing, deeply personal acts.

At that point I guess the shame and fear over came common sense and the only way s/he saw out of it was death. The victim mistook one medication she had access to for a type of sleeping pill, they look similar, but what s/he actually consumed were blood pressure pills. S/he took a whole handful, enough that they could have posed a real danger but, as it turns out, not enough to kill. The meds basically induced a reaction similar to shock, i.e., the same reaction someone who is bleeding to death experiences. Plus they may have caused damage to the liver and kidneys.

My friend is fine and alert this morning, surrounded by friends and family, mostly s/he just feels terribly embarrassed. As best we can tell the scumbag had no pics of anything, it’s not even clear if the stuff he says my friend did actually happened; does that even matter in the eyes of the law?

That dumbass scumbag had been texting those threats on and off for weeks, there’s a time stamped record of them. Given the circumstances I had no compunction whatsoever about logging into her phone and showing those personal text/threats to the cops. A detective called me later to ask more about the whole episode, and mentioned he can’t tell me the details, through second hand sources my understanding is the scumbag had enough evidence of illicit substance use in his home that, for now anyway, they are no longer free to prey on their next victim.

I’m sorry for burdening readers with this sordid tale. For some reason writing has always been a form of therapy for me and I haven’t slept all night thinking about it. Also, if there are any lawyers or cops out there, how illegal is it to threaten someone like that?