This Story Will Scare You Sober: A New Level Of Fear Unlocked

This Story Will Scare You Sober

Head’s up! I am going to share a shocking story with you. This story is completely true, and I have neither changed nor embellished anything. Here in Cyprus, I have a friend called Antonis, or Tony as he is more commonly called. Tony and I were wardmates, which I admit sounds like we were locked up in the same mental facility together. However, it’s not quite as exotic as that.

On Sunday 27th April 2025, I woke with a sore stomach, nothing dramatic, I would say the pain was around three out of ten, but persistently there. I rode a bike with my friend Andrew, and the pain increased to a steady four. I spent a little time on FaceTime with my daughter, complaining about my stomach ache like a big baby, before my wife said lunch was ready. We sat and ate a tuna salad together, and pretty rapidly afterward, the pain decided to ramp things up a few notches.

By mid-afternoon, it was so intense that I sat rocking in a chair, unable to do anything else. Eventually, I could take it no more and went to the local emergency room. I was ushered to the head of a pretty sizable queue and triaged as an urgent case.

Emergency

Within an hour, I had been dosed up on morphine, x-rayed, and given a CT Scan before the senior doctor reported that I had appendicitis and needed emergency surgery. He said this while passing a medical disclaimer for me to sign; there was no time for debate. What followed was one of the worst experiences of my life, and one in which I believe I came very close to not making it. The hospital left me sitting in a corridor for so long that by the time the operation got started my appendix was in a state of being gangrene and had burst, flooding my abdomen with poison. The amount of pain and distress I went through over the next few days could fill a chapter. I could write a very graphic and exciting story of how I came close to meeting my maker but pulled through in the end. I am not going to do that because, no matter how creatively I wrote, my story would pail into insignificance when compared to the guy I shared a hospital room with during my stay.

Moonshine

Tony is a self-made man who decided to buy some farmland forty years ago and plant olive trees, perfect and resilient for this Greek island's harsh and hot environment. He would sell the olives to local suppliers and restaurants and every time he had a good year and a little extra in the savings account, he would buy more cheap land and repeat the process. Fast forward to 2025 and his entire family, including his daughter and two sons, work on the farm that has become the biggest in Cyprus. He owns 30,000 olive trees and 10,000 grape vines. This part of Cyprus is not significant for making wine, that is better done in the hills and mountain ranges, but the grapes are perfect for creating a powerful local spirit called Zivania.  Ouzo is the national drink of Greece, but Zivania is the famous strong spirit of Cyprus, and it’s absolutely revolting – but opinions may vary.

Antonis is a large, rotund man with a vast and likable personality.  Unfortunately, he has not only spent the last forty years making moonshine, but he’s also spent a good percentage of that time drinking it. At sixty years old, his body is a trainwreck; he has prostate cancer, cirrhosis, and kidney failure. The doctors treat him as though a cure is still possible, but there is an elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. I think Tony knows that he has passed the event horizon; there is no way back from this level of damage. This affable and successful family man is on a railway track with only one destination left. Every night, at visiting time, his family would gather en masse, they would cry and comfort him, they would ask for the latest updates on his treatment, but at no point would anyone dare to mention or even look at the elephant in the room. It was as though, if nobody mentioned that he was dying, then it could not be true.

D-Day

A few days after my admission, I was in a great deal of pain and discomfort because the severe infection was still threatening to overwhelm my system. Tony and I lay in our hospital beds, quietly moaning and grumbling to ourselves. He also had good reason to be feeling miserable; he was scheduled for surgery the following day to remove his cancer-riddled prostate. He had explained in graphic detail how it would be done, and even the thought of it filled me with pure terror. It sounded barbaric. Neither of us slept much that night. At 8 am, the porters arrived to take Tony down to the operating theatre, I wished him luck as he nervously shuffled onto the gurney. He was gone so long that I started to worry that something had gone wrong.

Something Has Gone Wrong

Eventually, many hours beyond when he was due to return, the ward doors slammed open, and Tony was wheeled back in. He looked dead, indeed unconscious. His face was grey and there seemed to be no sign of life. Perhaps an hour or so passed with no movement or sound coming from his hospital bed. I was too scared to talk to him in case I disturbed him or somehow made his pain worse by bringing him back to reality. Eventually, when it was nearing midnight and the ward lights had been dimmed I heard a small, low croaky voice speak ‘Craig’, it said. I answered and only silence followed. I waited, not wanting to rush him or put any pressure on him. Eventually, he whispered, ‘Something bad happened, something went very wrong, my friend’. What he went on to describe is the stuff of your worst nightmares.

Stuff Of Nightmares

Tony had been injected with propofol – the most commonly used general anaesthetic. Once he was confirmed to be unconscious, he was injected with a paralyzing agent that prevented any of his muscles from moving, not even a few millimetres.  This of course, includes his lungs, so a breathing tube was inserted down his throat so machines could breathe for him. All, pretty standard practice for a surgical procedure of this magnitude. The problem was, Tony was awake, his eyes were closed, and his body motionless, but he was acutely aware of what was happening. He told me he could hear the surgeons talking, the radio playing, and the clatter of metal instruments. Desperately, he tried to scream, to move a limb, to do anything to alert the medical team that he was not unconscious, only paralyzed. I think you know what is coming next, and yes, it was every bit as horrendous as you can imagine.

The surgeon began cutting into Tony between the anus and his genitals. He was awake, he was aware, he was entirely able to feel and experience the agony of being operated on. The experience lasted a few minutes; perhaps the medical team noticed distress in this heart rhythm, and more of the drug was injected. Tony awoke in the recovery room, not in a quiet, post-sedation bliss but screaming and in the middle of a full-blown panic attack. Truly the stuff of nightmares.

 You probably have a few thoughts:

1. Is this really possible?
2. Why does it happen?
3. How do I stop it from happening to me?

All thoughts I had myself and immediately asked Dr Google, who, apart from always telling me I am about to die, confirmed anaesthetic awareness is a rare and very traumatic complication that affects specific individuals. The primary catalysts for this surgical challenge are medication interactions and heavy alcohol and drug use. Yes, you heard me correctly. If you develop a sufficient tolerance to alcohol, it can translate into a tolerance to local and general anesthetics. I don’t know about you, but that fresh hell is enough knowledge I need never to touch another drop of this evil poison.

Tony's Terror

Tony’s terror didn’t materialise out of thin air; it was incubated over the years in the repeated glasses of his favourite Zivania. Repeatedly bathing the brain in alcohol teaches it that inhibition is optional and that the GABA‑A receptors—those microscopic bouncers that normally usher noise out of consciousness—should toughen up. They sprout extra sub‑units, change shape, become the neurological equivalent of a nightclub doorman with a cauliflower ear. At the same time, the more excitable glutamate system, muzzled nightly by liquor, compensates by turning up the volume. The result is a neural orchestra forever practising fortissimo, and it takes a bigger pharmacological conductor to make them play pianissimo. Propofol is exquisite at that job in the average teetotaller, yet in a veteran drinker its baton can look suspiciously like a cocktail stick.

The Shocking Truth

To make matters messier, the liver gets dragged into the conspiracy. Chronic drinking inducts cytochrome enzymes until they resemble a production line on Black Friday. Anything lipophilic that wanders into the hepatocyte is dismantled and shipped out quicker than you can say haemoglobin. Propofol is lipophilic royalty. So while the anaesthetist believes the syringe has delivered enough hypnotic to tranquillise a rhino, Tony’s liver cheerfully hoovers up the payload and renders it about as effective as a soggy paper dart. This induces the sort of pharmacokinetic plot twist no one needs when scalpels loom.

Sharp Pain

Modern theatre kit is clever, but it still has blind spots. Heart‑rate monitors notice panic only after the sympathetic nervous system storms the barricades; blood‑pressure cuffs report mutiny every three minutes; EEG‑based depth devices can misread the fireworks of alcohol tolerance as perfectly acceptable sleep. Meanwhile, paralysis drugs have done their mute‑button magic, so the patient is trapped in a body that refuses to whistle for help. Awareness slips in through the side‑door like an uninvited wedding guest, and by the time the clinical team recognises the gate‑crasher, the damage has already drafted itself into long‑term memory.

WTF

Curious about what had happened to Tony, I chatted with a consultant who compared anaesthetising a heavy drinker to “painting gloss onto wet oil.” You add layers, yet it never quite dries. Pour on more, and the surface runs. Anaesthesia, like sobriety, works best when it doesn’t have to wrestle your biochemistry. For years we convinced ourselves that a stiff nightcap helped us sleep; in truth, it merely stunned the cortex and left REM handcuffed in a cupboard. Now the pay‑back arrives in theatre, where stunning the cortex is precisely the aim, except the dose‑response curve is warped like a fun‑house mirror.

The Body Fights Back

If the body’s defensive adaptations were limited to receptor tweaks and enzyme rallies, perhaps we could simply double the induction agent and move on. Alas, the cardiovascular system has its own subplot. Regular ethanol thins the autonomic brake pads; circulation that tolerated a pint of bitter without a tremor may buckle when faced with a scaled‑up bolus of propofol. High doses can collapse blood pressure faster than a politician abandons a campaign promise, and hefty fluid resuscitation is not a hobby surgeons particularly enjoy. Thus the anaesthetist dances on a seesaw: too little hypnotic and Tony meets his nightmare, too much and the blood drains from vital organs like marbles through a colander.

Liver Powerhouse

Lurking behind the curtain is another villain—withdrawal. Suppose the patient, brimming with earnest good intentions, goes cold turkey forty‑eight hours before admission. The pre‑operative nurse smiles, ticks non‑smoker, and writes “No ETOH since Monday.” On the table, midway through a laparotomy, a hurricane of catecholamines blows in, blood pressure skyrockets, and the monitor draws arrhythmic hieroglyphs. Delirium tremens has a lousy sense of timing, and even a fully functioning dose of anaesthetic cannot drown every surge of noradrenaline. Recovery staff are left to corral a hallucinating, tachycardic elephant that none of the textbooks like to mention.

Be Honest

Transparency, then, is the first sedative. When the anaesthetist asks how much you drink, they’re not performing a polite survey for an ONS spreadsheet; they’re scouting for landmines. Handing them the unflattering truth may feel like confessing a double life, but it grants them the chance to load the toolbox with benzodiazepines, beta‑blockers, extra monitoring and—should things drift—crisis algorithms honed on more simulations than Netflix has rom‑coms. Conceal the numbers and everyone enters the theatre armed with guesswork and crossed fingers, never a reassuring combination.

 Terror Timeline

Imagine, instead, the alternative timeline. Six months earlier you made the unremarkable yet seismic decision to become a non‑drinker. Receptor expression began its slow waltz back to normality; the hepatic enzyme factory cut down its overtime; your REM sleep crept out of the cupboard, blinking, and got back to sweeping the cognitive workshop. By surgery day the anaesthetic nurse calculates the dose, presses the plunger, and—lo and behold—the drug behaves precisely as described in the pharmacology handbook. You fade out under lights so bright they could grow tomatoes, wake with a sore throat from the tube but no poltergeists clawing at the memory banks. The morphine PCA button feels decadent in its simplicity; you press it twice, daydream about dinner, and drift into the first genuine nap in years.

Bargaining And Denial

People sometimes query whether switching to wine spritzers or lengthening the gap between binges will spare them Tony’s fate. Sadly, anaesthetic awareness cares little for the vintage and even less for the intervals. What counts is cumulative exposure—the relentless drip that teaches the brain to dodge bullets until it practically audition’s for The Matrix. Tolerance is an uncannily efficient tutor; every session trains the synapse, every morning‑after rewards compliance with another day’s craving. Only abstinence hands neural circuits the study‑leave they require to forget their bad habits.

Myths and Lies

There are myths worth smashing with a mallet. One claims that because alcohol is a depressant, it ‘adds’ to the sedative qualities of anaesthesia, meaning less drug will be needed. In acute intoxication that can hold true, though surgeons are understandably reluctant to slice into someone whose breath could ignite a petrol pump. Chronic intake flips the equation on its head. The body, ever resourceful, wages chemical warfare by upgrading its detox battalions. Those battalions do not clock off when anaesthesia starts; they treat propofol, etomidate, isoflurane and friends as just another round of bar‑night chasers and throw them out before their job is done.

Another myth: a “few weeks off” is sufficient reset. It helps, certainly, but receptor numbers swing back according to biological calendars, not diary wishes. Three months buys noticeable normalisation; six months places you in the same pharmacological postcode as someone whose most daring beverage is peppermint tea. Dramatic? Yes. Impossible? Not even slightly. The organ with the greatest plasticity sits inside your skull, and it remodels faster than a property developer spotting cheap marble.

Protect Yourself 

Perhaps none of this techy neurochemistry grabs you. Fair. Try the angle of dignity instead. Waking on a stretcher weeping from unspeakable memory fragments is indignity of the highest order. Taking steps today to prevent that tomorrow is an act of self‑respect, not self‑denial. Marcus Aurelius wrote that “the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” Your impediment might be two bottles of Shiraz each night. Remove it, and the path flings itself open—not only toward uneventful surgery but toward sharper mornings, conversations recalled in full, cheeks no longer puffed from hidden inflammation, and the curious discovery that supermarket aisles are wider when you’re not darting past the wine rack. 

If alcohol has been your loyal, corrosive companion for decades, the prospect of quitting can look like preparing for life on Mars. That’s fine; you needn’t sign a fifty‑year contract this evening. Promise yourself today plus twenty‑four hours. If that feels achievable, collect another twenty‑four. Brain chemistry will notice, trust me. Tolerance has an ego but it also has amnesia; starve it of reinforcement and it forgets quicker than a toddler flings peas. One dawn, you’ll hear your alarm and realise the night passed without duvet wrestling, sweats or the bleak echo of 3 a.m. despair, and you’ll smile—the small, private smile of a person whose inner auditorium no longer demands constant sedation.

 The Time Is Now

Quitting drinking is easier than you think not because the journey lacks potholes but because the destination removes so many hidden tolls. Tony paid in terror, yet gave the rest of us a visceral reminder of what’s really at stake. You, dear reader, can pay nothing more than the price of your next round getting left on the bar. That feels like a bargain even to my thrifty Yorkshire soul.