5 Activities To Do On Ambien That Don’t Involve Sleeping

When you take an Ambien, you can do one of two things. 1. Use it for its intended purpose and actually sleep. 2. Get fucked up. To be fair, sometimes the latter happens on accident. When you take the pill, you have a small window of opportunity to actually get in your bed and shut your eyes. It’s almost like you’re in a race. Who’s going to win? Sleep or Ambien? I made the mistake one time of taking an Ambien and then doing my bedtime rituals (brushing my teeth, locking the door, changing into pajamas, and tidying up). Even though these things take me no more than ten minutes to actually do, the Ambien had already kicked in mid-toothbrush stroke, and I realized I was doomed. Things immediately got wobbly and even though I ran into my bed, went under the covers, turned off the light, and shut my eyes tight, I knew that the Ambien was going to tell me a little bedtime story before I could go to sleep. Unfortunately, this bedtime story involved doing most of the activities listed below.

1. Eat

Ambien is a fatass. It puts weed munchies to shame. You could have eaten a huge dinner and it still wouldn’t matter because when the Ambien hits, a ravenous hunger takes over you and you begin to crave strange things like hard boiled eggs, spaghetti and meatballs, and an entire box of Wheat Thins. Ambien wants what Ambien wants and it will leave a path of destruction in its quest to be satisfied. I have woken up with a half-eaten Oreo on my chest the morning after an Ambien night with hummus and crackers strewn across my floor. It looked like the Cookie Monster broke into my house or something! People who take Ambien regularly must gain 50 pounds. And the worst part is that you have no recollection of consuming the 2,000 calories. Your entire weight gain is achieved in a blackout.

2. Fuck

This one is obvious. We’ve all heard that sex on Ambien is supposed to be insane. It’s never described as good or bad sex, it’s just insane. I’ve never done it, but I’m curious as to what it would actually feel like. You’re not very coordinated on Ambien so would it just be two bodies flopping together in ecstasy? The thing that would worry me the most though is the increased likelihood of having unprotected sex. In an Ambien haze, you can’t even remember to turn off your lights so what makes you think you would have the foresight and dexterity to put on a condom? I bet there’s going to be a new term coming up in the next year or two. It’s going to be called “Ambien baby.” Imagine explaining to your child, “Honey, you weren’t a mistake. Mommy and daddy were just fucked up on sleeping pills. We don’t even remember you being conceived! Love you so much though.”

3. Write fan mail

I got the funniest email once from someone who admitted she was composing the entire email on Ambien. Republished with permission from the author, here’s an excerpt I’d like to share:

my most recently developed post-graduate lyfestyle tradition is to write an e-mail to someone when i take an ambien before completely passing out. this has happened a few times now (this drug makes me feel too weird to take it more often than that), and i really enjoy its function as written documentation of a drug experience. i can’t wait to regret this later in life when i am trying to be a post-modern politician… j/k!!

in the past, i have always written these e-mails to trusted friends. reasons for this are pretty obvious; friends know the usual things to expect to come from my waking, generally functioning brain. you know, totally clever/witty/on-point/just drop a beat and i’ll bust a freestyle rap track. and so, with the ambien email we can all find fun in some non-judgmental lolz the next morning from reading a new record of devolving coherence // drug-induced departure from reality. everyone loves a good rendition of neurotransmitters working their magic, right? this is scientific data y’all.

but tonight i am taking a new approach to the ambien e-mail (ambiemail?) tradition, because i am writing to you, ryan o’connell. unfortunately (for me at least), we are not friends, but apparently i still decided to choose you to be the receiver of my next a-mail. this fact has not seemed to stop my flow, considering how many sentences it appears i have already produced whenever i scroll up. when did those even happen? looks like a bit of ramblien, so glambien right now.

so what i’m realizing (besides that i do not need to be listening to godspeed write now if i’m going to finish this sitting up) is the thread you share with the other receivers of these ambiemails. as with my friends who know how my mind works normally, i apparently trust explaining/exposing things to you in a context like this one. it seems that you too have a sense of how my brain might work “regularly,” despite having never met me. this is a form of trust that you have instilled through your writing, in myself and surely many other readers of certain demographics. i don’t know about calling it a gift or a power or anything, but it’s certainly an accomplishment. it is important.

Ramblien? Glambien? Funnier words have never been typed!

4. Do yoga

When my friend and I were traveling through Europe, we did take the occasional Ambien to help with jet lag (Don’t judge. I was jet lag’s bitch for a solid week!) Anyway, shortly after my friend and I had taken it one night, I heard a noise in the living room and found her getting into yoga positions. She was essentially doing Ambien P.E. (a class I wish I took in high school). I don’t really know what implored her to get her fitness on at 2 a.m. in our apartment in Barcelona while under the influence of Ambien, but she seemed to be really into doing downwards facing dog.

5. Call your friends

“Ambidialing” blows drunk dialing out of the water. A few months ago, my friend called me on Ambien and started to tell me in a shaky ethereal voice that she was so blessed, her life was so blessed, her apartment was so blessed, her couch was blessed, her bed was blessed. I, for one, felt blessed to be the friend on the receiving end of the phone call. One thing I apparently didn’t know about Ambien? It helps you gain perspective and reach happy epiphanies about your life. “I didn’t know you could use Ambien to sleep. Cool!”