I was in a car accident in May 2011. At the time I was a teacher with a luminous career teaching AP calculus in an impressive district. I fucked with opiates as a high schooler, did rehab a couple of times because my parents didn't know what to do, was sober in college, and at the time of the car accident I was a drinker, a pot smoker, an occasional hallucinogen participant. I was prescribed (at the time of the accident) Vyvanse 40 x1, clonazepam 1 x 3, zoloft 25 x 1, ambien IR 10 x 1, and wellbutrin xl 150 x 3. I was balanced, successful, well-liked, had friends, girlfriends, money, a car, and had "matured out of my pill deviance from high school."
After my car accident, I knew I could get pain killers, so I went to my medical practice feigning severe nerve pain shooting down my legs; there was some pain, but I acted as if I was shot. Although it comes later in the story, I actually did herniate 4 discs. I was given 20mg percocet at the ER that day and that's how it started.
My drug dealer occasionally sold me a Perc or two, but he had a fucked up back as well, and saw a pain doc geographically very close to me who was a pill slinger. After getting 2 weeks worth of morphine sulphate with percs for breakthrough pain from my general practice, I went to this new doctor and told him things were bad. He started me on oxycontin with oxycodone IR for breakthrough, but within three months I was on Opana 30 x 2 ER and Opana 10 x 2 IR a day, the old Opana ERs that you could peel the maroon skin off and crush. I even forged a script once: he wrote it for oxycontin 20's, and I carefully changed the 2 to an 8, got a whole bottle of oxycontin 80's which I was chewing 4 at a time.
My car accident was May 2011. By April 2012, I had lost my job (and my teaching license had been suspended because I got arrested) I was evicted from my apartment and the (small) town in which I lived ostracized me to the point that I had to leave my town of 6 years. My brother didn't speak to me for two years, I ruined my burgeoning career (and I was a GREAT teacher,) went to detox then outpatient rehab, and have had to start all over at 31. Opana, in my opinion, is the devil; without question the most dangerous drug I ever did, blew heroin out of the water, oxycodone was like candy in comparison. Opiates are not something I can fuck with, they activate something in me that turns me into a ceaselessly-seeking drug fiend. I lost every friend I had before and up to the age of 29 (except 2-3 besties), made a fool of myself in innumerable situations due to euphoric-psychosis-type-behavior (hence the losing friends) and as stated earlier was arrested for possession of a CS in the 4th and possession of weapons in the 7th. The trial cost my parents I don't know how much, I was involved in the legal system for 7 mos plus a year before the charges were ACD'd.
I went to outpatient as I said, took it seriously, was the best patient participant in the groups, and have started a new life. I have taken very small amounts of opiates since my ordeal and starting over, but I will say that I was self-medicating at the time. I was on a terrible old medicine that wasn't treating my depression or my anxiety, both of which are very real. In the last 6 months I have developed a cocktail with my current doc that keeps me balanced and productive. While in grad school for a second masters, I held down a job at a startup in manhattan for over a year before the company folded. I'm in my last semester at school, and every time I think about Opana, or serious opiates in general, I think of my first night in detox...the night where they give you nothing to make sure you're in withdrawal. It was the most horrify experience of my life, Suboxone was a blessing on day 2, and I never wanna be there ever again. I fuck with drugs still (Ritalin, Klonopin) that are prescribed, but I am legit scared of Opiates, and terrified of the day I have to have surgery for any reason. I never want to go through opiate withdrawal ever again. I never want to destroy all my friendships again. I never want that hell in my life again.
That's my story.
