recovering addict in chronic pain with PTSD

[sandawz]

I've been through the ringer! ex needle user, methadone clinic, ex speed freak etc. I am a recovering addict with severe chronic pain, bipolar disorder and PTSD I take several controlled substances. Thankfully I have found a mix of meds that work on my many symptoms. While I am opioid and benzo dependent, I don't have an issue with drawing a distinct line between meds and drugs. Currently taking Opana Er 30 mg q 12 hours, Opana 5 mg bid prn, Lyrica 150 mg q 8 hours and meloxicam 7.5 mg q 12 hours for large fiber lumbar radiculopathy, post laminectomy syndrome and a basically crumbling spine with shooting nerve pain in left leg if not medicated. The opioids and Lyrica are potentiated by my PTSD meds that include alprazolam er .5 mg q 12 hours with alprazolam odt .5 tid prn. Also for my Bipolar issues I take Trileptal and Abilify. With Flonase and triamcinolone for nasal allergies and psoriasis respectively.. I will never have another surgery, so I'm sure the doses will go up. My question is, has anyone else just beat themselves into med compliance after years of mixing with street drugs and running out of scrips getting real high for a week and then going through severe withdrawal and extreme pain until the next scrip is ready to fill, got sick of the pain and financial hardships got clean and now takes meds as prescribed? If you go to 12 step meetings do you feel guilty that you are on controlled substances even though the reasons for them are legit? Sometimes I go into pain or anxiety because of the guilt of taking prn's-I know intellectually that that is nothing to feel guilty about and my sponsor keeps telling me that. Sometimes my wife insists that I take my prn's rather than suffer-how does that travel from head to heart? Tell me I'm not alone. I've been in and out of 12 step programs for 19 years never doing a 4th step. Now I have 5 months taking meds as I am told by legitimate doctors who talk to each other and share records. NO STREET DRUGS! I am on my 8th step and have never felt this secure in my recovery-much better than white knuckling it through 2 years. I have a new lease on life and my meds are straight when I allow my self to take the breakthrough pain and anxiety meds. How do I get more comfortable with this? I fell my higher power wants me to treat my disorders without the guilt...

 

[neversickanymore]

Hey Sandawz and welcome to BL. congratulations for sticking in the battle and for all you have accomplished!!

Im sure you're aware that guilt is one of the strongest emotions commonly felt by an addict. The area of our brain thats addicted tries to use emotion to manipulate us to do what it wants. Emotions are not to be trusted blindly. If any emotions results in a desire to use it needs to be examined for its validity. Here is a common on surrounding guilt and shame.

"I can't belive all the awful things I did when I was useing, man I a awful person. Yeah I cant deal with who I am and what I did. This is awful I need some relief. I deserve some relief"

This can be translated to "I feal so guilty and ashamed because of all the harm I caused hitting myself in the head with a hammer that I have to go hit myself in the head with a hammer"

Its can be kinda eerie when people realize they can't trust their own emotions and thoughts. But by understanding that this is a common part of addiction and learning to recognize and deal with it takes allot of its power away and creates a more peaceful recovery.

I think there are some good possibilities of what your addiction is trying to push you to do by hitting you with this guilt. Guilt and shame are two of the biggest weapons of addiction. Please throw them out the window of a moving race car that will zip you all the way to the other side of the world. Guilt and shame are not warranted, do absolutely no good, make us miserable, and drive use. Forgive yourself for whatever you have done, you're only human like the rest of us, we are not perfect gods so we need to stop holding ourselves and our actions to the standards of a god. Humans make mistakes, we even choose to make mistakes. Its all good as we are far from perfect and will never be perfect and thats ok. It could also be trying to separate you from participating in the fellowships as it likely does not like you having a bunch of allies to help fight it. Like they say it tries to isolate us, get us alone so it can break us down. Your doing strong work against it and moving forward in the fellowships, so it could be throwing the guilt at you to try and make you feel you don't belong and to try and drive drug abuse.

If you want to share whether you are a type one or type two BP this may help people with any advice on this. If its BP2 then there are some clearly established forms of addict thinking that you can learn to recognize and then work to change that have the possibility of helping significantly with this. I was diagnosed a BP2 and struggle with its symptoms for years and was medicated for them as well. I have altered the way I think in such a profound way that I no longer experience anything like this and am symptom free without medication. Which is nice because the less medications we need to take the less side effects we have to deal with.

You have nothing to be ashamed of. The use of medication is separated from its abuse and the use of illicit drugs in the fellowships. They consider a person to be abstinent even if they are taking medications as long as they are not abusing them and truely need them. This certainly seems to be you Will other fellowship members have different views, sure. Could these views be negative, sure. Is that ok, sure.

In addition there is a loss of morals and values. When i used to hear this it made me think they were saying I had become a bad person. But this really has nothing to do with it. To become a bad person I would have had to adopt bad morals and values.. we as addicts just lose our morals and values. When this happens we look to others to determine morals and values. By Morals I mean how we are supposed to behave. By values I mean what is important to us. When we look to others to determine our morals and values, we put there opinion above our own and also determine the worth and validity of how we behave and what we value by the opinions and reactions of others. This is why so many addicts have social anxiety and why criticism and praise has such a devastatingly strong effect on us until we work through this issue. Also if we determine everything on the opinions of others we choose to put them in control of us and we will look for constant approval and praise from people, especially people we care about and respect, to let us know we are good people and doing the right thing.

The reason I bring this up is it may be playing a part in your guilt associated with taking medications while participating in an abstinence based recovery program. You may be unitentionally placing the opinions of other fellowship members on this matter over your own. What matters is what provides the best standard of living for you in your situation. This can be identified by honestly looking at your situation and determining this. Do you need the medications? Are you taking them responsibly and not abusing them? Are they preventing you from healing or pushing you dangerously towards relapse? Are there any possible steps you could be taking to eventually heal and relive the need to take any of these medications? I just threw these questions down for you to explore with yourself.

If after a honest exploration with your self, and your HP if you desire, you conclude that taking these medications is needed and poses a reasonable risk, then I belive you have identified your correct moral corresponding to this. To accept it you have to realize this is the correct descion and you are behaving in the way thats right for you based on what you value. When we identify and accept our own values then the opinions of others loose all there power over us. This will include the opinions of other fellowship members who have the opinion and judgment that you are not doing something right. Its just their bloody opinion and they are free to say it, but it will hold no power over you anymore and your emotional reaction to it should be greatly lessened and eventually fade away completely.

Here are some links to NA and AA literature around the topic of medication.

NA groups and medication
The AA Member- medications and other drugs

Your doing great, nice work!! Keep it up and consider including BL in your recovery

 

[sandawz]

Thank you! BP1 with psychotic features, PTSD with dissociation. I am familiar with the official stance AA and NA take on meds, though I've had sponsors in the past talk me into going off meds (before the back problems). Three different sponsors told me I was not sober/clean while on any psych meds. This led to relapse and two suicide attempts. I'm lucky now to go to DRA, dual recovery anonymous, for a spiritual approach to both substance abuse and mental health recovery. Thank God my current sponsor was the right pick, he has PTSD and knows the importance of meds. My guilt driving me to abstain from needed prn's is probably what's left of those sponsors in my head along with the fact that I torture myself. This relates to the PTSD, I was abused in most any imaginable way as a child by a step-father, at some point I took over the role of abusing me. I know that's not what my higher power wants for me, that's why I've finally dug into my step work. Coming up on 19 years since my first NA meeting at 17, but it take what it takes as they say. I feel real joy from your response, every time someone is kind and compassionate with me I am able to be a little kinder to myself. Peace.

 

[neversickanymore]

Sorry you have had so many things to endure and deal with. The abuse done to you has no reflection on you as a person. I hope you can forgive that person at some point, forgiveness is for us, not them and its how we begin to let go.

Thanks for bringing up the duel recovery, I wasn't aware of it and added it to our 12 step group contact links.

Glad you found the right group and a good sponsor. Yeah getting of BP1 meds is not a very good recommendation. Glad you made it through.

 

[LeftAndLeft]

I relate to this post way too much not to respond to it, which is a bit shocking for me. Also bipolar (2, in my case) with anxiety issues. I also share your experience of a step-father who abused you in every way humanly imaginable as a child, and I too went on to torture myself once he was out of my life. Have chronic pain too, though mine is different from yours. So I understand *a lot* of where you're coming from.

Don't stop taking your meds, and don't feel guilty for taking them. I know I, personally, used not taking medication (even OTC meds) as one form of self-harm for a *lot* of years, and it caused more damage than I even saw at the time. I thought I was just losing productivity (getting lazier and weaker) while attempting to avoid pain from everyday activities, but I was also losing any drive or desire to do most enjoyable activities (including things as basic and rewarding as sex) from the same motivation of avoiding pain.
And not having anything left in my life that I could enjoy was a really, really easy way to fall into addiction, because the drugs helped with both the mental and physical symptoms beautifully.

A lot of addicts have issues with anxiety, depression, and even pain that stem directly from their drug use, and they're naturally tempted to judge your case based upon their own. That's human. But if you let yourself listen to advice to be completely drug free, it'll be entirely too easy to be sucked up by the cycles of shifting moods, panic, and the disconnect from pleasurable activities in life that pure physical pain can bring. And that's a really good recipe for addiction -- a far better one than taking your medications as prescribed and staying level.

You're doing the right thing. It's just hard for people who haven't been there to understand. Frankly, with backgrounds like ours, it's hard to give ourselves enough slack and credit to believe we're doing what we should even when it's the best thing for us.

You're doing wonderfully, and I'm proud of you for turning from your self-medicating drug abuse to responsible, stable, prescribed drug use. You should be proud, too. Certainly not guilty.

 

[sandawz]

I am so glad I got over my hesitancy in posting this thread. Thank you both neversickanymore and leftandleft. I chair an open dra meeting on Tuesday nights, just came from there, I brought up the guilt and meds as a topic. I have received so much good advice and many soothing vibes form my group and here. Feeling really good about my progress, and gained some valuable perspective. There was also a side topic of the suicide of Robin Williams, he was also a bipolar addict of course, it's a great time to be in recovery. Thank God for the 12 steps. As for the DRA website, it is outdated since the founder Tim H. passed last January, he was a former sponsor of mine before I was ready. I am friends with his widow, and we are going to be getting world services back on track soon.