^There's some weight to that statement, and I cannot in good faith disagree with your sentiment. However, life doesn't always play out as we would like it to and sometimes we break the rules. It's being human. We can't condone the behavior, but we can do our best to direct the OP along the path of least resistance in terms of side effect.
Now, OP, I would like to give you a warm welcome to the community! The vast majority of us are caring, compassionate and knowledgeable people, myself excluded of course
. I'm very sorry to hear that you're in pain my friend. I've had over 15 highly invasive surgeries throughout the course of my life and while I could never truly understand your pain, I know what it's like to feel vulnerable in that way. It's terrible, but luckily, you have resources.
Is the Codeine a sole-ingredient preparation? No APAP, Ibuprofen or anything of that nature? If there is an OTC painkiller coupled with your Codeine, it can be removed with relative ease by performing a Cold Water Extraction. We have a fucking plethora of resources regarding the process both here on BL and on the internet at-large. See Reddit.
Now, I'm approaching this scenario from the point of view that you are utterly naive to this sort of thing. What you're dealing with are two classes of drug: Benzodiazepines and Opioids. Opioids produce euphoria, obviously, but their primary purpose is analgesia. Benzodiazepines do not have a major impact on your level of pain,
but just because the Benzodiazepines are not providing analgesia does not mean you will not experience a better subjective experience with the sedative on board.
It's easy to die by combining these substances, but if you are responsible, consult with us and other resources in advance, it can be done in relative safety. It's not an uncommon process to put a small amount of Benzodiazepine in a patient's line if they are consistently complaining of pain. The combination provides synergy and to be real, the combination together will fuck you up moreso than if you took them separately.
The main takeaway? You can utilize Benzodiazepines and their inherent synergy with Opioids to lower the total amount of Opioids that you are using. I would like to know the dosage of Opiod that controls your pain or otherwise makes it tolerable. Once I have that information, we can broach that touchy subject of poly-substance use. It's an art form.