As a seasoned junkie, and what the DEA labeled me back in the early 1990s, a "professional drug seeker and manipulative con artist," I can go along with most of these ten commandments of drug seeking. However, there are a couple I have to nitpick on, and only because I personally had negative experiences on these specific topics during my roughly 17-year stint as an all-consumed, fully dedicated and widely-traveled drug seeker.
Commandments 2, 3 and 4, while I will not dispute their logic nor their practical use, can delve off into behaviors that medical professionals are trained to be indicative of drug seeking behavior. As to Commandments 2 and 3, in particular, it is fairly common knowledge within the medical community that many drug seekers and factitious malingerers are autodidacts when it comes to medical terminology, anatomy and physiology and pharmacology. In fact, a great many serious drugs seekers are nothing short of walking medical encyclopedias. When I first started on my seeking journey over 3 decades ago, I made no secret of the fact that I held two advanced medical degrees. Indeed, this was -- what I thought at the time anyway -- a valuable addition to my bag-o-tricks when deceiving doctors and nurses into giving me the dope. And, admittedly, this spiel did work on a number of occasions. Other times, I found myself under the spotlight with the old 20 questions routine on my background in medicine. Since my background was probably the most legitimate aspect of my factitious existence, this type of Q & A from caregivers wasn't a problem to uphold, but rather served to steer the visit in the wrong direction by making manifest an air of suspicion that would polute the entire visit to some degree, even if.I was able to smooth the waters somewhat with my silver tongue. On at least a few occasions, medical staff believed me to be deceptive as to having any formal medical education, but rather believed that I was self-taught in medical lingo and knowledge in an attempt to "fit in as one of the caregivers... as part of his ruse," as one doctor noted in my chart after a failed attempt at scoring narcotics at a pain clinic in the deep south. After a few of these failed attempts, my new acquaintance and mentor, "Dr. Michael," who I fatefully assisted with car trouble while leaving that clinic, wisely schooled me on the proper usage of medical terminology when being seen by healthcare professionals. (Michael had been a family practitioner in the 1970s thru most of the 1980s, before losing his DEA prescribing priviliges then, ultimately his medical license due to a matter involving some blank prescription pads, a handful of promiscuous, blonde young ladies that Dr Michael had hired personally at his practice, and a quickly-growing addiction to narcotic painkillers.) Indeed, Michael schooled me on the.proper use of words in general when in a healthcare setting. And, I have to admit, the 10 Commandments do touch on many of the correct DOs and.DON'Ts in this regard: keep answers clear, concise, and do not volunteer needless information or ramble. Michael explained that while he was doing his internship and subsequent four years of residency, the senior attending neurologist, and Michael's superior, was a physican who had taken a keen interest in subject matter related to malingering, factitious disorders, detecting deception, drug seeking behaviors, and.was known to have an almost uncanny ability to read body language and mannerisms to determine if a patient was malingering or otherwise being deceptive to obtain controlled drugs. In turn, Micheal's mentor loved to pass this knowledge on to his interns and residents as part of the curriculum. While Michael was not doing narcotics this early on in his medical career, he did take great interest in these particular psychological and socioogical aspects of addiction and drug seeking behaviors. And, he was also one of those guys that, regardless of the plethora of.brain cells he had burned up in his smack-addled brain, soaked up knowledge like a sponge soaks up water, and could easily recall and enunciate that knowledge at the drop of.
a hat...when the need would arise. In short, Dr. Micheal possessed a treasure trove of knowledge on how to successfully lie to providers. Not only did he know the ins and outs regarding the mechanics of drug seeking, he was also an extremely gifted, albeit supernumerary thespian, and had a flair for the darkly-dramatic arts -skills that are priceless in this game. Michael could feign severe pain so well that, on a number of occasions, his cries of agony, horrendous screams of pain, and his highly convincing style of doubling over with abdominal distress were so effective, that nurses had to give him two 75 mg IV doses of Demerol (and the old-school 12.5 mg chasers of.IV Phenergan) just to get him up on the table for an initial examination. He was that good. And like any good student shouid strive for, my thirst for this knowledge was unquenchable. I was very easily just as addicted to this perilous lifestyle as I was the drugs I worked to diligently to obtain. After a couple of years of testing the waters and polishing the chrome of my new craft, I set out to follow Michael on his journey of city to city, town to town, hospital to hospital, clinic to clinic, pills to mouth, syringe to vein. This was back before 1996 and the tidal wave that would crash down upon the drug scene with the release of OxyContin by Purdue Pharma. In fact, it was mid-1994: as far as the painkiller scenario back then, Hydrocodone (Lorcet Plus, Vicodin ES, Lortab) Oxycodone (Tylox, Percodan, Percocet), Meperidine (Demerol) and Hydromorphone (Dilaudid) were pretty high up on the ladder of street demand drugs. Obviously, pulling a quick lick at the local ER isn't going to score you a lot, even back during that opioid liberal era -- at most, typically 30 to 45 pain pills belonging to one of the narcotic genres I just named. Sure, maybe if you hit 4 or 5 ERs in a 24-hour run, it would roughly be worth your time. So, my goal in the ER was generally not to be discharged with a small scrip of painkillers; rather, being admitted to the hospital was my ultimate prize. An admission would be good for several days of regular IV opioids, oral painkillers for breakthrough pain, as well as benzos, barbiturates or muscle relaxers for what they used to call "comfort meds," to promote rest and relaxation while in the hospital. It almost always worked out that if I got admitted, Michael would be admitted, too, and we would generally end up on the same floor, playing the.part of new buddies who just met under circumstances of close room proximity and good fortune. TO BE CONTINUED
(I will add much more to this memoir in the coming days, if anybody wants to hear the ramblings of an old junkie and ex-convict.)
Sorry 4DQSAR. I get your point.
