How many Veterans are like Me medically addicted

[Zevon4EVR]

I am a 50 y/o M with several deployments in the 80's and after i ETS'd the VA started me on heavy narcs are there others like me out there that need to talk or need some form of help. I would like to help.It is real hard to live in the present when you lived a entire live in the past. M

 

[MrRoot]

I would say that there are plenty of vets out there who are addicted either to prescription drugs, alcohol or street drugs.

Well atleast I am up to some point addicted to painkillers.

Done few rotations on Afghanistan as a peacekeeper on ISAF forces few years back.

 

[Loco Oso Blanco]

Brother, I'm in the same boat. I joined the same year Clinton took office and ETS'd the last year of W. Four deployments in the 90's, and half again as many from 9/11 until I was med-boarded out for back injuries on my next-to-last deployment. Had three disc fusion surgeries (ACDF) while on active, so my medical addiction started even before my EAOS. I made it through my last deployment in '06 with a bottle of Lorcets always on my person - all I had to do was go to the corpsman whenever I needed a refill. After I got home they referred me to a civilian "pain specialist" who kept me so doped up it was silly. I didn't hurt mind you, but damn if I could function. After getting out and starting to be seen by the VA, they kept me on the same dose at first, but thankfully I had doc who would listen and (at my request) eased my dosage down over about a 2 year period so I'm at a level I can function at - 60mg of MS twice a day and 1800mg of Gabapentin twice a day. After taking narcs daily for something like a decade now I've got a ludicrous tolerance, and 120mg a day of Morphine doesn't really do squat but take the edge off - but that's all I really want. I'd rather live at a pain level of 3-5 (depending on the day - the weather, how I slept, etc etc) and be coherent.

As far as living in the present... you couldn't have said it better about having lived an entire life in the past. I joined at 18 and got out in my 30's (I'm just hitting 40 now). About 85% of my adult life up till now was spent on active duty - and in those 16 years I did more, saw more places and met more people than most folks do in a lifetime. The absolute hardest part of the whole thing for me - besides feeling like a junkie at times because I need pills just to get out of bed - is to let go. Not forget, but not let it drive where I'm at now, or where I need to be headed - and that's damn hard. Its hard because it's (for the most part) all I know. Its hard because NO ONE gives a crap - other vets are the ONLY ones who can even remotely relate. I've started going back to school in an attempt at a second career, but all my medical issues make it real challenge. I feel totally rudderless most of the time. It may sound cheesy, but there's a quote from Sitting Bull (it's actually a one-line song he wrote while imprisoned at Ft. Bufort) that I first read about a year after I got out - and it rings so true that it almost brought tears:

"A warrior I have been. Now it is all over. A hard time I have."

You're definitely not alone.

 

[VitamaN]

All the young vets I know when they got out they turned to alcohol for support. We all know how well that works...
I know a gulf war vet. Super strong person... that's why he's not addicted. I went through his medicine bag (with his permission).
holy shit they were throwing oxy and methadone at him like it was aspirin . I watched an HBO special about a suicide hotline for vets. Wow. Those guys were on coke and H and had loaded guns just dying to die. It's hardcore. Much respect to the struggle of people who live in a hellhole of PTSD and in my friends case, Gulf war syndrome.

 

[MrRoot]

I would like to know how you who have been through the hell and stayed alive can deal with the +1 rule being active nearly always or just always after you have seen it work in real life situations?

How do you suppress that mentally since plenty of vets use alcohol or drugs to get rid of that feeling of being always aware of your surroundings and other people and assuming that there is always one threat more than you can find although in normal life there most like are none at all?

During first week after my first rotation (9 months on duty) I nearly got to a very bad trouble as I couldn't walk into a small store to buy my cigarettes as there were too many people and I couldn't handle that much of possible threats.

So I waited outside for atleast fifteen minutes until there was only the clerk of that store and one customer.

That clerk had spotted me stalking the store for a while and hit the alarm button asap I started walkikg into that store and when I left the store after I had bought my cigarettes the security guy came rushing in and came too near telling me to stop so I just took him down and handcuffed him with his own handcuffs.

Well it did not take too long until the police came since the clerk had informed the security company by phone about my looks and the security guy was round the corner and even police was informed to come by if the security guy won't answer his radio after arriving to the store.

I came back to my senses from the adrenaline rush after the cops started pointing me with a gun although I was thinking about the dodge behind the security companys car and fire my own concealed carry Glock 36c.

Luckily all of this situation went well and I got through by talking about this with intermediator instead of going into court.

After my last rotation I was able to go to the public only using benzo and painkiller combo as with that I felt I could not care less if all the people I saw were actual threats.