Crankinit i have no idea who your quoting but the only thing I would say to
ComeAlongPond (not-so stealthy edit - worked out who it was) is because your trying to stop by yourself that will be quite a challenge. If you fall off the horse don't feel guilty if you don't. don't punish yourself. Here are some things you can do/consider
- doing cold water extract on your codeine pills. This will remove as much as paracetamol (there is a thread that details how to do this). This will greatly reduce load on your liver.
- never ever drink when eating paracetamol (APAP). It makes the paracetamol far more toxic on your liver.
- definitely go get your knee fixed. I too had a terrible knee injury. I spent years moaning about it only to visit to the physio who resolved in one go. So do it. stop putting it off. Its $70!
- you should go to your GP and get a referral for counselling. someone closed to me for years felt it was a terrible weakness to speak to someone only to found it did immense help when things came to a head and they were forced to see one.
But the most important thing you (and crankinit) need to do is learn about drug addictions and what is causing the withdrawals (which is related but not caused by addiction). This is a quite a weighty article -
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2783351/ but explains that the sickness we feel when we've missed a dose of opiates is caused by Glial (the pink structural sponge stuff in our brain) being pummelled by inflammation molecules.
What makes you different is that in early childhood your mother suffered elevated levels of stress (cortisone) which in turn caused your brain to become primed and react differently. Before you took opiates your brain was crying out for them and when it doesn't get them you'd get sick in various ways. Look at your behaviours before then and see if anyone of them would have generated endorphins (the bodies natural opiates). Did you suffer depression and/or addictions of another type? Did you take other drugs in early. This effect is drug agnostic , meaning that it doesn't matter the drug.
This
Times article explains this massive paradigm shift:
“This is a paradigm shift in how one views drug reward,” says lead author Linda Watkins of the University of Colorado, Boulder. “All prior concepts of why drugs like opioids are rewarding, why drugs become abused, have focused exclusively on neurons.”
This is why Professor Watkins and Dr Hutchinson (an aussie) have developed a medication that is a simple anti-inflammatory that targets the glial in your brain. This drug has worked wonders in its trials. Withdrawals have been smashed into nothing. Drug Tolerances removed and the quality of their painkilling affect improved. In fact they have discovered that it works on almost any narcotic withdrawal i.e. Meth. Suggesting that drug addiction be it opiates, meth or cocaine are all caused by glial being ultra sensitive.
So don't feel guilty or bad that your taking drugs. Obviously you want to control your intake. You can either try and do it yourself or you can seek help.
Your husbands misconceptions are going to be difficult to battle. But you did take an oath to be open and honest with them. Yes his sister is an ex-addict but that's no excuse for him to believe in lies. Our society has created a lie about opiates and drugs in general that somehow drug use is some sort of weakness in character, that its simple to say no to them and that if you fail then your shit, your nothing. A dirty, barely human, being who should be shunned and attacked.
There is no payback mechanism in your brain that is winding up when you take opiates only to wound down into some presumed sickness/withdrawals. Its a structural problem. Your brain is primed to take opiates and to respond violently when you don't have them.
This isn't your fault. Now there are degrees of damage. Some people need huge and regular opiates to starve off the response their glial is undergoing. Obviously you aren't at the extreme of the scale. Some people are highly functional and can take drugs (doesn't mean their brains aren't damaged either) whilst others are utterly dysfunctional.
I think if you can wrap your head around this utterly ground breaking research and discuss it, in the context of his sister addiction then you could perhaps create a moment of clarity in his mind and make him see that her addiction and behaviours weren't caused by a weakness in character but rather a malfunctioning brain. A really good book is 'the realm of the hungry ghost' by Dr. Gabor Maté
Remember everyone who wants to argue with me - the proof is in the pudding. Why would a simple anti-inflammatory medication stop opiate withdrawals if it was your pleasure centre/neurons/receptors crying out for more opiates? The senior consultant at a major centre of addiction medicine was happy to argue about the old orthodoxy but quietly conceded to me that ibudilast is in trials and will be coming to Australia (about 2 years off). This says that they are well aware of what's happening.
So what to do if. You could talk to your GP about going on a program and dosing at a chemist. GP's can take on up to 5 patients. If your GP denies this ask him to call
Specialist Advisory Line
Contact NSW Drug & Alcohol Specialist Advisory Services (DASAS) on (02) 9361 8006 in Sydney metropolitan areas or 1800 023 687 in NSW regional/rural areas for clinical advice on the diagnosis and clinical management of patients with alcohol or other drug related problems
That of course if your in NSW. I'm sure your state would have a similar service. Look up in google your state's medical department Opioid Treatment Program.
Of course though your doctor would be reluctant to prescribe a powerful synthetic opioid for what he'll blatherly assume is a nothing addiction (people who are addicted to codeine are looked as quite weak) but perseve. Maybe he prescribe clondeine to help you through the acute withdrawals. There are a range of drugs that can take the edge off the withdrawals.
The real question about a program is really how long have you been using. Is it just 2 years or is it something in order of 10-20 years. Have you engaged in behaviours that would create more endorphins then otherwise? Have you used codeine on a less regularly scale for much longer? If you've lived with opiates all your life then admit it so. But if this is really something that happened in the last 2 years then maybe you'll be lucky, kick the addiction with some GP help and then go on with your life.
Edit: and woah, have a look at this!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25386959 - this paper suggests that long term codeine use actually causes you to experience more pain in relation to injuries! How paradoxically. You take codeine to treat a small/medium pain. You end up taking it for years and the pain gets worse! You think its because your tolerant of opiates but rather its because the opiate itself is affecting your brains response to pain.
/end long post.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
