We’re all going through the same bullshit and it’s killing us.
If last year they had given me a year’s worth of pills all at once and then told me I couldn’t get a refill for a year.... It would have felt like Christmas. But here’s exactly how I would have handled it:
First, I would have had the biggest f’ing smile walking out of the pharmacy (you all know you’d do the same thing). I was already hooked so I go home and make a plan where I don’t run out. Maybe break it into weekly doses to carry in my pocket (just in case I need extra, but not enough to really screw myself). I hatch some kind of junkie-plan where I use less all week so I can get ‘extra’ relief on the weekend, but I never stick to that plan. In fact, Monday morning I suddenly have way too much pain or stress for even my prescribed dose..... But it’s OK to take extra since I have over 1000 pills right? No way I could use that much.
Then the same crap happens all week. Instead of needing 3 pills per day to feel normal, I have jacked my tolerance up to where I need 10 pills per day just to be comfortable. So now it’s only been a week and I have burned through 3 weeks of pills. Now I have to taper down, but I can’t because I’ll be in withdrawl and I have “responsibilities” (work, kids, house, etc). But it’s OK because I still have more pills than I’m ever going to need. I’ll just cut myself off when life gets easier next week. “I have made it through a could of weeks of withdrawls many times. I’ll live. I’ll just stop taking them for two weeks and get back on track.” Then I hatch some b.s. idea that this is actually better. One week of as much as I ‘need’ and two weeks of abstinence to reset my tolerance.
And then I don’t do it on Monday because I’m now using way too much and just quitting hurts, a lot. I tell myself it’s real pain, something I have zero control over. Not my fault and not anything my Dr can fix, just pain from my injury. It must be flaring up. It will be better to start this tomorrow. “Maybe I screwed up by using too much last week but it’s OK.... I have plenty”. Then Tuesday comes and there’s another very good reason to not quit. Then Wednesday, then Thursday..... etc.
At some point about a month into this I realize my mental inventory of how many pills I have used and how many are left needs to be verified. I discover that I’m really screwed. Its only been a short time into this script and I have used more than half. If I cut back to one pill per day for the next 11 months I’ll be fine. I have enough for a quick taper back to one pill per day. I’m tough. I’ll start working on that ASAP (that’s French for tomorrow). If the rest of the year is going to suck then I deserve one more good day. My week is pretty open this time so I can afford to call out sick from work and tell my wife I am just in pain. I’ll start tomorrow.
Tomorrow is the busiest day of the year. I have a huge list of things to do that got rescheduled ‘till tomorrow. I’m going to call the dentist, file my taxes, and start putting a new roof on my house: all tomorrow. Tomorrow I wake up and say ‘later’. After breakfast becomes after lunch, which becomes after dinner, etc. Then, magically, it becomes ‘tomorrow’ again.
This goes on until I’m almost out of pills. I have been living on 300mg per day of oxycodone for several weeks. I count my pills almost every day now. I go back and forth from being angry at myself, my doctor, the world, but I never really slow down my use. Near the end I just decide that it’s pointless to taper and still suffer, so I’m going to just enjoy the rest of my pills. I’ll suffer either way in a little while, might as well enjoy today. So that’s what I do.
I get down to the last 10 pills or so. I tell myself it’s only a day’s worth of pills anyway. I’ll taper right now. Use 5 today, 3 tomorrow, then 1, and maybe save one for the future. Any taper has to be better than cold turkey right? And then I use them all in one day, feeling guilty the whole time so I don’t get to enjoy them at all.
Next is the part we’re all very well acquainted with. A week or two if some pretty nasty withdrawals. Then PAWS. Depression, insomnia, and pain. Lots of pain. The assumption is that it will all be OK in a month, but that’s wrong.
We think that once the physical withdrawals are gone we will be able to handle it better. We’re told that the worst is done in 7-10 days. We assume that a month will pass and life won’t suck anymore. It is all so very wrong.
If I drink coffee every day in the morning to wake up and I quit, I’ll be really tired every day. If I take medicine for nausea every day for a year, when I quit I’ll be nauseous for a while. Opiates do a lot more than shut off your pain receptors in your brain. Think about the first time.... everything was beautiful once it soaked in. From the top of your head to your little toe: no pain, no stress, none of any part of life was difficult at all. I took the pills for my back pain but my shoulder stopped hurting too. I became relaxed, patient, happy, etc. I slept great, enjoyed food more, became constipated, and a whole lot more things that I told myself didn’t count because that’s not what I used the pills for. And somehow I convinced myself that my wd’s would not include all of those extra things because I was only told that my prescription was for pain. I was told that junkies use them to get ‘high’. And I was led to believe that wd’s only last for a week or two. It was all so totally wrong.....
So back to my year-long prescription.... (only the addicts get excited to think about a bottle of pills that size). Let’s assume I got it filled on Jan 1st. I ran out in the beginning of March. Now I’m out and there’s no hope of getting more.:
March is going to suck. Everyone knows I’ll have nausea, insomnia, diarrhea, and depression. The first week will be all about the bathroom, puking and pooping boulders. Week two is mostly depression. All the while going insane from not sleeping. But I keep telling myself that it’s not for long, that it feels worse than it is, and here’s the kicker..... IF I go through this then I will ALSO be resetting my tolerance so I can get more from my prescription.
It’s all bullshit. Yes the first two weeks sucked, but it’s not over for months. My energy level, my concentration, my sleeping patterns.... They’re destroyed until at least May. Every time I feel like I crossed a major milestone I get excited thinking it’s almost over, and then I get 10 times more depressed when it’s clear it’s not over yet. Every day for months I question whether my psychological symptoms could be from the wd’s. I have pain that I know would be fixed with pills. I am convinced by the end of the first month of wd’s that the pain will never get better. I start planning crazy scenarios where I get more pills. Never seeing that even 2 months into this mess I am still in withdrawal. Everything is being driven by the wd’s but I can’t see it because my whole life I have been told it can’t last that long.
6 months later, now in September, I can see the truth. My general pain is 90% lower than back in February. I still have very painful flare ups but it’s really only my back that ever hurts. My mind is clear and I’m sleeping better. I still think about the good times but I’m not glorifying them any more. Pain hits and I want pills, but I know it’s temporary pain and the pills would be forever. I’m smart enough to stay away, but I still desire the relief. I still tell myself its only for back pain but I realize I’m only lying to myself, so I keep my mouth shut and let it pass. I hate it, a lot. But I know it’s how it has to be.
January 1st. I can get it filled and do it all over. I believed ghat after all of this time I could at least have a beautifully low tolerance, but experience has taught me that is wrong. After 10 months of sobriety I am still not done. However I have seen just how deep into my life the pills have penetrated. I want to be smarter but I’m smart enough to know I’m stupid. I cancel my appointment and don’t refill anything. But I’ll spend the next year retraining my brain to not think of pills every time I get a hangnail. If I hadn’t cut myself off accidentally in March, and then on purpose the following January, I would still be on the roller coaster and clueless about exactly how far into my life the pills had penetrated. It’s clear now that I’m not just an addict, but not only a pain patient anymore either.
The bitch of it is that it doesn’t take days or weeks to see what has happened. It takes months to years. Good rehab programs are 90 days for a reason. I thought after three weeks without pills I would know what bad the pills were bringing to my life but I was so wrong.
AA is a long long life sentence of staying on top of your sobriety and you see people fail all of the time. If you’re still reading this then listen to someone sho has done it wrong a dozen different ways. It doesn’t matter what you’re feeling like right now. You made a decision that it’s not a life and the pills are making life worse, not better. It has been days, weeks maybe, since you quit. You quit for a reason. STAY THE COURSE. If you will be tempted then cut yourself off. You wouldn’t be reading this still if I wasn’t right. You’re trying to accomplish more in weeks than I was able to do in months.
The prescription refill situation for all of us is a motherfucker. Years of opiate or benzo use cannot be undone in a couple of weeks. Even when I did quit, cold turkey for a month, I didn’t feel as stable as I do now after 3 months. And I’m starting to see that I might feel a lot better in a year.
When I was at my lowest, in pain, in withdrawal, I told myself it wasn’t worth it. Then I get my refill and I tell myself it wasn’t that bad. I’m getting close to 3 months since I quit and I am still telling myself that it wasn’t so bad. I know I’m lying to myself and yet I’m telling myself the same lie, and I am still believing it even though I know it’s not true.
