Aa
Oxycontin
Can Oxycontin be detected using the standard drugs of abuse laboratory test?
GNC is a vitamin/herbs store on the east coast. I don't know where you live but we have them all over the place around Maryland. Take Care
Thanks Kate, I didn't even think to put the name of the Acronym. Hahaha LOL Take Care
Chad
Chad
I'm in Maryland also. There must be a GNC on every corner. Mom & Pop stores seem to have better prices.
how do you mask the oxy? or do you just bugger the whole test? they have tests for that now, too. The "gosh, now that you mention it, I had some poppy seed muffines the other morning" still works, doesn't it?
If you're taking controlled substances for a documented, chronic condition, i.e., bad disks or the like, and you present them with your legal prescriptions, is that still a bar to employment when you're going through the hiring process? I'm using both opiates and benzos on a daily basis legally and don't expect to be curtailing it soon. What's the story. Chad, do you know?
If you bring the presciption bottles with you to your urinalysis. By law you will not be barred from employment. There is an equal rights law that says as follows:
Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which prohibits employment discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities in the private sector, and in state and local governments;
Now the disability act is the one you might be interested in. If you are disabled or not, but on medication, it is against the law to discriminate. All you have to do is bring your prescription bottle(s) to the lab when you get tested.
I did the same thing and I was hired with Bell Atlantic/Verizon.
Hope this helped?
Take Care
Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which prohibits employment discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities in the private sector, and in state and local governments;
Now the disability act is the one you might be interested in. If you are disabled or not, but on medication, it is against the law to discriminate. All you have to do is bring your prescription bottle(s) to the lab when you get tested.
I did the same thing and I was hired with Bell Atlantic/Verizon.
Hope this helped?
Take Care
Lynn hasn't posted back on this yet so who knows why the question came up. It could be that he is on house arrest as well. I talk to a fellow once in a while who wears the ankle bracelet and he can get tested twice a week! He tells me that the GNC stuff doesn't work with the new court ordered tests. I'd surely hate to find out the hard way if I were in his shoes. Anyway, just a warning to the wise. J.B.
........Was wondering how you are doing?? I'm still "doing the mix" thing. lol Taste bad but, less worrisome. That was really a brilliant concept. Seperating the tylenol from the hydrocodone. Never would have known. Only I have Oxycodone now.
Don't like it much.
Have you been beating yourself up??? Don't give up on your plan.
Times change and situations change. Keep pressing for what you want. I will ck on you from time to time.
Don't like it much.
Have you been beating yourself up??? Don't give up on your plan.
Times change and situations change. Keep pressing for what you want. I will ck on you from time to time.
Pat to annie
Tom's not going to post on the board until he follows through on his pledge to take one of the treatment options written about ad nauseam on the forum.
However, tom spent much of last night writing, what we will call a "night's memoir."
He wrote it partly to unburden himself but, principally, to remind everyone that visits or frequents this forum of how precious life is, how relentless the disease of drug addiction is, and how, in the blink of an eye, this disease can have you dangling over a cliff, ready to plunge into the abyss.
From tom to all:
"I feel I must begin this story the way so many horrific tales are begun:
This is a true story, described as it happened with no detail omitted, no embellishment added, and no dramatic license taken.
Most of you who know me are aware that I've be addicted to opiates for thirty years and now maintain myself, if one can call it that, with a combination of darvon and xanax. However, in a matter of a few months, private physicians in California and elsewhere will be able to obtain certification to treat patients for opiate addiction with the drug buprenorphin. This is the course I have decided to take and, while the legislative wheels slowly turn, I go on, day after day, dosing myself with enough Darvon and Xanax to enable me to work and, in short, function in society.
If you're getting bored by now, take heart, because this story is about to become a lot more "interesting."
Wednesday night started out quite happily. I had firmed up a job interview for Friday. If successful, this job would dramatically enhance my future and that of my family. It was long in coming and well deserved. Wednesday night my wife and I thought we had something to toast, so we did. A few Baileys and what not, nothing (seemingly) that I couldn't handle.
But I had forgotten a little bit of basic wisdom about Xanax and alcohol. Mixing the two can result in paralysis and death. It's there on rxlist.com for any idiot to read. Midnight came around I suddenly felt a little "too" medicated. It takes a lot for me to feel "too' medicated. Therefore, I elected to take a solitary stroll through our neighborhood to clear my head.
We live in what amounts to a suburban enclave built into a row of steep hills. This gives each of us our cherished view of the Pacific Ocean in all its beauty. All the streets are connected by steeper than average cross streets, the kind you think twice about parking your car on for fear of finding it crashed at the bottom from an overwhelmed parking break - steep, roughly asphalted bastards that test your climbing abilities and give you nice calf muscles if you walk them enough. It's a nice, private collection of streets with no street lamps to spoil the beauty of the night (or help you find your way home).
I was perhaps a twenty-minute stroll from my front door when it hit me. An almost-total paralysis overwhelmed the muscles of my body and, perfectly conscious, I watched as my limbs became rubber and my body fell harshly to the ground. To my horror, I found I could not raise myself from the round. I couldn't even get up on my hands and knees.
It began to rain. I was now in a curious position:
I knew I needed to go to the ER
In order to get there, I knew I had to attract help.
I tried to cry out for help only to find that I had virtually lost the power of speech, mouth and tongue virtually paralyzed.
I considered by predicament. If I was successful in attracting someone's attention: this would have been the sequence of events:
The police and paramedics would be called. I would be rushed into the ER. A police report would be taken. My doctor would be contacted and, conceivably, charged for one prescribing violation or another. The entire neighborhood would find out. They already knew I had gone into a court-ordered rehab in 1994. I was supposed to have made a complete success of it and rebuilt my life and career. To the observer, I was a rehab success story.
If I went to the ER, I knew my family would be shamed; I would have been hospitalized and lost the new job. Our finances would have imploded. Plus, our landlord, hearing the news, would quite likely have evicted us from our dream life in the hills overlooking the great Pacific.
At the same time, I knew that if I didn't get myself off this rain soaked road I would lay there till I quite likely died.
I thought, "is this how the story ends? Found dead, another drug casualty, cut down in his prime. How sad. How senseless. How typical.
I decided that, if I could drag myself to my doorstep, I could at least go to the ER without all the spectacle of the cops and paramedics.
I managed to claw my way up onto my feet using a hillside covered in ice plant. I promptly fell and fell hard. I did this many times. Until I determined that the only way I would make the half-mile back to my door step was to crawl. This I did for the next 90 minutes in the pouring rain, the odd SUV passing by inches from me every 10 minutes or so. I was quite lucky not to be run over.
I finally got to one of these steep feeder roads I described and simply tumbled down the length of it until I was laying face down in the mud on my own street. It took another hour to drag myself to the bottom landing leading to my second-level front door.
At this point, I was so exhausted I could barely move. I looked up the dimly lit set of brick stairs leading to my front door. I immediately discovered that I lacked the strength in my arms to drag my body up even one step, let alone the thirty steps I needed to cover.
I wondered again, is this where it ends? Is this the end of my life? I lay there a few minutes, asking myself, do I really want to go on, or is this the merciful end denied to so many others?
I decided no, I did not want to go out a loser on this rainy night. Another wasted human receptacle of education, training and experience, some of which might still have some value to the world.
It now occurred to me. If I hadn't the strength in my arms, what about my legs? I rolled myself over on my back, head facing upwards towards the top landing which was my goal.
For the next hour, maybe two hours - I don't know - I pushed with what strength was left in my legs and lifted as hard as I could with my now-bleeding elbows. Step by step, I pushed myself up to the top landing.
All this time, mind you, it was so dark, so rainy and so removed from the usual police beats that nobody had noticed this soaked, writhing mass slithering snakelike down the street for a total (counting both streets) of about 1 mile!
By now, I had lost my shoes somewhere on the road, most of my jacket, and was literally covered from the shoulders down with bruises and abrasions. By some miracle, I had not a mark on my face or neck.
By another miracle, my house key had not fallen out of my pocket. I reached up with the key. I could barely lift my arm or move my hand to work the lock.
Once in the door, I dragged myself up into a chair and just sat there breathing. My tongue was bone dry and swollen and I knew I needed to get some water down my throat. After a few minutes in the chair, my control of my arms and legs slowly returned and I was able to stagger into the kitchen by holding onto various pieces of furniture until I got to the sink and drank down some water.
Somehow, this caused a dramatic return of muscle control and I was able to stagger into the bedroom to my sleeping wife. (She had not known that I had even left the house. At the time, I thought I'd be back in ten minutes).
She helped me out of my clothes and into a warm shower. A few minutes later, I was lying in my own bed, breathing, drinking fluids, recovering control of my arms and legs, and trying to explain to my wife what I had just experienced.
With one day to recover, by the grace of god, I was able to hold it together for exactly one hour in order to make my job interview and land my lucrative contract. With no marks on my face or neck, I was able to hide the appalling collection of bruises and abrasions from view.
As I drove home from the interview, hurting from every point of my body like a motorcycle accident victim, I thought, "This, Tom, is God's last act of grace to you. By any standard of reasoning, I should have been, at that moment, lying in a hospital with my life ruined and family publicly shamed, my wife facing an eviction notice with a drug addled, broken down, unemployable husband.
Instead, I start my new job on Monday. I have since reviewed the readily accessible information about the lethality of mixing benzos like Xanax and alcohol. I still cannot fathom how I could have been so stupid as to let this happen.
But here I am. I'd say God cut me some major slack - why, I don't know. But I do know what I'm going to do because of the experience."
Tom's not going to post on the board until he follows through on his pledge to take one of the treatment options written about ad nauseam on the forum.
However, tom spent much of last night writing, what we will call a "night's memoir."
He wrote it partly to unburden himself but, principally, to remind everyone that visits or frequents this forum of how precious life is, how relentless the disease of drug addiction is, and how, in the blink of an eye, this disease can have you dangling over a cliff, ready to plunge into the abyss.
From tom to all:
"I feel I must begin this story the way so many horrific tales are begun:
This is a true story, described as it happened with no detail omitted, no embellishment added, and no dramatic license taken.
Most of you who know me are aware that I've be addicted to opiates for thirty years and now maintain myself, if one can call it that, with a combination of darvon and xanax. However, in a matter of a few months, private physicians in California and elsewhere will be able to obtain certification to treat patients for opiate addiction with the drug buprenorphin. This is the course I have decided to take and, while the legislative wheels slowly turn, I go on, day after day, dosing myself with enough Darvon and Xanax to enable me to work and, in short, function in society.
If you're getting bored by now, take heart, because this story is about to become a lot more "interesting."
Wednesday night started out quite happily. I had firmed up a job interview for Friday. If successful, this job would dramatically enhance my future and that of my family. It was long in coming and well deserved. Wednesday night my wife and I thought we had something to toast, so we did. A few Baileys and what not, nothing (seemingly) that I couldn't handle.
But I had forgotten a little bit of basic wisdom about Xanax and alcohol. Mixing the two can result in paralysis and death. It's there on rxlist.com for any idiot to read. Midnight came around I suddenly felt a little "too" medicated. It takes a lot for me to feel "too' medicated. Therefore, I elected to take a solitary stroll through our neighborhood to clear my head.
We live in what amounts to a suburban enclave built into a row of steep hills. This gives each of us our cherished view of the Pacific Ocean in all its beauty. All the streets are connected by steeper than average cross streets, the kind you think twice about parking your car on for fear of finding it crashed at the bottom from an overwhelmed parking break - steep, roughly asphalted bastards that test your climbing abilities and give you nice calf muscles if you walk them enough. It's a nice, private collection of streets with no street lamps to spoil the beauty of the night (or help you find your way home).
I was perhaps a twenty-minute stroll from my front door when it hit me. An almost-total paralysis overwhelmed the muscles of my body and, perfectly conscious, I watched as my limbs became rubber and my body fell harshly to the ground. To my horror, I found I could not raise myself from the round. I couldn't even get up on my hands and knees.
It began to rain. I was now in a curious position:
I knew I needed to go to the ER
In order to get there, I knew I had to attract help.
I tried to cry out for help only to find that I had virtually lost the power of speech, mouth and tongue virtually paralyzed.
I considered by predicament. If I was successful in attracting someone's attention: this would have been the sequence of events:
The police and paramedics would be called. I would be rushed into the ER. A police report would be taken. My doctor would be contacted and, conceivably, charged for one prescribing violation or another. The entire neighborhood would find out. They already knew I had gone into a court-ordered rehab in 1994. I was supposed to have made a complete success of it and rebuilt my life and career. To the observer, I was a rehab success story.
If I went to the ER, I knew my family would be shamed; I would have been hospitalized and lost the new job. Our finances would have imploded. Plus, our landlord, hearing the news, would quite likely have evicted us from our dream life in the hills overlooking the great Pacific.
At the same time, I knew that if I didn't get myself off this rain soaked road I would lay there till I quite likely died.
I thought, "is this how the story ends? Found dead, another drug casualty, cut down in his prime. How sad. How senseless. How typical.
I decided that, if I could drag myself to my doorstep, I could at least go to the ER without all the spectacle of the cops and paramedics.
I managed to claw my way up onto my feet using a hillside covered in ice plant. I promptly fell and fell hard. I did this many times. Until I determined that the only way I would make the half-mile back to my door step was to crawl. This I did for the next 90 minutes in the pouring rain, the odd SUV passing by inches from me every 10 minutes or so. I was quite lucky not to be run over.
I finally got to one of these steep feeder roads I described and simply tumbled down the length of it until I was laying face down in the mud on my own street. It took another hour to drag myself to the bottom landing leading to my second-level front door.
At this point, I was so exhausted I could barely move. I looked up the dimly lit set of brick stairs leading to my front door. I immediately discovered that I lacked the strength in my arms to drag my body up even one step, let alone the thirty steps I needed to cover.
I wondered again, is this where it ends? Is this the end of my life? I lay there a few minutes, asking myself, do I really want to go on, or is this the merciful end denied to so many others?
I decided no, I did not want to go out a loser on this rainy night. Another wasted human receptacle of education, training and experience, some of which might still have some value to the world.
It now occurred to me. If I hadn't the strength in my arms, what about my legs? I rolled myself over on my back, head facing upwards towards the top landing which was my goal.
For the next hour, maybe two hours - I don't know - I pushed with what strength was left in my legs and lifted as hard as I could with my now-bleeding elbows. Step by step, I pushed myself up to the top landing.
All this time, mind you, it was so dark, so rainy and so removed from the usual police beats that nobody had noticed this soaked, writhing mass slithering snakelike down the street for a total (counting both streets) of about 1 mile!
By now, I had lost my shoes somewhere on the road, most of my jacket, and was literally covered from the shoulders down with bruises and abrasions. By some miracle, I had not a mark on my face or neck.
By another miracle, my house key had not fallen out of my pocket. I reached up with the key. I could barely lift my arm or move my hand to work the lock.
Once in the door, I dragged myself up into a chair and just sat there breathing. My tongue was bone dry and swollen and I knew I needed to get some water down my throat. After a few minutes in the chair, my control of my arms and legs slowly returned and I was able to stagger into the kitchen by holding onto various pieces of furniture until I got to the sink and drank down some water.
Somehow, this caused a dramatic return of muscle control and I was able to stagger into the bedroom to my sleeping wife. (She had not known that I had even left the house. At the time, I thought I'd be back in ten minutes).
She helped me out of my clothes and into a warm shower. A few minutes later, I was lying in my own bed, breathing, drinking fluids, recovering control of my arms and legs, and trying to explain to my wife what I had just experienced.
With one day to recover, by the grace of god, I was able to hold it together for exactly one hour in order to make my job interview and land my lucrative contract. With no marks on my face or neck, I was able to hide the appalling collection of bruises and abrasions from view.
As I drove home from the interview, hurting from every point of my body like a motorcycle accident victim, I thought, "This, Tom, is God's last act of grace to you. By any standard of reasoning, I should have been, at that moment, lying in a hospital with my life ruined and family publicly shamed, my wife facing an eviction notice with a drug addled, broken down, unemployable husband.
Instead, I start my new job on Monday. I have since reviewed the readily accessible information about the lethality of mixing benzos like Xanax and alcohol. I still cannot fathom how I could have been so stupid as to let this happen.
But here I am. I'd say God cut me some major slack - why, I don't know. But I do know what I'm going to do because of the experience."
This post was originally in response to one person but I want everyone to read this, so, forgive me for posting it twice.
[Pat to annie]
Tom's not going to post on the board until he follows through on his pledge to take one of the treatment options written about ad nauseam on the forum.
However, tom spent much of last night writing, what we will call a "night's memoir."
He wrote it partly to unburden himself but, principally, to remind everyone that visits or frequents this forum of how precious life is, how relentless the disease of drug addiction is, and how, in the blink of an eye, this disease can have you dangling over a cliff, ready to plunge into the abyss.
From tom to all:
"I feel I must begin this story the way so many horrific tales are begun:
This is a true story, described as it happened with no detail omitted, no embellishment added, and no dramatic license taken.
Most of you who know me are aware that I've be addicted to opiates for thirty years and now maintain myself, if one can call it that, with a combination of darvon and xanax. However, in a matter of a few months, private physicians in California and elsewhere will be able to obtain certification to treat patients for opiate addiction with the drug buprenorphin. This is the course I have decided to take and, while the legislative wheels slowly turn, I go on, day after day, dosing myself with enough Darvon and Xanax to enable me to work and, in short, function in society.
If you're getting bored by now, take heart, because this story is about to become a lot more "interesting."
Wednesday night started out quite happily. I had firmed up a job interview for Friday. If successful, this job would dramatically enhance my future and that of my family. It was long in coming and well deserved. Wednesday night my wife and I thought we had something to toast, so we did. A few Baileys and what not, nothing (seemingly) that I couldn't handle.
But I had forgotten a little bit of basic wisdom about Xanax and alcohol. Mixing the two can result in paralysis and death. It's there on rxlist.com for any idiot to read. Midnight came around I suddenly felt a little "too" medicated. It takes a lot for me to feel "too' medicated. Therefore, I elected to take a solitary stroll through our neighborhood to clear my head.
We live in what amounts to a suburban enclave built into a row of steep hills. This gives each of us our cherished view of the Pacific Ocean in all its beauty. All the streets are connected by steeper than average cross streets, the kind you think twice about parking your car on for fear of finding it crashed at the bottom from an overwhelmed parking break - steep, roughly asphalted bastards that test your climbing abilities and give you nice calf muscles if you walk them enough. It's a nice, private collection of streets with no street lamps to spoil the beauty of the night (or help you find your way home).
I was perhaps a twenty-minute stroll from my front door when it hit me. An almost-total paralysis overwhelmed the muscles of my body and, perfectly conscious, I watched as my limbs became rubber and my body fell harshly to the ground. To my horror, I found I could not raise myself from the ground. I couldn't even get up on my hands and knees.
It began to rain. I was now in a curious position:
I knew I needed to go to the ER
In order to get there, I knew I had to attract help.
I tried to cry out for help only to find that I had virtually lost the power of speech, mouth and tongue virtually paralyzed.
I considered by predicament. If I was successful in attracting someone's attention: this would have been the sequence of events:
The police and paramedics would be called. I would be rushed into the ER. A police report would be taken. My doctor would be contacted and, conceivably, charged for one prescribing violation or another. The entire neighborhood would find out. They already knew I had gone into a court-ordered rehab in 1994. I was supposed to have made a complete success of it and rebuilt my life and career. To the observer, I was a rehab success story.
If I went to the ER, I knew my family would be shamed; I would have been hospitalized and lost the new job. Our finances would have imploded. Plus, our landlord, hearing the news, would quite likely have evicted us from our dream life in the hills overlooking the great Pacific.
At the same time, I knew that if I didn't get myself off this rain soaked road I would lay there till I quite likely died.
I thought, "is this how the story ends? Found dead, another drug casualty, cut down in his prime. How sad. How senseless. How typical.
I decided that, if I could drag myself to my doorstep, I could at least go to the ER without all the spectacle of the cops and paramedics.
I managed to claw my way up onto my feet using a hillside covered in ice plant. I promptly fell and fell hard. I did this many times. Until I determined that the only way I would make the half-mile back to my door step was to crawl. This I did for the next 90 minutes in the pouring rain, the odd SUV passing by inches from me every 10 minutes or so. I was quite lucky not to be run over.
I finally got to one of these steep feeder roads I described and simply tumbled down the length of it until I was laying face down in the mud on my own street. It took another hour to drag myself to the bottom landing leading to my second-level front door.
At this point, I was so exhausted I could barely move. I looked up the dimly lit set of brick stairs leading to my front door. I immediately discovered that I lacked the strength in my arms to drag my body up even one step, let alone the thirty steps I needed to cover.
I wondered again, is this where it ends? Is this the end of my life? I lay there a few minutes, asking myself, do I really want to go on, or is this the merciful end denied to so many others?
I decided no, I did not want to go out a loser on this rainy night. Another wasted human receptacle of education, training and experience, some of which might still have some value to the world.
It now occurred to me. If I hadn't the strength in my arms, what about my legs? I rolled myself over on my back, head facing upwards towards the top landing which was my goal.
For the next hour, maybe two hours - I don't know - I pushed with what strength was left in my legs and lifted as hard as I could with my now-bleeding elbows. Step by step, I pushed myself up to the top landing.
All this time, mind you, it was so dark, so rainy and so removed from the usual police beats that nobody had noticed this soaked, writhing mass slithering snakelike down the street for a total (counting both streets) of about 1 mile!
By now, I had lost my shoes somewhere on the road, most of my jacket, and was literally covered from the shoulders down with bruises and abrasions. By some miracle, I had not a mark on my face or neck.
By another miracle, my house key had not fallen out of my pocket. I reached up with the key. I could barely lift my arm or move my hand to work the lock.
Once in the door, I dragged myself up into a chair and just sat there breathing. My tongue was bone dry and swollen and I knew I needed to get some water down my throat. After a few minutes in the chair, my control of my arms and legs slowly returned and I was able to stagger into the kitchen by holding onto various pieces of furniture until I got to the sink and drank down some water.
Somehow, this caused a dramatic return of muscle control and I was able to stagger into the bedroom to my sleeping wife. (She had not known that I had even left the house. At the time, I thought I'd be back in ten minutes).
She helped me out of my clothes and into a warm shower. A few minutes later, I was lying in my own bed, breathing, drinking fluids, recovering control of my arms and legs, and trying to explain to my wife what I had just experienced.
With one day to recover, by the grace of god, I was able to hold it together for exactly one hour in order to make my job interview and land my lucrative contract. With no marks on my face or neck, I was able to hide the appalling collection of bruises and abrasions from view.
As I drove home from the interview, hurting from every point of my body like a motorcycle accident victim, I thought, "This, Tom, is God's last act of grace to you. By any standard of reasoning, I should have been, at that moment, lying in a hospital with my life ruined and family publicly shamed, my wife facing an eviction notice with a drug addled, broken down, unemployable husband.
Instead, I start my new job on Monday. I have since reviewed the readily accessible information about the lethality of mixing benzos like Xanax and alcohol. I still cannot fathom how I could have been so stupid as to let this happen.
But here I am. I'd say God cut me some major slack - why, I don't know. But I do know what I'm going to do because of the experience."
[Pat to annie]
Tom's not going to post on the board until he follows through on his pledge to take one of the treatment options written about ad nauseam on the forum.
However, tom spent much of last night writing, what we will call a "night's memoir."
He wrote it partly to unburden himself but, principally, to remind everyone that visits or frequents this forum of how precious life is, how relentless the disease of drug addiction is, and how, in the blink of an eye, this disease can have you dangling over a cliff, ready to plunge into the abyss.
From tom to all:
"I feel I must begin this story the way so many horrific tales are begun:
This is a true story, described as it happened with no detail omitted, no embellishment added, and no dramatic license taken.
Most of you who know me are aware that I've be addicted to opiates for thirty years and now maintain myself, if one can call it that, with a combination of darvon and xanax. However, in a matter of a few months, private physicians in California and elsewhere will be able to obtain certification to treat patients for opiate addiction with the drug buprenorphin. This is the course I have decided to take and, while the legislative wheels slowly turn, I go on, day after day, dosing myself with enough Darvon and Xanax to enable me to work and, in short, function in society.
If you're getting bored by now, take heart, because this story is about to become a lot more "interesting."
Wednesday night started out quite happily. I had firmed up a job interview for Friday. If successful, this job would dramatically enhance my future and that of my family. It was long in coming and well deserved. Wednesday night my wife and I thought we had something to toast, so we did. A few Baileys and what not, nothing (seemingly) that I couldn't handle.
But I had forgotten a little bit of basic wisdom about Xanax and alcohol. Mixing the two can result in paralysis and death. It's there on rxlist.com for any idiot to read. Midnight came around I suddenly felt a little "too" medicated. It takes a lot for me to feel "too' medicated. Therefore, I elected to take a solitary stroll through our neighborhood to clear my head.
We live in what amounts to a suburban enclave built into a row of steep hills. This gives each of us our cherished view of the Pacific Ocean in all its beauty. All the streets are connected by steeper than average cross streets, the kind you think twice about parking your car on for fear of finding it crashed at the bottom from an overwhelmed parking break - steep, roughly asphalted bastards that test your climbing abilities and give you nice calf muscles if you walk them enough. It's a nice, private collection of streets with no street lamps to spoil the beauty of the night (or help you find your way home).
I was perhaps a twenty-minute stroll from my front door when it hit me. An almost-total paralysis overwhelmed the muscles of my body and, perfectly conscious, I watched as my limbs became rubber and my body fell harshly to the ground. To my horror, I found I could not raise myself from the ground. I couldn't even get up on my hands and knees.
It began to rain. I was now in a curious position:
I knew I needed to go to the ER
In order to get there, I knew I had to attract help.
I tried to cry out for help only to find that I had virtually lost the power of speech, mouth and tongue virtually paralyzed.
I considered by predicament. If I was successful in attracting someone's attention: this would have been the sequence of events:
The police and paramedics would be called. I would be rushed into the ER. A police report would be taken. My doctor would be contacted and, conceivably, charged for one prescribing violation or another. The entire neighborhood would find out. They already knew I had gone into a court-ordered rehab in 1994. I was supposed to have made a complete success of it and rebuilt my life and career. To the observer, I was a rehab success story.
If I went to the ER, I knew my family would be shamed; I would have been hospitalized and lost the new job. Our finances would have imploded. Plus, our landlord, hearing the news, would quite likely have evicted us from our dream life in the hills overlooking the great Pacific.
At the same time, I knew that if I didn't get myself off this rain soaked road I would lay there till I quite likely died.
I thought, "is this how the story ends? Found dead, another drug casualty, cut down in his prime. How sad. How senseless. How typical.
I decided that, if I could drag myself to my doorstep, I could at least go to the ER without all the spectacle of the cops and paramedics.
I managed to claw my way up onto my feet using a hillside covered in ice plant. I promptly fell and fell hard. I did this many times. Until I determined that the only way I would make the half-mile back to my door step was to crawl. This I did for the next 90 minutes in the pouring rain, the odd SUV passing by inches from me every 10 minutes or so. I was quite lucky not to be run over.
I finally got to one of these steep feeder roads I described and simply tumbled down the length of it until I was laying face down in the mud on my own street. It took another hour to drag myself to the bottom landing leading to my second-level front door.
At this point, I was so exhausted I could barely move. I looked up the dimly lit set of brick stairs leading to my front door. I immediately discovered that I lacked the strength in my arms to drag my body up even one step, let alone the thirty steps I needed to cover.
I wondered again, is this where it ends? Is this the end of my life? I lay there a few minutes, asking myself, do I really want to go on, or is this the merciful end denied to so many others?
I decided no, I did not want to go out a loser on this rainy night. Another wasted human receptacle of education, training and experience, some of which might still have some value to the world.
It now occurred to me. If I hadn't the strength in my arms, what about my legs? I rolled myself over on my back, head facing upwards towards the top landing which was my goal.
For the next hour, maybe two hours - I don't know - I pushed with what strength was left in my legs and lifted as hard as I could with my now-bleeding elbows. Step by step, I pushed myself up to the top landing.
All this time, mind you, it was so dark, so rainy and so removed from the usual police beats that nobody had noticed this soaked, writhing mass slithering snakelike down the street for a total (counting both streets) of about 1 mile!
By now, I had lost my shoes somewhere on the road, most of my jacket, and was literally covered from the shoulders down with bruises and abrasions. By some miracle, I had not a mark on my face or neck.
By another miracle, my house key had not fallen out of my pocket. I reached up with the key. I could barely lift my arm or move my hand to work the lock.
Once in the door, I dragged myself up into a chair and just sat there breathing. My tongue was bone dry and swollen and I knew I needed to get some water down my throat. After a few minutes in the chair, my control of my arms and legs slowly returned and I was able to stagger into the kitchen by holding onto various pieces of furniture until I got to the sink and drank down some water.
Somehow, this caused a dramatic return of muscle control and I was able to stagger into the bedroom to my sleeping wife. (She had not known that I had even left the house. At the time, I thought I'd be back in ten minutes).
She helped me out of my clothes and into a warm shower. A few minutes later, I was lying in my own bed, breathing, drinking fluids, recovering control of my arms and legs, and trying to explain to my wife what I had just experienced.
With one day to recover, by the grace of god, I was able to hold it together for exactly one hour in order to make my job interview and land my lucrative contract. With no marks on my face or neck, I was able to hide the appalling collection of bruises and abrasions from view.
As I drove home from the interview, hurting from every point of my body like a motorcycle accident victim, I thought, "This, Tom, is God's last act of grace to you. By any standard of reasoning, I should have been, at that moment, lying in a hospital with my life ruined and family publicly shamed, my wife facing an eviction notice with a drug addled, broken down, unemployable husband.
Instead, I start my new job on Monday. I have since reviewed the readily accessible information about the lethality of mixing benzos like Xanax and alcohol. I still cannot fathom how I could have been so stupid as to let this happen.
But here I am. I'd say God cut me some major slack - why, I don't know. But I do know what I'm going to do because of the experience."
I apologise for some of the silly typos in the above doc. I meant to present a clean doc that could be reprinted if found usefull by anyone. I'll clean it up.
Oh my God, Tom! I am sitting here tonite having some realizations about my past drug abuse. (Remember I am on the methadone now). Something hit me like a ton of bricks--You know how counselors tell you that the drug abuse is only a symptom of the REAL problem. Well, I think I STARTED TO FIGURE SOMETHING OUT ABOUT MYSELF. Then I come on here and you have me gripping my hands on the chair with your unbelievable story. Thank the good Lord that he saved you. You must have been scared to death. You have a second chance, I would be interested to know what you are going to do with it? God Bless!!!
Tom is looking for an answer to your question and will let you be the first to know when he finds it. He knows it musn't be some regurgitation of the big book. He knows the answer is meant to be larger than himself and yet must come soley from himself. He knows it must be the decision that defines his life.
don't let tom's lurid tale stop you from talking about your self-revelation. It sounded important. Talk to us about it. Tom can tread water for a while. You spoke about discovering the underlying cause for your drug abuse. What do you mean?
First, I'd like to say hope all is well with everyone on this forum,Tom/Pat,could you please enlighten me,I'm sorry that I get confused from time to time,it is something that I can not help,so hopefully you will take the time to 'unconfuse' me LOL
here goes, Tom,I remember reading that you were going to try to taper off your meds and it didn't work,I'm sorry that it didnt' work,you then said you were not going to post here until you did something constructive,I have gotten lost somewhere along the lines as to who and what 'Pat' is,is 'Pat' really just you posting or is he a 'real' person? just a few lines from you would be appreiciated so that I could feel up to date and not feel so 'out there' somewhere. thanks....JB,I know that you have liver disease,very sorry about that,how long have you had it and how did you learn that you have it,(syptoms)also, I have wanted to ask you this for a long time,but felt uncomfortable asking you about your wife,I didn't want to pry, but then I thought that was silly of me to feel that,if it was me, I wouldn't mind talking about my husband at all and would share,if I'm wrong and out of line please please just let me know,I have read that you said your wife has cancer, is it alright to ask you questions about what kind of cancer she has,and where she is right now with it? again if this is prying please forgive me...take care all
Dee
here goes, Tom,I remember reading that you were going to try to taper off your meds and it didn't work,I'm sorry that it didnt' work,you then said you were not going to post here until you did something constructive,I have gotten lost somewhere along the lines as to who and what 'Pat' is,is 'Pat' really just you posting or is he a 'real' person? just a few lines from you would be appreiciated so that I could feel up to date and not feel so 'out there' somewhere. thanks....JB,I know that you have liver disease,very sorry about that,how long have you had it and how did you learn that you have it,(syptoms)also, I have wanted to ask you this for a long time,but felt uncomfortable asking you about your wife,I didn't want to pry, but then I thought that was silly of me to feel that,if it was me, I wouldn't mind talking about my husband at all and would share,if I'm wrong and out of line please please just let me know,I have read that you said your wife has cancer, is it alright to ask you questions about what kind of cancer she has,and where she is right now with it? again if this is prying please forgive me...take care all
Dee
........Just read your post. Gave me the chills. You hit the nail on the head when you said it was the grace of God. Tom, this only proves that you have a greater purpose. You see, I once had a brush w/ death. I was bleeding internally. Doctors could do nothing for me. I had a massive hematoma. My pastor prayed along side my bed. My family prepared themselves for the worst. My doctor paced up and down in front of my bed knowing there was nothing they could do. Then suddenly the bleeding subsided. My doctor looked into my face and said "young lady, you had a massive hematoma, and it just stopped. There was nothing I could do for you. This is unexplainable." You see there was no medical reason for me to live. I know it was the grace of God. I had lost over 8 units of blood.
Anyway, I've been searching scripture for the perfect verse for you. When I receive it. I'll post it. Take this experience and move forward. You have a special gift. It will be used one day for the greater good. Don't fight it.
Anyway, I've been searching scripture for the perfect verse for you. When I receive it. I'll post it. Take this experience and move forward. You have a special gift. It will be used one day for the greater good. Don't fight it.
I plan on telling my counselor about my new found revelation at our next appt. I cried for the 24 hrs because I believe I figured IT out and I feel even worse. It is not a relief. I have been through 2 outpatient rehabs always saying "I don't know why I'm self medicating, I had a wonderful childhood with wonderful parents" "Maybe it was because I was very overweight all through my child and teen years" ( I am now at 125 and have been since my twenties) Well, like I said it hit me last night. There is way too much to write on here. Thanks for your caring. Please keep us informed on your progress. I didn't know the tapering failed like I read above..What happened?
Actually it's a little easier talking about things here than it is in person. My wife has squamos cell carcinoma that started out on her skin and has metastitized to her ovaries, colon and now both lungs. She has been on chemo and radiation since 1994. Every time they rid her of it in one spot, it shows up later in another place. She's on a break right now from the treatments but will resume in March with another regime. Her last chemo drug was Taxol and she developed a new tumor while on it. So we know that Taxol isn't working as was hoped.
I have Hep C and cirrohsis plus a lot of other problems related to liver disease. About three years ago I started getting pretty ill and had my doctor stumped as to why. He said that I had all the symptoms of Lupus and severe arthritis at that time. I was just feeling lousy all the time and fatigued. After several blood tests, I was diagnosed with hepatitis c and advanced liver disease. It has gotten progressively worse even though I've had the combo therapy of Interferon and Ribivirin. I'm whats referred to as a non-responder to treatment and need a liver transplant ASAP. I'm waiting for one right now.
Hope that answers your questions, Dee. J.B.
I have Hep C and cirrohsis plus a lot of other problems related to liver disease. About three years ago I started getting pretty ill and had my doctor stumped as to why. He said that I had all the symptoms of Lupus and severe arthritis at that time. I was just feeling lousy all the time and fatigued. After several blood tests, I was diagnosed with hepatitis c and advanced liver disease. It has gotten progressively worse even though I've had the combo therapy of Interferon and Ribivirin. I'm whats referred to as a non-responder to treatment and need a liver transplant ASAP. I'm waiting for one right now.
Hope that answers your questions, Dee. J.B.
Hey Tom--I plan to tell my counselor about my revelation. I have cried for the last 24 hrs. I have been through two outpatient rehabs and during the counseling sessions I would always say "I don't know why I am self medicating" "Maybe it was because I was a very overweight child and teen" (I am 125 now and have been since my 20's) But last night it hit me like a ton of bricks. It is obviously too long to go into on here. I don't feel relief at all just ugly feelings. I don't believe it is something that I can change since I can't control other people or their behavior. Thanks for your caring words. Tom, I didn't realize that the tapering didn't work, I read it in an above thread,what happened? Please keep us informed, as I am always rooting for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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