You don't know me, but you are like family

[DeeDee718]

Hello MH family! I have been lurking on this site for over a year and never got up the nerve to post. I have followed all of you. Your getting clean, your struggles with WD's, your (unfortunate) relapses. A lot of the posts have brought me to tears. You see, I have been there. This is a VERY long story, but will try to make it as short as possible.

My love affair with opiates began in 2003. My best friend and I were in my medicine cabinet looking for something and I had an old bottle of Vicodin from when I had a root canal done. It had been there over a year and I had never touched it. My friend: OMG!! You have Vicodin?? Let's take some!! Me: But I'm not in any pain. My friend: You dork! You don't have to be in any pain to take them!! I will never forget that day and how I should have just said no and given them to her....

Fast forward 3 years and I am now taking 15-17 10/325 Norcos daily. I always got them legally. Through a pain clinic where I was going due to chronic pelvic pain. I also was working for an OB/GYN Dr at the time that I had been working at for 13 years. He and I were very close. He was writing me Rx's also and I would take those when I ran out early from the ones the clinic had given me. One of my duties at work was to open the mail. One day I opened an envelope from the DEA. Guess who it was about? Yep. Me. It had a list of all the Rx's I had got, both of the prescribing Dr's and the myriad of different pharmacies I used. I kept that letter in my purse for 2 days while I tried to figure out what to do. I sat down with my boss, physician and best friend and handed it to him while I cried.

  I took a leave of absence from work to attend outpatient rehab 5 days a week. The dr who ran the program put me on Subutex. They didn't have strips back then, it was a pill. I went down a little bit every week til I was on a little tiny chunk and then I stopped. I think I was on it about 3 months. I had no WD's at all when I stopped. I never did any kind of real aftercare except that I started attending a unity church. I got very into holistic things like acupuncture, yoga and meditation. I was doing and feeling great. Then after awhile, I started to slack off....

Fast forward to 2009. I had almost 2 years clean, except for the occasional Vicodin Rx when I had dental work or whatnot. Then I started having really bad almost daily headaches. I went to my GP and they gave me Darvocet. Do you think I said anything about my history as an addict? Of course not! My marriage was failing and I was generally unhappy and I know now I was looking to feel numb again. I took the Darvocet, always running out early of course, for about 6 months. I think Darvocet has been pulled off the market now. My GP finally wised up and said no more and I was opiate free for a year.

In 2010, I started getting really bad pain on the left side of my lower back. I went to an urgent care (they were also a GP) and they gave me Vicodin (yay!! in my head) and ordered an MRI. The MRI showed that I had a herniated disk in that area. They said I needed to go to physical therapy. I did and it made it worse. Worse than that, one of the guys doing stretches and massage on me started trying to touch places he shouldn't. He was fired shortly after when I complained. So, I was referred to a pain management clinic. Here we go again....

  The dr they sent me to was great. Female, only her in the practice and we got along like best friends. She started me on Oxycontin twice a day and Norco up to 6 a day for breakthrough pain. I never liked Oxycontin. I loved my Norco though and I would always run out early and came up with a million excuses to get them early. She finally ran a report, however they do and saw that I had been getting them too often, using different pharmacies, etc. On my routine monthly visit, she confronted me and told me she was dropping me as a patient. She gave me the name of another pain dr I could go to.

  So, I started with him and am with him to this day. His practice is nuts. Sooo busy. I think he is basically a drug dealer with a degree. I am on Norco 10/325, supposed to take up to 7 a day. I was doing ok with that until I had an incident in January where I had something go wrong with my right leg and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. I have some kind of Neuropathy and RSD in my right leg. It is extremely painful. The hospital gave me Percocet 10/325. So then I was on that AND Norco. I went to my GP who gave me more percs and of course my pain dr is giving me Norcos.

  So the point I'm at now is I am taking about 5 Percocets and 8 Norcos a day. I know that I could probably manage my pain without them. I know it is a matter of time until I get "caught" again. I left my husband a little over a year ago and that was very painful. Not sure if I'm ready to feel yet....

  I just wanted to share my story with you all and let you know how inspirational all of you are. I know I can do this. I have before. I think my problem was no aftercare. Plus, it is just too easy to go down the street to an urgent care and get your drug of choice. How does anyone stay clean when your d.o.c. is something that has a legitimate purpose? Why can other people have these in their house for years and not touch them and I cannot??

  I am not clean or really trying to get clean, so I probably don't deserve to post on here with you wonderful, strong people. Just know that I am reading all of your posts. Everyday. I smile and cry along with you. My day will come :) I think it will be soon. Since I have been lurking here for over a year, deep down inside I think I am craving sobriety. This will definitely be the place I come for support :) Love and strength to all of you!

[digger1976]

Hey DeeDee, thought I would pop my head in to wish you luck my friend.

The way I had to go about making the tough choice was to get angry with it, I had to keep telling myself "this is my life and nothing is going to get in the way of me being happy ever again" my drugs of choice was heroin and valium, I was just sick of being sick you know. I am extremely lucky to not suffer daily with pain like yourself but many on here do, it can be done and I've read many posts mentioning pain levels subsiding once through the detox and out the other side, hoping for the same for you too.

Wishing you nothing but the very best with your quest, you got this, choose life,  ;)))

[penny1974]

I wanted to offer up my support and lots of best thoughts your way Deedee. It's a tough road but amazing when you decide to make the next step. I'm in the prosses of tapering and have experienced the changes on my to being clean.  There is a light at the end of our dark roller coaster ride.  :)

[nonights]

You sound so tired of this way of living. I know I was. I had lost myself and Dede there is a new way of living and thinking in this life. Im so pleased you have decided to taper and start living!

[Clarityrocks]

One of the most amazing tools in my recovery has been other addicts. There is something so powerful in knowing you are not alone, we all felt this way. It was terrible, not knowing if I should make plans next week, because I wasn't sure what my pill situation would be by then. It was like being in prison for me. Give some thought to your aftercare, whatever that may be for you. For me, I went to outpatient and I also hit a lot of meetings  and hearing from other addicts just somehow made it easier to stay the course. You will not regret it, I promise you. If you are able to taper, more power to you, I was never able to. If I had those pills, I was going to take them, and rationalize that I would take less tomorrow, etc. I am sure you have read this before, but once you really decide you want out of this nightmare (that's how it felt to me, lol) there are some things that are so important- Cut your sources, tell your secret, get aftercare. I am pulling for you!
Allison

[weaver71]

Once the realization that the benefits of sobriety outweigh the cost, that is when we quit, or seriously start trying anyway. Pills create the illusion that we function better, get more done, are more social, but it is an illusion. It's like when I took LSD as a teen. I was convinced I just wrote the best poem ever and had discovered new depths of reality. That is how it feels, but the poem was garbage and my discovery was a simple thought amplified by drugs. It's hard to see it when one is still using. We can't imagine doing things sober, because our sober memories are so far in the past. After being clean awhile, I honestly wonder how I functioned on drugs, that is harder to believe than how I function sober. So, realize the drugs are deceiving you. I mean, look how many sober people with time say it is easier and better, it's pure logic, of coarse it is. Logic goes out the window in addiction, that is what makes things so hard to believe.

[DeeDee718]

  Thank you so much for all your positive and supportive replies. It feels so good to know that I am not the only one who thinks and feels the way I do. We are all the same in so many ways. Amazing how a little pill can dictate your life. "Ok, I have to go grocery shopping at 2pm, so I will pop my pill at 1pm so I'm at my peak energy" or "I have to get ready for work at 6am, so I will get up at 5am and pop my pills so I will be able to take a shower and do my makeup". How sad is that? I have been living like this for a long time. I am getting tired of looking at everything through foggy glasses. I need to see clearly again. I have done it before, I can do it again.

  I just got my refills for the month last week. I am going to try and do a slow taper and not get my refills next month. I know you are probably all yelling "Flush them!! Flush them!!" C'mon now, I'm an addict, I cannot bring myself to flush 210 Norco and 120 Percocet. Both of which I paid $10 for with my insurance. That is nuts. How do you stop taking something that (for me) is so cheap and easy to get?? This is going to be a challenge...