Opiate Addiction: the Slide Into Hell

I’m 2 years clean this month from addiction to the opiates Norco and Percocet.

looking at that statement above with amazing pride and happiness

How It Began

It’s funny (not haha) that I cannot even recall when I was first prescribed Norco, but I am pretty sure it was around 2005 for back pain. Around 2007, my Primary Care Doc was concerned with my still being on it and ordered an immediate blood test to see if I was abusing them. I was baffled, not even having a clue what she was talking about. I took them exactly as prescribed… never even dawned on me to do otherwise. I was a midwife, for crying out loud. I had to keep my wits about me! Opiate addiction had yet to make headlines.

Then in December 2008, I broke my foot falling off a Wii Fit Board and had surgery to put a pin in it a couple of days later. The Norco wasn’t quite taking care of the pain, so Percocet was added to the mix. I had at least a year of terrible pain as there were 3 surgeries altogether; I remained on the meds throughout, compliant as could be.

I was an active midwife until early 2011 and that is about where I can see I went from use to abuse. Surely I was dependent a lot earlier, but being unaware of the cycle, I bypassed it without notice.

Thoughts & Words

I kept Journals during the abuse years (ugh, years!), doing the encouraged 3 pages a day, Morning Pages, as described in The Artist’s Way. The rhythm of the words went like this:

1. Contentment for a few days after the prescriptions were filled… writing about going to the Y or some birthy topic or other… what my partner Zack was doing at the time… just chitty-chatting.
2. Heightening “concern” I might be taking a few too many at a time, but not really caring and continuing to take them anyway… yet the distant knowledge that I was going to have to count as I wound down towards the end of the prescription. Non-drug topics becoming fewer as I wrote.
3. Starting to get antsy about the middle of the month. Even a tad squirmy. I started counting pills. Shit, I’ve taken that many already? Crap. My words became jittery, talking about running out in 2 weeks.
4. Finding myself worrying now about how the hell I am going to make the pills last through the end of the month. And what about my pain? What am I going to do about my pain? I’d gone through the gamut of physical therapies trying to fix the pain, I had learned pain coping methods in my life several times, but they escaped me whenever it was convenient to do so.
5. The last week before the new prescription was ready was the worst. My writing was nothing BUT how worried I was about getting my meds. I wrote about counting, rationing, taking 2 pills a day instead of 16. Tears smeared the ink many days that last week.

(Writing this, I can feel those feelings all over again. My bowels are in an uproar.)

Oblivious to Stupidity

The Percocet at the time was a medication I had to have a hand-written Rx for (Norco is like that now, too, but at the time, I was given 3 refills at a time) and I had to first: Call the doctor’s office, leaving a message asking for my refill Rx, second: wait for the 5 days before they would have the Rx ready to be picked up, always terrified they wouldn’t fill it in time, or worse, at all… third, if they didn’t call me to tell me the Rx was ready in 5 days (usually 2 days before it was time to be refilled), I would get in the car and go sit at the doctor’s office until it was ready. I learned pretty quickly that the law allows one to fill a prescription 2 days before it is due. That meant I had two fewer days to ration the pills I had left.

That wasn’t the last hurdle I traversed. Pharmacies have the power to refuse filling any prescription they want to. As my addiction swallowed me up, I would have diarrhea dropping the Rx’s off at the pharmacy, terrified they would not fill my meds. About a year before detoxing, the pharmacy did exactly that, refused to fill my Percocet Rx’s. I remember sobbing at the counter, begging them to explain why? Why were they punishing me when I was just in pain! They were cruel and sadistic.

I changed pharmacies and resumed receiving my drugs.

And the cycle began again, taking 12-20 pills a day for 2 weeks, blah blah blah. (Re-read above to follow along.)

Delusions

What is so very strange is this pattern, including writing in my Morning Pages, really was so predictable… was nearly identical every. single. month. For years. And yet, I was so deep inside the cycle, I couldn’t climb out.

There were times when I completely ran out and began asking family and friends for their extras, “just until mine came in,” then I would pay them back. They gave me what I asked for, too. I got those extras about a dozen times and rarely paid them back when I got mine. One friend told me I needed help. I didn’t call her for a long time, livid she would deny me. If I’d have had money, I would have bought them. I Googled what to take if one needed pain meds and I cannot even tell you the incredible advice out there. Nyquil (did it). Benadryl (took tons). OTC sleep aids (check).

My partner Zack clearly saw what was happening and tried, several times, to help me get control. Near the end, he hid my meds, divvying them out one day at a time. I madly searched out his hiding places and took what I wanted. He began counting them and saw what I was doing so got a lock box and locked them up. After he’d locked them that first time and left the room, I sat staring at it and cried for far too long. Sometimes he would be exasperated and just leave me to my own devices, but eventually locking them back again.

The Pain Specialist

My insurance, after a certain amount of time, too long I know now, required me to see a pain specialist to evaluate my medication usage. When I walked into the office, they handed me a cup to pee in. A random drug test. I broke out in a sweat and thanked the Universe it was at the end of the month so he wouldn’t see the copious amounts of drugs I would be taking in a week. I passed the pee test.

Sitting in front of the doctor, I recounted my injuries, faking limited mobility, vowing to him I was not addicted to the pain meds. It was obvious he didn’t believe one word I said. He said I needed to get off the meds, writing me a prescription for Suboxone. He wanted to see me in a month to see how I was doing. I never went back and stuffed the prescription into a drawer.

Colorless Life

I really thought I had zero side effects of the meds. Nevermind I was on a cornucopia of psych meds at the same time (and each doctor did know my entire medication list!) When I had agoraphobia, I was also prescribed a variety of anti-anxiety meds… known as Benzos… also highly addictive. Luckily I didn’t like how they made me feel, so just had Zack lock them away. I could see taking them when I ran out of the opiates and didn’t want to do that.

Writing was very difficult during these years. I thought I had lost my life-long compulsion to write. I could barely eek out my Morning Pages. My blog suffered mightily. I couldn’t keep complete thoughts formed long enough to type them out. I would feel rushes of desire to write when there were lively reactions to articles on my Navelgazing Midwife Facebook Page, but when I opened a Word Document, it stayed white with a blinking cursor. I just knew I was in the depths of writer’s block, that was all it was.

Losing words was the worst, however. Simple words escaped me. I kept a Thesaurus tab open on the computer so I could search for the words I really wanted to use. I began laughing that I needed to play charades to get a complete thought out. I honestly thought it was just an age thing. shaking my head in disgust

Meghann First

Of course, when I was away, Zack had no control over my use/abuse. It was always a treat to travel.

When my daughter Meghann has her babies, I go to Texas to be her doula, birth and postpartum, staying for about 6 weeks total, helping wherever I could. She had her second baby, her second cesarean, in March 2014 and 36 hours after the birth, she nearly hemorrhaged to death, requiring another, more invasive surgery, to save her life. She was in the ICU for several days. Meggie has her own wonderful blog, Practically Hippie, and she tells her harrowing story in The Rest of Preston’s Birth Story (Part 1).

Once she was home, I was in charge of helping her with her pain meds. Norco. I was meticulous with them.

Until I ran out of my own. I took just one once. Not so bad, right?

Meghann was no longer taking the Norco after about 3 weeks, taking Ibuprofen instead. So, I rationalized, she didn’t need them. By default, they were mine, right? Standing back and looking at myself, even then, I was disgusted with what I was doing. When she exerted herself, she needed a Norco. I chilled for a few days to make sure she had what she needed. But if she didn’t ask for one for a few days, I helped myself again. She did have a refill on there. I could go get it and she would never know, right?

Zack’s Turn

My partner of decades, transitioned from female-to-male beginning in 2011, culminating in Sex Reassignment Surgery (“bottom surgery”) in early June 2014. (I will write plenty about my experience with his transition, I promise.)

The phalloplasty (when the penis is made) is such an extensive surgery it requires almost complete bedrest for 30 days afterwards and limited mobility for many months still. There are three surgical sites made at the same time: the forearm, where the nerves and veins and arteries are removed and used to form the phallus… an enormous slice of skin off the thigh in order to cover the cavernous arm wound… and, of course, the groin, where 100+ stitches hold the new penis and testicles onto the body. Most of us can barely comprehend the amount of pain this surgery creates.

Zack was prescribed Norco and Percocet for pain.

(You can already see the train wreck coming, can’t you. Sadly, I could not.)

We were in San Francisco for the surgery, staying in an AirBnB condo. We stayed right at a month, but it overlapped with my needing my meds mailed to me. It was a crisis when it was time, a fiasco that sent them to the wrong zip code and a couple of days later, my picking them up at the warehouse.

I’ll just borrow a couple of Zack’s until mine arrive. Hmmm, I’m already out of Percocet? A months’ worth, gone in less than 2 weeks. Crap, what am I going to do? I snuck into Zack’s bottle while he was sleeping 10 feet from me. He’ll never know.

Shockingly, he took the pain meds rarely. He has the pain tolerance of an elephant. Not me. I am a complete wimp. (I thought; I am not anymore!)

We finally got home and Zack was able to move about freely, albeit slowly. I am not kidding when I say the very first thing he did was walk to the counter and count his Norco. Many were missing. Even though he was wounded in many places, he was apoplectic. I was filled with immense shame at what I had done. He nearly cried telling me how sick (addicted) I was to be stealing his meds after the surgery he had just had.

I filled the prescription for the Suboxone that day.

Next up: “Opiate Addiction: Detox“