Part 2

So here I am in active addiction for years because I have an addictive personality by nature I suppose, I am not being managed by a hands on doctor, and it was really easy to obtain the meds.

When did I realize that something had to give? I never hit what is commonly called a rock bottom. Nothhing quite as dramatic as that. I was never arrested (Thank God), never had to steal for my meds (aka DOC-Drug of choice), my husband didn't leave, no car wrecks. It was the constant hemmoraging of money, the balance on 4 credit cards, the disdain of my husband. Even more importantly the meds that used to give me so much energy and motivation were now causing me to want to do nothing but sit around and watch television all day long. I felt drained most of the time, just completely warn out. My periods stoppped. I thought I was in menopause until they started up again this past month. Perhaps it was all the tylenol I had been ingesting on a regular basis for years. Gads and gads of apap (or acrap as I commonly refer to it) must have affected my poor liver in some way. Yes, I had blood panels done. In fact I had one done in the spring which only showed slightly elevated liver enzymes. I feel lucky to have gotten off that easily to be honest. Many people end up needed a liver transplant after abusing norco for years. In all fairness though, there is a common myth floating around that a person will absolutely sustain liver damage from taking copius amounts of apap for years. That's not always the case. I a living proof of that. The fact of the matter is, when you slowly build up the amount of acrap in your body over time, your liver learns to process it quite efficiently. It's those who take a handful of tylenol one night who end up in the ER hooked up to an IV of a nifty amino acid called NAC. This superman of liver detox is also available at GNC and other supplement stores. It's chemical name is N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine. It helps to replace the Glutathione lost from the tylenol bombardment. Without Glutathione in the liver, your body can't metabolize toxins and liver cells die. That's the explanation in its simplest form anyway. Bottom line is we need Glutathione and the acrap can deplete it. NAC replaces it. I mention this on my blog because I suspect the main readership will be pill poppers like myself. It's extremely important for anyone taking large amounts of apap to know that there is a very real risk to their health. Grab a bottle of NAC and take it regularly at the very least. Think about kicking the norco habit at most.

Anyway, I digress. Why did I begin my journey to recovery? The reasons are so many it would take a page just to list them. My life revolved around getting pills, counting pills, scheduling refills and it all became way too much to deal with. When I would run out of my DOC, life became really terrible. Anyone who has ever stopped taking opiates after long term use, for any reason, legitimate or not, can relate I am sure. Because of my heavy and long term use, within 4 hours of my last pill I'd go into withdrawals (known as WDs from now on). WDs are awful. Think the flu times 100. I'd start sneezing, I'd feel crushing anxiety, I could not sleep at night due to restless limbs, my eyes would tear and my body would begin to ache. By the second day, the fun really began. I couldn't get out of bed. I had no interest in solid food. I'd alternate between sweats and chills. To this day I still have a hard time regulating my body temperature and I attribute this to long term opiate use. Who knows if I am correct but things didn't start to go haywire with by body until I started on these "meds". Day 3 would always be the worst day. I would start to believe that the suffering would never end. The lack of sleep would really begin to catch up with me. My head would hurt. I'd be covered in sweat and freezing at the same time. My belly was in knots and vomiting would have been a relief but would never materialize. The anxiety was overwhelming. What did I take to help get me through the worst times? There are a lot of comfort techniques that most pill poppers have in their emergency WD kits. Yes, we have those. Sad, isn't it? Kratom is an herb, is legal right now in the US. It blocks the opiate receptors in the brain. While not 100% it does stave off a goodly amount of WDs. My prescribed Xanax was always useful in knocking me out so I could get some sleep. While it didn't provide a solid block of time for sleep, it did help to get me at least 3 hours at a time. (We will come back to the Xanax later as it's vital to this story.) Immodium is a lifesaver. Many take it to prevent and treat diarreah that can come along with the WDs. This was never a problem for me for some strange reason. I say strange, because that's a common symptom of stopping opiates. Immodium's effect on the body is that it helps to block the opiate receptors we have throughout our bodies. Immodium is a kind of opiate in fact but it's molecule is too large to cross the blood/brain barrier. This is why it is OTC. Nobody ever got high off Immodium. In order for it to be effective for WD syndrome though, it must be taken in very large amounts. I have easily taken 10-15 at a time. This will effectively block many symptoms or at least take them down a few notches. It worked wonders for me for the restless limbs.

Those were what I had in my "kit". Others have used Tramadol (similar to opiates but not a true opiate), Catapress (blood pressure med but used in hospitalized detox), poppy tea (something I do not recommend because many people have that monkey on their backs), various benzos, heating pads, and lots of water to hydrate.

Since I've been through forced WDs often due to running out of meds when I had a bad month, I knew or thought I knew, exactly what to expect when I decided it was time to stop the pill madness and get on with the rest of my life. I came to this life changing and positive decision after getting ripped off trying to obtain pills. I'm not a stupid person. I rarely trust people off the bat. In this case I did have interaction with the con artist. I did think he was only trying to help people in pain (and addiction I suppose). At this time I am loathe to go into the details of the scam as it's something I want to put behind me. It's embarrassing to admit you've been conned in the first place but when it involved medications, it is infinitely worse. It was however a huge wake up call, What the hell was I doing? I was now losing money and a fair amount of it, trying to obtain my DOC.

So no. I didn't have to reach a rock bottom to jolt me into reality. The scam may have been the catalyst but there were a thousand little reasons that screamed it's time for sobriety. It's time to give my kid a mom who was more active. It's time to give my husband his best friend back. It's time to get my ass off the couch and clean my home, which was at pig sty levels. I wouldn't ever invite people over lest I die of embarrassment. It was time to get concerned about my overall health and time to do something about it.

My next entry will go into my decision to become clean and sober, my plan on how to accomplish it, and my days of eternal detox hell which I call and have declared a common law copyright for my book, Quiet Chaos.

Time for bed. Next installment should be tomorrow. God bless.