Out of the 20 guys, I know one that’s still around

I was young and working heavy industry: physical work, the kind where bodies wear out. I fell and hurt my back badly enough to need surgery. After surgery came pain medication, physical therapy, rehab.

I guess my doctor didn’t seem to notice, and I didn’t seem to notice that I was continuing to take these pills. I guess it had just become such a natural part of it.

There was no decision. It became part of the day the way anything does when you do it long enough.

Then I said, you know what? I don’t even need to take these anymore. But then I got sick. And felt really bad. So I was like, okay, well, I can’t just stop cold turkey.

The escalation

Once the prescription stopped covering it, I did what a lot of people do. I noticed that I was just getting way out of hand with them. I had started to look for other doctors that would prescribe them to me. And I was just trying to get them however I could get them, buying them off the street. I was married at the time. She had no idea. That’s how hush hush I kept it.

Street pills were expensive. I think it was the fact that pills cost a lot of money on the street that led me in another direction. And I had a friend tell me that heroin was way cheaper and a lot more potent.

So, I went and bought heroin, but then I hate needles so bad. And I was like, there ain’t no way I’m gonna do this.

A phobia I had my whole life is what stopped me. Not willpower, not a moment of clarity. Standing there, unable to go through with it, I understood how far I had traveled from a back injury.

Starting treatment

Two things happened close together. I decided to get help, and I told my wife. I finally talked to her about it.

After however long of hiding it, that conversation is what led me to start treatment.

What treatment looked like

I went back to the doctor who had been prescribing for me and started on Suboxone.

The induction was slow and closely watched. My doctor broke the first dose into small fractions, gave me one piece, and waited. Two hours later, we talked about how I felt. Then another fraction. We worked up over the course of a single day, checking in between each step, until we found where I needed to be.

I later moved to a different doctor, who put me on a regular schedule with consistent check-ins. That doctor was also the first person to suggest I try peer meetings.

Finding the rooms

Medication was helping with withdrawal but it wasn’t handling everything.

And, for some reason, it still felt like I was wanting to use pills. So I was like, you know what? Let me start going to meetings. Sharing my story, listening to other stories. And maybe that will help with the cravings.

And it did.

I felt relieved. Because I thought everybody has a stigma of junkies… someone sitting in an alley banging a syringe in their arm. And I’ve met lawyers. I even met doctors in my meetings that went through the same thing I did.

That’s when I knew… it’s not bad to be a junkie like they show on TV. It’s just bad if you don’t choose the out.

Recovery

My number one concern was, am I going to take a bunch of Suboxone at one time to try to chase that high I used to get? But then I was like, there should be no point because I don’t get the same high.

Once I looked into it and did research on it, I think that helped me understand it a lot better and made me feel a lot better taking it.

It just, like, totally rewired my brain.

My body isn’t like, okay, well, if you take two more, you’ll feel that much better. My body’s not thinking that way anymore.

The cost to others

I worked alongside about twenty men doing the same heavy industrial work. Most of them got hurt the way I did. Most of them got prescribed the same things.

And we covered for each other. Everyone was injured, everyone had a prescription, everyone was managing.

Out of the 20 guys I knew, I know one that’s still around. The others have passed away. Either went back to the pills and got fentanyl instead of oxy and OD’d.

I’m 100% glad I got off pain pills when I did, because I was out there just like the rest of them buying pills off the street. So I could have easily ended up being one that OD’d.

Life today

I’m now twelve to thirteen years off pain pills.

I spend time now doing the thing that worked on me. Telling people what happened, and getting them to look into treatment themselves rather than taking my word for it.

I’ll bring others to a meeting. Let them hear the other people talk… once they see that doctors, lawyers, teachers, professional people are in the same boat as they are, it tends to open their mind.

A message to people who want out

It’s just bad if you don’t choose the out.

As long as I’m still breathing, I’ll continue to help whoever wants it.