Solving the Opioid Crisis Teach-Out

Below is the real-life story of a person who struggled with and overcame opioid addiction. They have been kind enough to allow us to share this anonymized interview with you in the hopes that it may help others overcome their own struggles.

The following interview was conducted via email.

How did you first start using opiates, and for what purpose? (What were they prescribed for?)

I already back and leg pain from Syringomyelia, and (undiagnosed) CP & fell down the stairs and tore my ligaments. My doctor couldn't find the issue, so he gave me Vicodin to help with the pain and assumed it must be fibromyalgia because I now had pain in my arms as well as my back and legs and told me to keep moving my arms and the pain would get better, and refused to look further into the problem but kept upping my dose of narcotics so I could work 50 hrs/wk typing, while my ligaments kept getting more damaged.

When did you first think “I might have a problem”?

I remember at first experiencing withdrawal and just thinking I was really sick. My boyfriend at the time was a recovering heroin addict and told me to take more, but I didn't want to. I didn't understand that not taking them would make me sick. So when I had a new doctor that refused to ween me off of oxycontin and refused to prescribe me any more opiates, I got sick and turned to heroin, a suggestion from my boyfriend. It wasn't too long after using heroin that I started to realize it was a problem and I didn't know what to do.

Did you speak with a doctor about opioid misuse disorder (or “addiction”)? If so, how did the discussion transpire?

Earlier on I had a doctor who wanted to keep me on high doses of opiates because he said I needed them to survive, he refused to try to ween me off despite my best efforts of asking him for other options, and I put myself in detox. It was there that I learned of addiction and it honestly made me very upset because at that point I was just trying to follow doctors orders and so many of them had refused to help diagnose me and ween me off safely and the detox center treated me like I was a criminal for legally using opiates and trying to get off of them safely. So at first, when they told me about addiction, it was like talking to a wall because I didn't feel I could relate to what they were saying.

Have you ever been prescribed medication to wean you off of opiates?

At first I was prescribed Suboxone, which in its own way could be helpful. But it is still an opioid and still could be abused or traded for other drugs. So while a good part of the time it helped, it was too easy to misuse or not use at all. When I finally was weened off of opiates all together it was with gabapentin and a small dose (.5mg) of Klonopin to help me sleep, which did help the withdrawals. Unfortunately, they weened me off the benzos but left me at an extremely high dose of 3600mg of gabapentin for 2 years before I decided to ween off of it completely, with the help of my doctor and fiance.

How have opiates affected your ability to function over the years?

Well before I started using opiates, I had a full-time job, my first apartment, a relationship and I was halfway through college. Don't get me wrong, my relationship was unhealthy because I was dating an opiate addict the whole time I was struggling with all this, but besides that everything else in my life was perfect at the time. When I got injured and started taking opiates I lost everything I had worked hard for. I've only been able to start doing those same things again (healthy relationships with family and a fiance, working, etc) after getting clean.

Have you ever quit “cold turkey,” and if so, what was that like for you?

I have a few times and it was awful. I never made it all the way through the process to stay clean that way. Literally, it was some of the worst pain and sickness I've ever experienced in my life.

What advice would you have for someone who might be struggling with opioid addiction?

One of the biggest things that I think finally got me out was, first of all, taking responsibility for my actions, and second, meditation. I always struggled with the 12 steps because I felt like the first step always gave me (& others I knew) an excuse to fall back into it because we believed we were powerless over our addiction, which to a newly recovering addict means when your brain tells you that you need it to survive, you succumb to those thoughts because it's just the disease that has power, not you. I found the only thing that had control over my addiction was me, and by realizing that it was my mistakes that kept me going back (even if opiates can be persuasive to make me go back and use again, it was ultimately my decision to do so and nothing else.) When I found the strength to face my problems head on and make the decision to never look back, it was more difficult at first, but in the long run, it has made it much easier for me. I realized by rewiring my brain and only ever thinking of the negative consequences of using opiates, I have rarely had any cravings after the first year, and am easily able to overcome them.

Also meditation is very helpful as well, because a big part of the reason people get addicted to opiates is because they want to just zone out and not have to deal with their problems. With meditation, it's a safe and healthy equivalent to that, plus it helps you look inward and work on bettering yourself. I use a lot of guided meditation too, especially at first because it helped me understand how to meditate on my own. I feel like those two things are key in recovery and if more people started using those techniques when the normal 12 step method seems to be failing, we would see more success in addiction recovery.