I had two back surgeries, one on September 18th and then another on November 27th 2018. Slowly, the neurosurgeon has been titrating me off of Tylenol #4 with the approval of Stanford Pain Management.
Recently, I received my prescription of Tylenol #4, a twenty day supply. I went through it in a week, and am now completely without opioid pain meds. Technically this is opioid abuse, and if the doctors know what I've done--well, let's just say they would be displeased. To be honest, this game of running out of meds and then stealing them from family has been going on for close to two years now.
My mother has caught me a couple of times, each time angrier than the last. She has said that it's "going over to the dark side" when you have a habit you can't disclose to your family, when you have secrets to keep. She's used the word "addiction."
I have a golden rule: I never take opioid pain meds unless I'm in enough pain to warrant the use. I blame it on the doctors mostly: that they don't understand how much pain I deal with every day. I talk and they don't listen. They have this agenda, and it doesn't matter the reality of the situation. Opioids are bad, and therefore, you shouldn't be on them. Opioids worsen depression. Opioids cause hyperalgesia. Opioids cause addiction.
The truth is: I would take all of those risks for a few hours of pain relief. Give me something that works better, and I will take it. To cover my bases, I take other non-opioid pain medications like gabapentin and Mobic--it helps, but not as well as opioids.
How can I steal pain meds from someone who needs them? Selfishness wins out, and so does desperation. If you're desperate, you do all sorts of things that you never knew you were capable of like taking three hundred dollars for a blowjob. I imagine this is a decent explanation for petty crimes--people hungry or going through withdrawal or needing to pay for certain life's requirements like rent.
Every time I see my mom's pills out, I have a strong urge to take some.
But I don't.
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