OxyContin

Lawyers suck. Never tell anyone you are hooked.

2008-10-23T02:16:00.000-07:00

Maybe Dante was right about Hell.

In “The Divine Comedy,” Dante’s Inferno describes nine different levels of hell. I guess it’s not good enough for the powers running the universe that there is merely a Hell. No, there has to be nine different levels to the place, and each one, according to Dante, inflicts increasingly greater punishment.

He goes on to inform us that, whether we wind up on the sundeck of this cruise ship of misery, or nine floors down in the engine room, depends on how wicked we are in the life we are all living right now.

Presumably nobody has ever been to Hell and back (although Oxy Hell might come close), so we’ll never really know if Dante’s description of the place is accurate. All I can say is, should his description be inaccurate, then he is one sick bastard. He describes maggots sucking the blood out of those condemned to the place, the putrid sewer water of the river Styx, and bizarre tortures that would turn the stomach of even the most avid bondage lover. If Dante is right about hell, then you sure as hell don’t want to go to hell.

Sometimes though, it seems like hell is right here.

A friend of mine is going through a nasty divorce. Yeah, she had her Oxy Hell a few years ago, just like millions of other Americans have had, and the millions more who will. She got professional help though and managed to live, recover, and claw her way out of Oxy Hell and back.

Her account of life in Oxy Hell, and the divorce that followed, is quite similar to Dante’s though.

In her account, the maggots are there just as they are in Dante’s hell, except that they show up as lawyers, and the stench that emanates from the river Styx is no more vomit inducing than the river of nasty words that spew forth from angry, vengeful spouses.

My friend and her spouse had dealt very responsibly with the OxyContin problem several years ago. She came clean to her partner, one of the most important steps anyone in a relationship can take when chemical dependency rules your life. She let him know all the sordid details, pleaded for forgiveness, but most of all she begged for help to escape from Oxy Hell. As a couple, they seemed to handle it quite well. She got professional help. She did whatever it took. She wasn’t perfect. She stumbled like everyone is likely to do, but she got back up, and with the support of her spouse she lived to see today.

Unfortunately, living in Oxy Hell necessarily entails the need to hide the unending refueling of its fire.

Dante never explains the nature of the energy source that keeps the hell fires burning, but for anyone who has been to Oxy Hell, that fire must be stoked hourly, daily, weekly, or forever, until the walls come crashing down. In a relationship, efforts that kept alight the red hot glow of Oxy Hell usually entail a breach of trust.

When the private walls of Oxy Hell are reduced to cinders, and its victim is left standing naked, exposed, singed and broken, there can be nothing less graceful, less humane nor more repugnant and grotesque than those who would exploit, humiliate and shame the bare soul who asks for nothing more than to be allowed to recover in peace.

My friend and her spouse survived Oxy Hell. The walls collapsed and she stepped away from the ashes, her lover reaching for her hand, providing her with cover from her nakedness, and allowing her to heal in private, far from the eyes of the beasts who would shame her for having fallen in to the pit to begin with.

But just escaping from Oxy Hell isn’t enough to be forever free from it, evidently. For my friend, long after escaping, long after reconstructing her life from the ashes, the hand of Oxy Hell reached back up to humiliate her. And, in that way, perhaps Dante was right: there are many different levels to hell.

For my friend, Oxy Hell didn’t end with her recovery, but she thought it had. A few years later the marriage began to crumble under other weight. To be sure, addiction puts a huge-ass chink in a relationship, but as a friend of mine once said, "Addiction is a symptom of some greater problem." How many people have fallen prey to Oxy because of some greater underlying pain that needs to be fixed.

I will not drag this point out too terribly far. My formerly hooked friend went through a divorce. Although she and her husband had dealt with the problem in a humane way, when the divorce came about, the Oxy habit resurfaced.

Lawyers, some of which are the lowest scum that could ever scavenge the depths of a toilet, look for every advantage they can. Her husband's lawyer decided that a trip through OxyHell would be an excellent advantage to his case. Upon discovering that my friend and her husband had rafted down the river Styx together, the lawyer presented such as an opportunity to degrade and diminish my friend.

Yep. You read it right. An email from the ex-husband's attorney wound up in the hands of the attorney representing my friend. It described in glorious detail how the demise of their marriage was due to the addiction my friend had acquired. The husband's lawyer used this as an attempt to exploit a part of divorce law (in most community states) that allows a punitive action against the addicted or formerly addicted spouse. Yes, our laws allow you to be punished because you somehow wasted the resources of 'community property' in the futherance of your addiction.

The result is that you will not only be portrayed as some sort of freakish drug addict, but that whatever rights you have to your half of your property can be diminished because Oxy gave you some sort of refuge from the hell you were living in.

Do not trust anyone with your addiction. Whoever your spouse is today, might become a legal opponent in the future. You can count on some sleazy lawyer to use it against you.

As if the hell of addiction isn't bad enough, there are actually human beings out there who will take money from someone else and tell the world how bad you are because you were a junkie.

Should any of us ever actually see Dante's hell, the only pleasure we'll find there is observing dead lawyers manning tillers on the boats paddling down the Styx.

See you in hell, as you approach the bar.

Peace,

Gus

How many licks does it take to get an OxyContin habit?

2008-07-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

There was a TV commercial millions of years ago for Tootsie Pops, a hard candy sucker on a stick that had at its very center, a Tootsie Roll, which is a nasty, fake chololate thing that's more aptly suited as a chew-toy for a dog, and probably made out of that stuff you seal head-gaskets with. The commercial asked "How many licks does it take to get to the chewy center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop?"

I got an email today that reminded me of that old commercial, and I think you'll see why.

First, let me just say, that I get tons of letters, and that you are welcome to write to me anytime. I will do my best to answer and help you. I will never forward or republish your email to me, and it will always remain confidential. As a writer I do have some control over the confidentiality of my sources, so you don't have to worry that some asshole from the NSA is going to send the DEA over to get you because you wrote me about the OxyContin you gobbled down and now have questions about it. Lastly, I legally have to remind you that I am not a doctor, have no medical experience, and you should never ever take any action whatsoever based on what I say because I am an idiot. Doctors on the other hand are smarter than everybody in the whole world, and we know this is true because the government tells us so, and demonstrates this by giving exclusive licenses to them.

Now, all of that being said, I did receive an email today that I need to share with you. However, there's no way I would ever post the actual text of anyone's email, so I am going to paraphrase its content for you.

Somone wrote to me, we'll give her some really fancy original name like "Jane," and she wanted to know how long she has to keep doing OxyContin before she's going to feel the effects of withdrawal.

Uh, yep.

She managed to get her hands on a huge, family-sized bucket of 80s. She got them so cheap too! Back when I was using, if I'd stumbled across a deal like the one he scored, I'd be happer than if I'd won the lottery. Suffice it to say it was a huge quantity of OxyContin tablets and she acquired them for about ten cents on the dollar as compared to the typical street price. Oh, and no, they weren't those smarmy little 10 milligram scooby snacks either. She hit the motherlode. Got it?

She'd never used them before this acquisition. A virgin to opioids, she has been using them for about 75 days, but did not say by what method she is administering the OxyContin. She has noticed though, that after a nice smooth buzz for a couple of days, she's felt kind of icky when she decided it was time to get back to the real world. As a result, she decided she'd extend her run for a week or so, and now she feels oh so good!

She's now a little concerned. She has no street contact to get more when her 44 ounce sized Big Gulp Prescription runneth out. She asked me if she was likely to go through withdrawals when the well finally runs dry.

I don't mean to embarass her, and I am teasing her just a bit, but in the event that there are other people out in the world who are in the same situation, asking the same questions, I thought it would be beneificial for them in the event anyone comes across my extremely wordy and obscure blog.

Before I let you read my response, I just want to say this: if you are in the same situation as this young woman, please realize that you are in dangerous territory. If you have to wonder, have to ask, whether or not what you might have felt is the onset of withdrawal, then the question isn't "What will it be like when I finally stop?" Nope. The question is, "Why the hell don't I stop NOW?"

Go smoke a joint, drink a bottle of Belvedere, go to Disneyland, go get laid, go eat chocolate, go do whatever it is that gets you off, but stop taking the OxyContin. Stop now. Any vice that you have is better than the one you are exposing yourself to. And, let me state that 'vice' is a really stupid word, because it says something about those activities being somehow morally wrong, and in my mind, they aren't. In my mind, there's nothing morally wrong about using OxyContin either. What's 'wrong' with OxyContin is twofold. First, if you get hooked, you are cooked. It's a living hell. Secondly, even if you get past the hooked part without OD'ing, without going broke, without dying, without losing your sanity, friends, and everything else that matters to you......even if you survive all that, I promise you this:

You might never, ever again, find so much pleasure in anything else on this planet.

Jack Nicholson made a movie years ago, in which there's a scene I will never forget. He plays a character who has a lot of psychological/emotional problems. He's in the packed waiting room of a psychotherapists office, and it's a foregone conclusion of course, that all those people are there because life just aint' giving them what they want. As he looks over the sad crowd before exiting the room, he glares, and loudly addresses the whole room with the following question:

"What if this is as good as it gets?" He turns, quietly shuts the door, and leaves.

Damn, that is cruel! OxyContin is cruel in exactly the same way. Forget the withdrawals, dependency, and everything else. If you survive, what if OxyContin is as good as it gets?

The real answer of course, is that life goes on. My shrink actually suggested that I might be correct to assume that I will never again find anything as alluring as OxyContin. He may be right, but that doesn't mean I should, or anyone else should, give up. Life will go on, but why put yourself through the hell that most of the people who write to me have gone through (myself included).

Oxy sucks. Oxy is wonderful.

Getting screwed over sucks. Revenge is fulfilling. Somehow we manage to avoid killing the bastards who have screwed us over and life goes on. Maybe it's the same with OxyContin.

So to answer Jane's questions...

Are you going to go through withdrawal syndrome after such a short duration? I think you probably will, but you might not. Nobody knows for sure. I can assure you of one thing though:

...You will find out.

Do you want to find out now, or later?

Stop taking the shit right now, Jane.

Peace,

Gus

Oxy Hell

2008-06-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

Like most people, it seems like I have several email addresses, some that I use frequently and others, like the one associated with this blog, that I don't check as frequently as I should. Of all the addresses I have though, I must admit that I have only recently realized that this one is the most important.

Every time I log on to the email address associated with this blog, I am inundated with comments and questions from people who are currently living in, and have lived in Oxy Hell. If you found this obscure little blog because you are locked in the painful jaws of dependency, or because you are remembering the pleasure you once had (and are wondering why you work so hard to avoid it), I want to let you know something: you are not alone.

I know you are not alone because it is really difficult to find this blog, and from the tons of emails I receive, it is obvious how much people like you and me are taunted by, haunted by, and controlled by this drug. You need to know that, from the emails I receive, it appears that we all seem to share a very similar experience. From the initial joy of the drug, to the first shock of realizing that you can't survive without it, the attempts to replace it, the Suboxone, the Methadone, and not the least of which, the challenge of staying away from something so incredibly pleasurable after working so hard to stay clean, we are all living the same story line. I am convinced of it.

Someone recently commented that there are doctors who refer this blog to their patients, and I must admit that it takes a lot of courage for a doctor to do that because what I have shared here is blatantly honest and not always in-line with the story that 12-steppers, shrinks, and the CDC would like to promote. However, what you see here is not just my story, it is the story of anyone who's ever slid down into that beautifully comfortable place where Oxy can take you, and the devastating cost that one must pay to get there or get out. And, I always remember that there are some who check into that beautiful place, never check out, and pay the ultimate price.

There are those who have suggested that I have put too much emphasis on the machine that creates and promotes Oxy, and not enough emphasis on individual responsibility for the situation we've all found ourselves in. Perhaps that's true, but it cannot be denied that this drug presents the ultimate dichotomy: Oxy is good for you, and Oxy is bad for you. It's good for you if you are a cancer patient suffering from the ultimate pain. It is bad for you if you are a cancer patient and you recover from your cancer but remain hooked on Oxy. Oxy is good for you if you are depressed, but Oxy is bad for you because it leaves your depression at the door when your wallet, your sources, or your ability to function has run dry. Sure there are other drugs in this world, and they each present their own challenges, but the irony of Oxy is that there is a blurry line between that point where Oxy is good for you, and that point where Oxy becomes bad for you.

Unfortunately it has been almost a year since I have posted to this blog, but when I think about it, all the important parts have been posted. The important parts are the ones you are here for. You are here to wonder if you are the only one who is shivering at the toilet for the first time wondering why your hands feel like giant frozen rocks. You are here to wonder what will happen if you visit your doctor and attempt to get the help you need. You are here because you want to know what happens when you try to kick the Drug Replacement Therapy. I hope you'll find those answers here, but looking at the fact that I haven't posted in a year reminds me that there is something else I must share with you.

I guess my affair with Oxy began around five years ago. If you read my posts you'll join me from the beginning and travel with me through all of the different chapters of the Oxy Love Affair that you too will likely go through. What I want to share with you is the idea that there doesn't seem to be a time (at least not in my experience) when Oxy is positioned so far back in your rear-view mirror that it is inconsequential. In March of 2007 I finally got off Suboxone and it wasn't easy. I will reiterate that it was not even remotely as difficult as going cold-turkey on Oxy, but it did take effort. In August of 2007 I encountered a challenging 'life event' as the shrinks might put it. The shrinks should tell it like it is. I was going through something that had nothing to do with Oxy, but it was something that rocked my world with equal destruction, and it had nothing to do with drugs. I will let you think about what kind of 'life event' it might have been, but that's not what's important. What matters is the fact that Oxy was there, it will always be there, and it is like an old lover that will always take you back. I took her in my arms and she lovingly held me when there was nothing else that could stop my tears.

After two or three weeks of allowing Oxy to let me sleep over, I realized that she was just as bad for me as the situation I was seeking comfort from. I found a new doctor who dispensed Suboxone, and this doctor had a remarkable attitude and approach to the situation. Although I had only been taking Oxy for a few weeks, I felt I probably could stop, but I knew I didn't want to. This wasn't just a question of dependency, as three weeks or so probably wouldn't be such a hard string to kick. This was a question of whether or not I would ever stop taking Oxy in light of the situation I was medicating myself for. I started taking Suboxone again, and I haven't even attempted to quit.

To some, this might sound wrong. But the attitude and approach of my new doctor was something that struck me in a different light. He suggested that I recognize the fact that while I was on Suboxone I didn't feel the urge to take Oxy, or any other opiates for that matter. Considering that Suboxone had very few negative consequences on my day-to-day functioning and health, why would I quit taking it? After all, it seemed that when I took Suboxone I was less likely to take opiates, and ultimately, whatever negative consequences arose from taking Suboxone, they were much less than the risk that might arise if I went back to my opioid lover.

So, here's the idea I will leave you with until the next time I have something important to add to this blog. Oxy is kind of like having a child. Kids grow up and eventually, for better or for worse, they go away. However, they are always out there. You love them, but you don't want to live with them forever, and you hope they move along and live their own lives, but no matter what you do, they will always be a part of you. There will never come a time when you can look back and say to yourself "Well. parenthood is over, and I don't have to worry about those kids again." Oxy will always be a part of you. We all want to hear that there will come a time when we are "free" of our memories and that we'll never again have to reflect on the years when Oxy was such a big part of our lives, but I think that it is unlikely that anyone could ever get to that point.

This might be kind of depressing for someone who is at the point where they are deep in the throngs of dependency and desperately wanting to rid themselves of Oxy's crushing grip, but maybe this paradigm could be helpful. Oxy gave us all something wonderful, but ultimately painful. Instead of attempting the daunting task of ridding ourselves completely of our memories and desires, instead of wishing and hoping for a way to erase what has happened, maybe it is easier to accept that we can't eliminate Oxy from our lives any more than we can eliminate our affection for our first kiss, our first love, our deepest joys. It might always be there. It might be easier to accept this fact, to live with what we know about Oxy, than to hope for a day when what Oxy has revealed to us somehow disappears. After all, if you could erase your Oxy experience, you'd probably discover it all over again.

Peace,

Gus

Guliani Lobbing for Oxy?

2007-08-21T19:58:00.000-07:00

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy! What were you thinking?

According to the Washington Post, Guliani Partners was hired to lobby for Michael Friedman, one of three executives at Purdue Pharma who plead guilty to charges of misbranding OxyContin as being less addictive than doctors suspected.

Friedman plead guilty. In his sworn statement before the court, he claimed that he knew he had the opportunity of a trial, but chose instead to plead guilty because he agreed with the government's assertion that he was responsible for the company and it's behavior.

Why would Guliani then, make calls to the DEA, the courts, and whoever else would listen, as he defended Purdue? Why would Rudy defend someone who signed an agreement admitting that the company they were responsible for had gone bad?

The government says I'm a bad guy. I agree with them. All I need to do is call Rudy, and with a few calls, my admission of a crime results in no sentence.

Granted, the guys at Purdue wound up paying tons O' cash to the government, but I really doubt it will ultimately come out of their own pockets (can you say: Help me Sackler!!!).

The problem with Rudy, is the problem with Purdue, is the problem with this entire country. We'll all trade our integrity for cold, hard, cash any day.

The finest lubricant known to man has a picture of Benjamin Franklin on it.

OxyContin Addiction: Blame The Victim

2007-07-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

In light of the recent OxyContin lawsuit, The Eagle-Tribune, a newspaper from a suburb north of Boston, ran an opinion/editorial today suggesting that pharmaceutical companies can do some bad things, but that the "ultimate responsibility" lies with the drug user.

Something about that pissed me off.

I whacked away at the keyboard with the following response, which basically mirrors my manifesto. I hope you enjoy it. A link to the Op/Ed is at the end. As always, I welcome your thoughts.

To the Editor:

I was one of the people referred to in a recent Eagle-Tribune editorial who became addicted to OxyContin by “…crushing it and snorting it up the nose to achieve an instant high.” The editorial asks the question “…who is responsible for the addiction?”

Despite the sarcastic response to the question by the Eagle-Tribune, I choose to stand exposed and humbly admit that the responsibility was mine. However, the assertion by the Eagle-Tribune that “…the ultimate responsibility for prescription drug abuse rests with those who misuse products intended to provide relief from legitimate medical conditions…” is shallow and far too simplistic.

The active ingredient in OxyContin is oxycodone. Oxycodone is made from opium. Opium comes from a plant called papaver somniferum, the opium poppy. The main source for the opium in oxycodone is Afghanistan, where it is legally grown under controls by the United Nations.

The active ingredient in heroin comes from opium, which is made from papaver somniferum, the same poppy plant that makes the opium for OxyContin. The main source for the opium in heroin is Afghanistan, where it is grown illegally.

When I abused OxyContin, I didn’t have a “heroin-like” high. I had the exact same high.

The Eagle-Tribune could have asked a better question, which is: despite all of our advances in modern medicine, why is it that our front-line response to severe pain is virtually identical to the same drug that has been turning good people into drug-crazed junkies since the beginning of civilization? Can we seriously tell cancer victims that the best we can offer them is a modern-day version of the same opiate that made life-long addicts out of wounded soldiers in the Civil War? Is telling a sufferer of debilitating, chronic arthritis that the best medicine we can prescribe is a derivative of the same drug that killed John Belushi, Chris Farley, and Janis Joplin? How can we not laugh at the insanity of our doctors being urged by pharmaceutical companies to prescribe a variation of the same drug, from the same poppy plant that was used by Hippocrates over 2400 years ago?

Is OxyContin a miracle drug or is it merely the same old thing dressed up in a new a costume, hand sewn by pharmaceutical executives? If OxyContin was a miracle drug, it could not be abused, and as a result, this conversation wouldn’t be necessary.

We imprison the sellers of heroin and seize the profits from their activities because of the harm their product causes our society. When a company sells a drug that can be diverted from legitimate use, then be traded, abused, and destroy lives, the Eagle-Tribune would have us believe that the company is ultimately absolved because those who died merely lacked the moral capacity to accept responsibility and were therefore deserving of their death.

If it is assumed that Purdue Pharma was paid for every single tablet of OxyContin that left their factories, then it must be true that every time I snorted a crushed tablet of OxyContin, the money eventually found its way back to Purdue Pharma. If I was wrong for snorting their OxyContin, is Purdue Pharma right for keeping my money? The Eagle-Tribune would have us believe that if a pharmaceutical company warns the public that a drug has the potential to be used in a harmful way, the company is relieved of responsibility. Using that same logic, I should be able to sell heroin as long as I sell it to someone with the “intent to provide relief from legitimate medical conditions such as chronic pain.” How can the position of the Eagle-Tribune draw a distinction? After all, heroin and OxyContin are twin alkaloid brothers of the same mother poppy, and heroin could be legitimately used to kill the same pain that OxyContin does.

To recover from my addiction to OxyContin, I was prescribed a real miracle drug, another opiate derivative called Suboxone. Without it I would still be addicted, or spending the rest of my life going to a Methadone clinic. The government is so concerned about people misusing Suboxone that the manufacturer has been required by the D.E.A. to formulate it in a complex way that would radically sicken anyone who tried to abuse it. As a result, addicts take this new medicine as intended and they get well. The government placed strict requirements on how the Suboxone can be administered, who can administer it, and even placed a limit on the number of patients a doctor may prescribe it to. Getting treatment with this new miracle drug is difficult because of the few doctors who are willing to put up the training and reporting the government requires. The difficulty I faced in getting this life-saving treatment led me to one last revealing question.

After making the reprehensible suggestion that those who died from abusing OxyContin are ultimately responsible for their own deaths, my final question is one that the Eagle-Tribune doesn’t have the empathy to understand, but is quite capable of answering:

Why is it so easy to obtain and abuse OxyContin in this country, but so difficult to obtain and abuse the medicine that heals those who are addicted to it?

Should the Eagle-Tribune care to consider the answer to that question, they will find the truth about where the ultimate responsibility for prescription drug abuse lies.

The original Op/Ed piece resides at The Eagle-Tribune.

The Web is Addicted

2007-07-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

I recently wanted to see if there were other blogs out there from people like me who were recovering from Oxy. Inserting the word "OxyContin" into a few search engines and blog directories convinced me that this was futile. There are hundreds, if not thousands of listings for online sales of every imaginable drug, but very few legitimate listings from blogs that discuss the addiction and dependency issues associated with opiates.

What a wasteland the Internet is.

Back when I was getting high on Oxy, I had considered attempting to buy dope online, but I never got around to it, and frankly, I was really skeptical. I still am. I can't imagine that it would be so easy to buy dope online, and my guess is that 99% of the sites that offer to sell narcotics are illigitimate. After all, if you send $300 to some site that was supposed to send you a bucketfull of Oxys, and they don't come through, who are you going to call? The cops? The FBI?

I can hear it now. "Yes, officer, I'd like to report a crime."

"Uh yes, sir. Please tell us about it. How were you victimized?"

"Well officer, I ordered a couple of handfuls of OxyContin online, without a prescription, and they never sent me anything."

"Hmmm. I see. Where are you right now? Don't move. We'll be right over."

Maybe I am naive. Perhaps this is how most people get their illicit drugs nowdays. I don't believe it though. If it is that easy for people to get their hands on Oxy, then the world will certainly go down the tubes. If all one has to do is offer up a credit card online, then run to the mailbox to get high, we're going to be in trouble.

It can't be that easy. Can it?

When I was doing drugs, I had to run down to Mexico or wait for some profiteer to score. It was challenging, difficult and frustrating. If all the web offers for drugs are real, and it is so easy to get drugs online, then I am going to start buying stock in treatment centers.

In the meantime, all of those stupid ads that scream out "Buy Drugs Online" keep getting more frequent and more annoying.

Can't you techno-geeks rid the web of its addiction to those ads?

Getting Off Suboxone

2007-07-06T17:24:00.000-07:00

I get a lot of emails from people who want to know what it is like to quit taking Suboxone. I've dedicated two long chapters to the topic in my book, but until it's published, here are some thoughts about what I learned and what it was like.

What follows is my reply to a recent email, the text of which follows:

-------------------------------------------------------

Dear Danny:

Here's some of what it was like for me to quit Suboxone.

1. The first time I tried to get off Suboxone, I failed. I tapered from 4mg for about a month, then 2mg for 10 days. I went through some serious withdrawals (Christmas Day 2006...a massacre). I went back to the doctor and we decided to stretch it out on 2 mg for a longer period.

Lesson: You might not make it the first time. You can always go back if you have to.

2. After the Christmas mess, I stayed on 2mg throughout February 2007. I would experiment with skipping days. It worked. When I got down to 2mg I would occasionally skip a day. It was o.k. I made it. I also chopped the 2mg tablets in half. I would try it for a day or so, and if I started feeling bad, I would take 2mg and then get on with trying the halves the next day.

Lesson: Keep trying to go lower. Give yourself room to go back up if you need it.

3. I watched my bottle of Suboxone halves begin to dwindle. I was amazed that a chunk of a pill smaller than a breadcrumb was necessary to keep me normal. However, at some point I realized I couldn't just keep taking breadcrumbs. On March 9th, 2007 I ran out.

Lesson: Eventually you're going to have to quit taking it. If you really want off, you got to prepare.

4. Amazingly, when I ran out, I felt fine for two and a half days. The withdrawals kicked in at 36 hours, but (and this is important) it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been when I tried to quit during Christmas when I was at 2mg. I felt really tired, weak, and had all the typical symptoms, however, it was nothing compared to a full-blown withdrawal from what you might experience with Oxy or heroin. I took Clonidine for the first three days and it helped. It made it easier to sleep and easier to get up. This took place on a weekend, so I tried to take it easy.

Lesson: It's not as bad as you might think. Clonidine helps. Take it easy.

5.After seven days, I still felt weak. The withdrawal from Suboxone is long and tedious, but it isn't so bad that I felt like I needed to go back on it again. Frankly, it took a couple of months before I really felt completely better, and to be sure, I think that there are still some after effects that I am experiencing four months later (occasional sleep disruption, occasional digestive issues, low energy).

Lesson: Be patient. You'll get better a little bit each day.

6. Now for the good part. When I was actively using and I'd try to quit Oxy, I'd go through withdrawals for maybe three or four days, and the whole time, all I could think about was that I wanted some damned Oxy. When I quit Suboxone, I didn't realize it at first, but one day it hit me: "Even though I don't feel 100% better, what's weird is that I don't crave Oxy." If you've taken Suboxone, you know that you don't get high on it, and the fact of the matter is not only that I didn't crave Oxy, I didn't crave Suboxone either.

Lesson: There's a reward at the end of all of this. Your craving probably won't be there.

Once I got off the Suboxone, the seriously weirdest part was that I didn't want to go out and get drugs. I hadn't taken any opiates the entire 18 months I was on Suboxone, so I was completely removed from that whole scene.

I'm feeling a lot better now, but there's still more for me to do. Most of it has to do with realizing that I am no longer hooked and that now I need to find things to do that make my life worthwhile. If you've used opiates, you know that when you are high, there isn't anything that can bother you. Unfortunately, it is those things that we're avoiding when were high that will still be there when we're not. Here's what I am searching for: finding the contentment I felt when I was high, without being high. Ultimately, I guess that is what humans have been searching for since the beginning of time.

For technical information on quitiing Suboxone, I suggest taking a look at this article that my physician gave me from the following journal:

"Burprenorphine:how to use it right."
Johnson RE, Strain EC, Amass L.
Journal: "Drug and Alcohol Dependence." 2003; 70:S59-S77.

Good luck tapering off Suboxone. Lastly, remember that I am not qualified to give anyone medical advice. I am not a physician and nothing that I write should be construed as medical advice. Anyone who is looking for medical advice should consult a medical doctor.

Your Bud,

Gus

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Hi gus

Im sure you get a lot of emails asking how you got off the suboxone. Im stuck and scared. I search all over the internet just to find horror story after horror story. Ive been on it about 14 mos now--4-6mg a day. Im having trouble tapering and i want to be off this now.

Danny

2007-06-20T19:58:00.000-07:00

I've recently been conducting research for my book about OxyContin, and my subsequent treatment with Suboxone. This entails digging up books, and articles from medical journals, the Internet, and the library at the university near my home.

One of the documents I recently examined is 365 pages long and carries the ridiculous title, "Medication Assisted Treatment for Opioid Addiction in Opioid Treatment Programs: A Treatment Improvement Protocol." The document seeks to instruct doctors on how addicts should be handled when submitting themselves for treatment with Methadone or Suboxone.

As you might have already suspected, this document was written by the U.S. Government. It is published by an organization that is as complex as the silly title of the document. It is published by "The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services."

The document (which is really more of a book) describes how every doctor, in every clinic, should handle every junkie who comes through their door. A committee of no fewer than 20 names, each foll wed by M.D. or PhD, claim credit for writing this fun little paper. The document describes how dope fiends like me should be inspected, detected, injected, dejected, rejected, signed, sealed, delivered, and blah, blah, blah. I wonder how many of the people on the committee have ever been a patient at a an opioid treatment clinic (or whatever the hell they are calling it).

Here's what strikes me: When I went to see my doctor about Suboxone, he and I went into an exam room, shut the door, and talked about my drug problem. Together we created a plan that we hoped would work. It did. Now I'm done. We never once referred to the government's protocol for how I should be screened, tested, interrogated, etc. Like any other disease, my doctor and I decided how to treat it, and we did it without any help from the government.

I wouldn't recommend it, but for the curious, anyone can take a look at the government's silly book yourself. It's available in PDF format at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=hstat5.chapter.82676 .

Treating people like me is a big business. I wonder how many people the government employs to decide how my drug problem should be handled. I wonder how much that costs. Add all of those people to the thousands who work at public and private treatment centers, and you get the idea.

What would the world be like if everyone who had a drug problem could just go to a doctor and get treated like any other disease? I can hear those thousands of people in the "treatment industry" screaming that such a thing just isn't possible. But for them, I have some chilling, shocking news.

Someday they may be obsolete.

My shrink just came back from a conference where future methods of treatment were discussed. One of the items is what they are calling "Addiction Vaccination." That's right. By creating killed viruses that resemble, say an opioid molecule, and injecting it into your bloodstream, your body will develop antibodies to the opioid. Get vaccinated for Oxy, go out and snort an 80, and before you know it, your body thinks you are infected with a disease and sends out cells that eat the drug and eliminate it.

Yeah, o.k., so that's pretty futuristic, but it's going to happen. Why? Because the smart money is betting on treating my drug habit just like any other damn ailment that might befall me. Not to mention the fact that the drug companies who will develop this futuristic treatment have already figured out that the "treatment industry" is chock full of cash, making it a great place to take away some market share.

I can't wait to get my shot.

Suboxone Withdrawal: Licking the inside of a pill bottle

2007-06-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

I had been off Suboxone for a week and a day. Feet like concrete blocks, dying for sleep, I wondered when it would end. Granted, withdrawal from Suboxone wasn't even as horrible as a full blown OxyContin detox, it was difficult nonetheless. On the 8th day, I reached into a recycle bin where I had saved several of those little brown prescription pill bottles that had once contained Suboxone, and I poked into each one with my finger, licking off a thin, barely visible coating of orange powder. The difference between withdrawal from Oxy and Suboxone is that Oxy is more debilitating, but you'll feel a little bit better each day. With Suboxone, you won't be lying in a pool of vomit shaking like a chihuahua, but you will feel tired, weak, and generally ill, but most of all you'll be left wondering, day after day, if it will ever get better.

It will.

There's one other really significant difference between withdrawal from the two drugs. When I was using Oxy, I can remember two serious withdrawal episodes, and although I did feel a little better after a few days, I was left with huge cravings. Each time I tried to get off Oxy, a few days later I would stumble and fall face first into a big powdery pile of OC. With Suboxone I felt lifeless for weeks on end, but I didn't feel the need to go get high. Not at all. The reason? My shrink says this: it's all about conditioning. After 18 months on Suboxone, my brain no longer connected the dots between Oxy and feeling bad (or good). Conditioning is, after all, what the whole program is all about.

It's not a whole hell of a lot different from Nicorette or Commit, the two nicotine substitutes for smokers. Take Commit instead of a smoke, you'll get the nicotine you need, and after a long enough period of time, your brain will forget to light up. Same thing with Suboxone.

I just wish it hadn't taken so long to feel better after quitting Suboxone. It's been 90 days. I am now feeling almost 100% back to normal. The upside? Methadone is a lot worse, or so they say. Best of all, I don't need no stinking Oxy. Game over.

What's next?

Love,

Gus

Will The Manufacturer of Oxy Feel the Pain?

2007-06-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

Recently, the guys at Purdue Pharma admitted that Oxy was more addictive than they let on. So, they agreed to pay up. The money will be distributed to US state governments so that they'll have money to clean up the mess (i.e., pay for treatment programs, law enforcement, etc.).

The question though, is whether or not the Gods of Oxy will feel any pain as a result.

Russel Mokhiber has published an article entitled "Twenty Things You Should Know About Corporate Crime" (see point number 11) which gives one the impression that there's a kind of Oxy that can be prescribed to corporations, allowing them to continue to live their lives free of pain.

Reportedly, the Oxy Gods took a huge hit of this magic corporate dust that prevents corporate pain, just before agreeing to pay for their misdeeds. In many cases, corporations have more than one organizational structure, and may hold within the realm of their parent company, several 'corporate children' composed of holding companies, self-insurance companies, and other organizations that only exist on paper.

It looks like the Gods of Oxy may have merely sacrificed one of their corporate children rather than take the hit themselves. Evidently, corporate children are simply bastards. Any allusions to the story of Abraham should stop here.

The demise of the Oxy chieftains doesn't phase me. They'll scrape up a few hundred million to pay the price for the privilege of continuing to operate, the money will trickle to the states where it will buy bullet-proof vests for cops and pay the overtime for a receptionist at a poorly run state treatment program. Meanwhile, kids will still grind 'em and snort 'em, somebody will wake up in the morning lying next to a cold stiff body, and grandma's habit will intensify.

Nothing will change. No pain, no gain.

Love,

Gus

(heh heh heh...)

Fully Loaded?

2007-06-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

One of Lindsay Lohan's most prominent movies is a film about a girl and her relationship with a car. The film is entitled "Fully Loaded." Lindsay just entered rehab for the second time this year after being photographed in the front seat of a car, allegedly passed-out, allegedly Fully Loaded on OxyContin.

I'm an old guy by comparison at age 46. Kicking Oxy was one of the most difficult things I've ever done, but fortunately I had some life-experience behind me. I can't imagine being 20 years-old and having to go through the same crap.

When I first kicked, I remember telling my shrink that Oxy made me feel so damn good that I was worried I might never feel that good again. The scary part is that my shrink agreed with me. He suggested that for the rest of my life, I might never find anything (basket weaving, Tai Chi, vodka, french fries, young interns, etc.) that would be as pleasurable as Oxy, so I'd better get over it. Damn. If that's true then at least I've got 26 more years of good times under my belt than that poor kid Lindsay will ever have. Maybe I'm more fortunate than I thought I was.

By the way, isn't it time we quit calling it "Hillbilly Heroin?" One of the headlines about Lindsay made a reference to her being hooked on "Hillbilly H." The truth is that Oxy is made from the same stuff as heroin. The truth is, despite all the advances we've made in medical science, our best shot at killing pain is the same alkaloid, from the same poppy plant that humans have been snorting, smoking, and shooting since the beginning of written history.

I feel sorry for the Lohan kid. Imagine that the highest high you'll ever know was when you were 20 years-old, and that that's as good as it gets?

Maybe there is some hidden joy in basket weaving after all. If there's joy somewhere (besides Oxy) I'll keep trying to find it.

Nine Weeks off Suboxone

2007-05-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

I really don't know why I count the days, weeks, etc. It really doesn't matter. What I am really dealing with now is addiction. Here's what I think I mean by that: Suboxone helped me stay off OxyContin for 18 months. Getting off of Suboxone was hard, but it helped me get myself ready for being clean. Now that I am officially naked (as far as my brain is concerned), it is so clear to me how my behavior led me to Oxy. I don't buy into a lot of the 12-Step stuff, but I do believe that I am in some way "addicted" to whatever makes me feel good. The 12-Steppers might call this a "character defect" but I don't buy that, and it is my perogative to do so (whether my perogative benefits me or not).

I am so easily led astray by my mind. I see something nice, I go to it.

I am more inclined to buy into the idea that addiction is a symptom of something much greater. My shrink turned me on to ACT (Acceptance and Committment Therapy) a couple of years ago. It can be found on the web. It requires LISTENING to one's own thoughts. As long as I do that, I stay out of trouble. If I take regular breaks to "think about what I am thinking about," it seems to work.

Anyway, being clean isn't like getting a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Being clean is just what is supposed to be. It ain't easy, but then again, that's just the way life is. Perhaps my problem is the expectation that there might be some "easy way," but, we all know where that got me.

Peace and love. Take care.

28 Days Without Suboxone Makes One Weak

2007-04-11T14:11:00.000-07:00

As of this morning it has been 28 days since my last dose of Suboxone and I am still not feeling completely better. I hesitate to tell anyone that I still feel like crap for fear that it will deter someone from proceeding with treatment. I feel tired, weak, slow, unmotivated. I went to my Shrink today and he sent me to the lab for a comprehensive blood test in an attempt to rule out some disease that popped up concurrently with my detox from the Subox. The tests came back today and for the most part, there is nothing wrong with me, therefore, my doctor and I can only assume that this is pretty much the typical course for withdrawal from Suboxone.

The literature claims that the withdrawal syndrome from Suboxone is "mild" compared to withdrawal from a full-agonist, and in my experience so far that's true, however, the length of time it takes to complete withdrawal is amazing. I've read that the length of the half-life and the total duration of use determines the length of the withdrawal syndrome. Suboxone has a half-life of about 36 hours, so it is a little shorter than Methadone, but let me tell you, I am shocked that I don't feel better yet.

I was down to 1 mg. per day when I quit. To put that into perspective, the manufacturer doesn't even make a 1 mg. tablet...I was cutting the 2 mg. tablets in half for about a month. When I quit, I was taking a daily dose of Suboxone the size of a breadcrumb. It amazes me that the lack of such a small substance could make me feel so bad.

It took about 8 or 9 days before I really started feeling better. That is, I was able to walk without getting too tired, I could sleep without taking Clonidine, and most of the symptoms had subsided. However, the tiredness remains after almost a month, and that is amazing.

I used Suboxone for 18 months. I started at 24 mg. per day and worked my way downward, continuously until the end. In retrospect, I wouldn't have changed a thing. I know that had I used Suboxone for a shorter amount of time, say only six months, I might have had a better experience coming off of it. However, I am completely certain, in my own mind, that had I not stayed on Suboxone as long as I did, it is very likely that I would not have been able to remain abstinent from the Oxy. I am feeling quite strong about staying away from the Oxy at this point. Of course, I've got the potential for a huge addiction to the stuff, so who can say what tomorrow will bring, however, right now I'm pretty sure I don't want to go through the hell I've been through all over again!

Saying goodbye to Suboxone was difficult; a lot more difficult than I ever thought it would be. On the other hand, it saved my life. It took me two serious attempts to get off of it, and I still feel like hell, but I hold out for hope for the future. During the first few days off of the stuff I would have these manic moments of intense happiness that were better than any 'high' I can remember, but those days went away after a week or so and then the hard part began. It is still difficult to keep going day after day and feeling physically unwell, but I believe that things can only get better.

I am finishing up the book about this whole experience. Now that I have finished the Suboxone, I guess I need to wrap it up. So, I've been doing a lot of research to support the informational part of the story. Hopefully the book will be done soon. It seems so timely....the death Anna Nicole Smith from prescription drugs, stars and starlets going to rehab because of opiate addiction, and just the other day, a US Congressman admitted his addiction to Oxy. Hopefully I'll be able to help a lot of not-so-famous people make decisions that will suit them.

Talk to ya later.....

Gus Montana....hehehehehehe

Oxy Hell

2007-03-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

I can't share a lot of what I have written in the last year because what I have written is now part of the book. However, just because I cannot share with you the text that I wrote, does not mean that I cannot share the story with you.

Here's the best part. The last time I posted to the blog, I was getting ready to go on Suboxone. I don't believe I ever mentioned this on the blog. I did it. I was on Suboxone for one and a half years. I just detoxed on Suboxone. I am at nine days.

I am not the same person I was before. As a matter of fact, the transformation has been so substantial that I believe I am better off for every stupid thing I've done and everything that's happened.

There is more to come...so much more. I am so alive. Life is so good.

Sylvia, Catrina, and Victor: Continued 05/16/06

2006-05-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

Pleased, I asked Rick about Catrina. How often did she have pills? How much did she charge? When could I meet her myself? I was so incredibly excited. I knew that, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and if I could make contact with whoever Catrina was, then surely that connection could lead to further connections, which in turn would lead to further connections, and so on. Perhaps, I would hit the mother lode. Like the purveyors of multi-level marketing who schlep everything from soap, to cosmetics, to vitamins, I would soon learn that drugs of all kinds are marketed similarly. By the time the oxycodone hit the palm of my hand, it had been palmed by many others before me, acquiring value with each pass. With Catrina’s introduction, maybe I could tap into the heart of the highest levels in the pyramid, assured of a steady supply of the little compacted biscuits that made life so hospitable.

Rick assured me that I had no need for his cousin Catrina’s phone number. Any time I was suffering from my “back problems,” I could just call him and he’d take care of the problem, he said. My guess is that Rick didn’t want to miss out on the rebate he was earning. By putting me in direct contact with Catrina, he would be taking himself out of the lowest rung in the multi-level marketing druggie ladder, and who in their right mind would do that? As we passed each other in the office that day, we’d smile, an acknowledgement of the high we shared.

My tolerance for oxycodone was fairly high at the time. I have spoken with addicts (only a very small few) who were gulping, snorting and firing as much as 640 milligrams of oxy per day, which needs to be pointed out to the uninitiated or naïve, as an extremely gluttonous and dangerous amount. At the time I met Catrina, my trips to Mexico every three or four days were netting between six and eight 80 milligram Oxycontin tablets. So, it is no surprise that Rick was shocked to learn that I was already looking to make another connection with Catrina the day following our initial score. Typically, 20 Percocet tablets contain 100 milligrams of the nectar known as oxycodone. In contrast, two Oxycontin “80’s” contain almost twice that amount of juice. So, the haul from Catrina didn’t last me very long. Even still, it was one less day that I would have to drive to Mexico.

Despite his shock at my appetite, Rick obliged. He made the call. Thirty minutes later we were off again to the Southside, my new happy hunting ground, and back to our desks in time to enjoy the pleasant stream of oxy-consciousness. However, for me, it was more of a trickle than a stream. At 5 milligrams per hit, Percocet just wasn’t much of a replacement for Oxycontin, but it did keep the withdrawals away, and really, that is all I needed.

Withdrawal is such a painful experience, that addicts who have been clean for many years experience anxiety from any physical sensations that remind them of withdrawal. Some addicts I have known will slide into a full-blown anxiety attack at the first sign of a fever, the sensation of low blood sugar, or an unexplained hot flash. The fear of withdrawal is nearly as bad as withdrawal itself. It is this fear that keeps an addict in search of a continual, uninterrupted supply. Although the physical symptoms of withdrawal may outwardly appear to resemble the flu, they are merely an announcement of the mental torture to be encountered in withdrawal, and it is this fear of a mental hell that drives an addict to maintain their usage, usually at any cost.

The secondary benefit of Percocet over Oxycontin, from my addicted point of view, was a matter of simple economics: Percocet was cheaper on the street than Oxycontin.

Syvia, Catrina, and Victor - Continued

2006-05-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

“That was easy,” I thought. My paranoid, White, middle-class instincts were tempered by how quickly everything went down. Contrary to my Wonderbread perception of the hood, I did not die in a hail of gang gunfire. I was not threatened with my life, as my ideas of the Southside led me to believe would happen. It was over quicker than losing my virginity. I was quite pleased, and as we drove away I felt that perhaps there was now a possibility I could feed The Beast indefinitely, given enough money and hard work. The fact that The Beast itself made work all the more pleasant, was reason enough to believe that such a fantasy could exist forever.

When I have listened to addicts in the past, it seems like everyone passes through a period where they honestly believe that the care and feeding of the monkey can actually be accomplished indefinitely. I can’t tell you how many times I told myself, “If I just maintain, if I just keep the cash flowing, if I keep it all under wraps, there’s no reason why I can’t just stay high…forever.”

After all, I was raised on the American Dream: If I work hard enough, long enough, and make sacrifices, I can do anything. If I am determined, and put my mind toward it, there isn’t anything I can’t accomplish. Whenever I was high, the American Dream was always closer to my grasp. Anything could be accomplished, and I believed so, with all my heart and soul. However, when I was high, I also believed that the American Dream could wait, at least until later. I would think, “No need to rush anything. Right now, all is possible. That doesn’t mean that I need to do it all right now…” Unseen to me was the fact that ‘right now’ turned into tomorrow, which turned into the day after, which turned into the day after that, and so on. Maybe eventually I would reach for the stars, but never today. Today I was high and everything else could wait. What couldn’t wait, I would fake my way through.

Knowing that there were resources like Catrina, gave me hope that my dependency could become immortal. Rick was more than happy to give me her phone number, and provide me with an introduction, which are the two minimum requirements for any dealer-user relationship. In exchange for his referral, Rick would earn a type of frequent-flyer bonus, which consisted of the four free Percocet Catrina gave him in exchange for coordinating my buy.

We rolled back toward the business district, where drugs are given a less gansta distinction, and under the right circumstances can even be passed off as medically necessary. Pleased, I asked Rick about Catrina. How often did she have dope? How much did she charge? When could I meet her myself? What was her number?

Sylvia, Catrina, and Victor: Continued - Off to the Southside

2006-04-26T15:58:00.000-07:00

Off to the South Side

Two guys in ties, on the Southside. That’s what we were. We were as discreet as the desperate look in our eyes, which bore the kind of image that transmits the message “I’m on a mission.” The only time a man is found on the Southside with something tied around his neck is during a suicide investigation. Paranoia waved hello.

Surely every city has its equivalent to my city’s Southside. Weary people drift along the sidewalk, some with all of their possessions in tow. Nooks and crannies of the public street grid are laden with corners occupied by persons trying too hard to look invisible, and all too eager to strike up a conversation punctuated with references to parties and good times. We made a right-hand turn into one of those nooks and turned left at the first cranny, not too far from the action on the street, but close enough to the object of my desire.

“Right there!” Rick exclaimed, “Next to that mailbox.” I missed the mailbox, but I did notice the 1980s model Ford LTD in the front yard. It had a beautiful chocolate metallic, powder- coat finish with elaborate spoke wheels, directly from the old-school low-rider era. Unfortunately for its owner, all four tires were flat and it was obvious that it had not been driven over the span of many elapsed bi-weekly pay-periods.

“This is Catrina’s place.” Rick said. “Wait here, I will be right back.” Rick grasped the door handle on my Yuppiemobile, bolted past the LTD and toward the warped screen door to my salvation. I watched as Rick was swallowed into the darkness of the entryway to the house. I waited alone, in my starched and pressed Nordstrom’s Oxford while the tension of my Windsor Knot weighed heavily upon my jugular veins; this was no place for a man to be wearing my costume.

Money is never more paper-like when it is passed in the desperation of a drug deal. The Hamiltons and Jacksons flipped through my fingers like cards through the hands of a blackjack dealer. As I paid Rick for the plastic sandwich bag bulging with the discs of hydrocodone and acetominophen, I gave no thought to the value of the cash I shoved in his hand. I had a good paying job and more money than I needed to keep my façade erect. At the negotiated price of five dollars per tablet, I would likely never even miss the three hundred bucks that I carelessly shoved, bill by bill, into his palm. Every time I stuck my ATM card into the machine, money came out. That was all I knew for the moment. Occasionally, a small part of me would notice that my wallet was bulging from ATM receipts. “The cost of doing business,” I thought. It was just another slice of me consumed by the god of hydrocodone.

Sylvia, Catrina, and Victor: Continued

2006-03-19T13:32:00.000-08:00

Everywhere I have ever worked, there’s always that one person who everyone in the company knows can get drugs. Just ask around and you’ll find them. I found Rick Herman. He was a smiling, backslapping kind of guy who knew everyone. He always seemed to be in some kind of trouble at work, but he was so likeable that management kept him around. He was the kind of guy who always seemed to come in on Monday mornings and brag about what a wild weekend he had and the parties he had gone to. It was obvious that many of Rick’s colleagues (myself included) were living vicariously through him, and his storytelling was always welcomed. However, merely coming out and asking a co-worker if they know where to find drugs is imprudent no matter how freewheeling that colleague seems to be. But, if I was going to make a connection to replace my Mexico trips, Rick was the best prospect out of all of the people I knew. Shortly after I found out about the arrests of other users in Mexico, Rick and I passed each other in the parking lot while on our way to work one morning.

“Gus, my man! ‘Sup bro?” he asked.

“Awww man, everything is fine except my aching back. Sure wish I had something to fix this up.”

“Really? What’s wrong?”

“Oh you know, my back gets all messed up sometimes and I need to take Percocet to get over it, but I am out and I can’t get in to see my doctor. Know where I can get any?”

That was it. I had dropped my line and all I had to do was wait for something to happen. If he didn’t bite, or didn’t have a connection, at least I hadn’t come out looking like a druggie. If he did bite, I’d reel in a new connection. After all, I made it clear that it was strictly for a medical purpose and that my doctor had even prescribed it for me. In the event he didn’t know anyone, my request would seem as though it were merely a matter of convenience, not a plea for relief by a hopeless drug addict.

“Sure man! No problem, Gus. I’ve got the digits right here” he said as he waved his cell phone.

Jackpot. If anyone in my sphere had a connection, I knew it would be Rick. Even better was the fact that Rick apparently had more than one source. The first call came up empty, so Rick merely scrolled through his speed dial list for another number, and yet another. As I waited patiently, he conducted a muted conversation on his cell phone. While he spoke, he flashed a thumbs-up. It was only 8:30 in the morning. This would be a great day. Percocet wasn’t what I was really after, but I figured that where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and if Rick had a connection for Percocet, then Oxycontin couldn’t be too far behind.

“We can get sixty if we go right now,” Rick said.

“Right now? Where to?” I replied.

“The Southside, of course Gus-man! My cousin is loaded! Let’s go.”

Sylvia, Catrina, and Victor - Part 1

2005-11-07T14:41:00.000-08:00

Going to Mexico every three or four days was getting to be inconvenient, but it was nonetheless necessary. A local source would make feeding the dragon a hell of a lot easier. It never crossed my mind that finding a local source might also be a lot less dangerous. People go to Mexico and disappear without a trace, but all I cared about was pounding another hit up my nose and finding the fastest, most efficient way to get it there.

Every time I went to Mexico, I tried to keep a low profile. My job as a bank executive was very flexible, and did not require me to be in the office at all times, so I could usually make the hour-long trip and back just about any time I wanted to. Because I always traveled to Mexico during a weekday, I was usually wearing the business attire required for my job. Additionally, I would always bring some kind of folders or paperwork with me. In the event that either U.S. or Mexican law enforcement saw me, they would probably have assumed I was one of the many local businessmen participating in the economy that straddles the imaginary line. It is exactly 210 paces from my favorite parking lot on the U.S. side to the one-way turnstile crossing the international border. From there it is another 200 paces to the pharmacy that paid the mordida necessary to keep Los Federales (the Mexican Federal Police) from busting their customers. As the months went by, and as my habit grew more powerful, I would count each pace in my head every time I went there. The paces clicking off in my mind, “one hundred forty seven, one hundred forty eight,” seemed to turn off all the input around me: bustling border crossers with bags of merchandise, hustling taxi drivers shouting to attract fares, a blind beggar with a tin can, singing and playing Mexican music on a battery operated keyboard. The air was always heavy with vapor from stagnant pools of liquid in street gutters and the fumes of Mexican cars, which all burn, low grade, old-fashioned, leaded gasoline.

As I exited the pharmacy one morning, dressed in a tie and glistening wingtips, I clicked off the paces in my head while I strolled on autopilot, back to the U.S. border. At about 110 paces, I looked up and made unplanned eye contact with a pair of Federales. It is easy to forget that the civil protections we take for granted in the U.S. do not exist in Mexico. In the U.S., the military is not permitted under most circumstances to conduct law enforcement operations, but in Mexico, the line between the military and the state is blurry. The Federales are widely feared because they are not part of the local system of law enforcement and its mordida system, which consists of payoffs and kickbacks. The Federales have a separate mordida system of their own, and their power, granted by the central federal government of Mexico, is unquestioned. No matter where one travels in Mexico, the Federales are present. Their shiny black boots, tan paramilitary uniforms, and Mexican made Mendoza HM3 submachine guns create a fearful appearance.

The moment our eyes connected, I intuitively knew there would be a problem. One of the Federales gestured to me.

“Excuse me señor. Are you carrying pharmaceuticals today?”
Panic, terror, images of everything slowed down in my mind. Simultaneously, the thought of lying on a filthy concrete floor, going through withdrawals, emaciated in a Mexican prison cell, oscillated with my inner voice, pleading with my body to not show any sense of fear as I turned toward the two stout soldiers.

“Yes sir, I am. Antibiotics.”

“Let me see.” He reached for my bag.

One of the feints in my attempt to divert attention from myself was Doxycyline. It is a cheap antibiotic that can be purchased in Mexico without a prescription. I bought a box of the tablets, and almost every time I went to Mexico, I would carry the box in my pocket, in a small plastic bag as I crossed the border. When I exited the pharmacy, I would pull out the bag and its contents. My thinking was that, if I was ever questioned about buying drugs in Mexico, or asked why I had been in the pharmacy, I could always respond that I had bought something perfectly legitimate.

The soldier flipped his machine gun over his shoulder and peeked into the small plastic bag. He glanced at the box of antibiotics. As he looked up from the bag, his eyes made contact with mine. Although it probably lasted a mere millisecond, it was not a simple glance, but more of a peering, the kind of which law enforcement personnel seem trained to do. It was if as if he was searching the window of my soul to see if I was hiding anything. I slowly turned away and began walking, knowing he had neither officially released me nor required me to remain detained. Knowing, as I turned my back to him, that he could shout out “STOP!” at any moment, I counted the remaining paces to the U.S. turnstile in my mind.

I crossed the border, shaken, with Oxy brimming from my pocket. Had he searched me, I would have easily and quickly wound up in a Mexican prison, where an ancient form of Napoleonic law dictates that persons are guilty until proven innocent. It can take as long as a year before a defendant can appear before a Mexican judge for a pleading, and the sentence, if found guilty, is five years confined to some of the most grotesque conditions on the planet. To calm my nerves, I stopped at a gas station as I left the border and purchased a pack of cigarettes. While there, I noticed the headline on a newspaper rack, “Rx drug crackdown under way in Mexico.” The previous day, four persons like myself had been taken into custody by the Federales for buying Oxycontin without a legitimate prescription. It was definitely time to acquire a safer source for my habit.

Oxycontin's Ugly Little Sister

2005-10-27T14:23:00.000-07:00

Everything smells funny. The first thing I would notice whenever I would come off the Oxy, was the way the world smelled. Just like a whiff of perfume conjures up memories of a lover from years past, the aroma of the world enhanced the piercing reality that I was not high, and the first realization I had was that life had been going on, without me. I had passed the 72-hour mark, and the morning air reminded me of what life used to be like. Except for a few brief periods of abstinence, I had been high for nearly a year and a half.

My wife got ready for work and I pried myself away from the sheets, still moist from a sleepless night of sweat and restlessness. I was beginning my fourth day and I still felt awful. She left for work and I trembled my way to the bathroom to start a workday with the nagging awareness that it was going to be a very, very bad day. Even worse was the knowledge that I hadn’t even passed the half-way point yet. I had been through withdrawal before, and it took at least a week or more before I physically felt better. Even after a week, when I had felt somewhat better physically, the craving for the drug hung over my head incessantly, endlessly. Because this withdrawal episode was so violently worse than anything I had experienced before, I had no idea what to expect. When you catch the flu or a virus, at least you know that you’ll eventually be well again, and you can at the very least take comfort in that fact and ride it out. Unfortunately, when you get sick from withdrawal, your mind gets sick too. It plays an evil trick on you. As irrational as it sounds, in the midst of withdrawal you don’t believe you will ever feel better again. Your mind loses all hope for the future. My legs trembled as I attempted a shower, and I got myself ready to let reality slap me around like a rag doll all day.

I love my wife. She is the strongest-willed person I know. I admire her ability to do and say exactly what she sets out to do. I, on the other hand, am weak-willed, and prone to impulses. The drug I am addicted to can be a life saver in the hands of a responsible person. Doctors prescribe oxycodone for many painful ailments. Used responsibly by persons afflicted with everything from migraines to broken bones, it can mean the difference between living a productive life or being incapacitated. One of the first times I can remember encountering oxycodone was in my wife’s medicine cabinet when we were first dating. She had a prescription for Percocet, a combination of oxycodone and acetaminophen (Tylenol) which she only used at the point where she simply couldn’t tolerate the pain from migraine headaches. Because Percocet requires a prescription, and because doctors are hesitant to prescribe it due to its potential for abuse, she was quite judicious and sparing in her use of the drug. For her, it was difficult to acquire. She absolutely waited until the pain was intolerable before she would resort to it. One sunny afternoon, with a complete lack of respect for the woman who would become my future wife, I decided, like a kid with a cookie jar, to reach in to the medicine cabinet and rustle up some Perkies. My motivation was merely to satisfy my curiosity about the pill bottle marked “May affect your ability to drive a car or operate heavy machinery.”

Fifteen minutes later, I completely understood why people popped pills. I had lived through the 1970s, and I had tried lots of different substances, but pills always seemed like things that were consumed by an older, less hip generation. In the consciousness of anyone who grew up during the Decade of Decadence, pill poppers just weren’t cool. But now, I totally got it. I had found my nirvana. Over the next few days, my hand got stuck in the cookie jar. By the end of the week, my wife had noticed that an appreciable amount of pills were missing from her very necessary supply of Percocet. I underestimated her reaction. We very nearly broke up over that incident. I lamely apologized and we managed to put things back together again, but it wouldn’t be the last time that I stole her pills, and it wouldn’t be the last time that we came perilously close to adding another notch in the never ending calculation of divorce statistics because of it.

As I exited the shower, a wave of hope came over me. I remembered that my wife always kept a handful of Percocet in her bathrobe that she hung on the back of the bathroom door. On those occasions when she was incapacitated from a migraine, she would lie still in her bathrobe with the antidote tucked away in her pocket. While I dried off, I rationalized that there was no way I’d be able to maintain my composure at work while suffering through withdrawal, and because the active ingredient in Percocet was the same as Oxycontin, perhaps the best way for me to kick the habit was to switch to Percocet. One tablet of Percocet usually contains about 5 milligrams of oxycodone. This is a fraction of the 80 milligram Oxys I had been taking, but I figured that maybe I could use the small doses contained in Percocet to wean myself off of the drug. However, grabbing the tablets of relief that hung before me on the bathroom door also contained the pain I might experience if my wife found out that I had stolen her pills again, for the umpteenth time. I paused briefly, and then gobbled down three of them like a lost man in the desert finding water at an oasis.

The danger of ruining my relationship was just one of the potentially negative consequences of taking those pills. As I would later learn, there’s no easy way to break the dragon’s hold. No pain, no gain. Oxycontin addicts sometimes wind up in the hospital with liver failure. The reason is not because of the Oxy, but because of Percocet. I wasn't the first Oxy addict to come up with the idea of using Percocet to mediate a habit. Percocet commonly contains 325 milligrams of acetaminophen. A dose of 7 grams of acetaminophen can produce irreversible and sometimes fatal liver damage. This means that an Oxy addict, who uses Percocet as a substitute, cannot take more than about 22 Percocet tablets without seriously damaging their body. Twenty two tablets of 325/5 Percocet contain a little more oxycodone than a single 80 milligram Oxycontin tablet. Some Oxycontin addicts take as many as eight 80s a day. The danger is obvious.

As the three Percocets melted away in my gut, I felt better almost immediately, but I knew I wouldn’t feel better forever. I had made it out the door and managed to put in a full morning of phone calls and paperwork at my desk, but shortly after lunch, the withdrawals started slowly rolling back in like a tide. I was going to need a far cry more than three Percocets per day if I was going to make it. However, I felt pretty confident that using Percocet would be the best possible way to wean myself off of Oxycontin, if I could only find more. Mexican pharmacies don’t sell Percocet or anything quite like it. If I was going to succeed, I was going to need to find a supply. I had managed to con my doctor into prescribing Percocet to me, so a phone call and a quick visit to his office would solve that problem temporarily. Because I would be taking more than three a day, any supply I received would run out quickly, and ordering a refill too soon would raise suspicion. There are ads for Percocet on the internet, but it is impossible to discern the ripoff sites from legitimate online pharmacies, and at $400 per order, it is just to risky to buy off the net. I would need to find an alternate source.

That’s when I met Sylvia, Catrina, and Victor. Over the coming months, I would make them wealthy by their neighborhood’s standards.

Better Than Sex

2005-10-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

(This was written in May of 2004)

This is better than sex. Damn!

A couple of minutes ago, I split an 80mg Oxycontin tablet in half and crushed it with the backside of my cell phone on the center console of my fine European sports car. I ground the tablet into the finest powder I could. The more finely chopped, the better the high. I used the edge of my American Express card to shape the powder into a neat line and rolled up a Post-It note into a small tube suitable for snorting. I had read somewhere that people were catching diseases from snorting drugs through rolled up dollar bills, so out of concern for my health, I always kept a Post-It handy. It never occurred to me that snorting drugs might be just a tad more dangerous than any microbes that one could encounter by using pictures of dead presidents to deliver a high. I inhaled. Everything was good. Damn good.

Because I had awakened only a couple of hours ago, with the onset of withdrawal upon me, I needed to get that marvelous stuff it into my bloodstream as soon as possible. Got to get feeling right. No time to grind the other half. I merely chomped on it, and let the nasty taste dribble down my throat. As long as you chew up the Oxy really good before you swallow, you’ll get every last bit of ecstasy it can provide. Ah, Relief.

I gazed out the window of my car at a big, puffy white cloud against a cobalt sky. How beautiful. Everything is wonderful. I could sit here all day. No worries, no fear, no problems, my dear. I can’t even smell the Mexican border behind me. I can’t remember the face of the bracero who just fixed me up, but I’ve got eight 80s in my wallet and I won’t have to worry about coming here again for at least a week. Well, maybe at least for a few days. No need to think about that now. Everything’s beautiful.

Right now, I don’t care what happens today. I don’t care about what will happen tomorrow. I don’t care about anything at all. It’s all good. The leather seat of my car wraps around me like skin and I am sinking into it like a giant hand, comforting me. I’m gliding down the freeway, part car, part human. I am one with the road. As I approach the secondary Border Patrol checkpoint, about 25 miles in from the U.S. border, I giggle.

My cell phone interrupts the purr of my engine, and breaks up my daydream. I can deal with it. I can deal with anything when I am high. A client? Sure, anything you need. Whatever. But this time, there’s a problem. Something I forgot to do. I was so worried about getting more Oxy that forgot a meeting. This one will cost me some money. Anything that costs me money, costs me Oxy. Now I’m pissed. So, it appears that this little annoyance also cost me a good high. Used to be that 80 mg would last me all day, but after that phone call busted up my buzz, I need to pull over and get fixed up again. It wasn’t always like this.

I used to be able to do a couple of 40s on the weekend and then get on with my life as planned. I miss those days. Now I can’t seem to quit worrying about running out. With each hit I take, I am one step closer to running out. I used to be able to chew up a half tablet, sip a glass of Scotch and enjoy a night of total pleasure. Everything is so pleasant when I am high. The simplest of objects seems wonderful to hold, to look at. Even network TV is interesting. The dullest of companions has something interesting to say. The most mundane tasks are accomplished without boredom. I don’t need food, and sometimes I think I probably don’t even need air. The earth’s crust is a giant piece of foam rubber, and I bounce upon it when I walk, or maybe I am floating. Where there used to be dark clouds of doubt, worry, and frustration, there are blue skies filled with infinite possibilities. But lately, those blue skies have been darkened by a nagging reminder that I am going to need to make sure I have enough Oxy to make it through tomorrow, because if I don’t, tomorrow will be intolerable. I know I’ve got a problem, but I am going to take care of it, tomorrow. What bothers me though, is that deep down inside, I know today is the tomorrow of a thousand yesterdays that I have put off time and time again.

How did I get here? After all, the government had made sure I was warned. I remember my seventh-grade health class in the early 1970s. The teacher, Mr. Clark, would utilize the most progressive teaching tool of the day: the filmstrip. A tape player or phonograph would play an audio text while a strip of 35 millimeter film was threaded through a projector one frame at a time. The narrator of the audio text would pause and a beep tone would indicate to the classroom’s audio-visual geek that the film should be advanced to the next frame. Every week we’d receive another hi-tech (at the time) admonishment of some health related issue that existed in the big-bad-world outside the classroom. We’d learn the dangers of drinking and driving as the narrator described blood alcohol content while the film strip projected horrid scenes of carnage from alcohol related car accidents. When we weren’t viewing the horrors of strewn body parts and blood stained vehicles, we were warned, in Technicolor, of the dangers of “Social Disease” and premarital sex. The filmstrips about the dangers of drugs still stand out in my mind. I remember seeing pictures of Hippies with flowers in their hair at rock concerts having what looked like the best time of their lives. Ultimately though, the filmstrip Hippies would later be depicted with needles in their arms, passed out beside a garbage can or being hauled away to prison. I remember thinking to myself that I would never, ever become like one of “those people.”

In fact, I wasn’t like “those people.” After all, I was driving a fine European sports car, had a beautiful wife, house, and a successful career. I had all those things that made me a good American, but underneath it all, the only thing that now separated me from “those people” was that I wasn’t (yet) lying in a pool of vomit somewhere, and although I didn’t have a needle in my arm, the monkey on my back bore a striking resemblance to the one perched upon the shoulder of the Hippies in the filmstrip some 25 years earlier. Mr. Clark never told me it would be like this.

It wasn’t just the school system that tried to keep me out of this predicament either. The church made damn sure I was warned about the temptations of the flesh. I learned in Sunday school that my body is a temple, a gift from God that I shouldn’t misuse or abuse. I remember being told that pleasure is a sin, and that those who indulge the pleasures of the body would forever be condemned to the misery of hell. I make my tax-deductible charitable donations, give money to the poor, and treat my fellow man with kindness and respect. But here I was, a grown-up man, who never hurt anybody, enduring the daily hell of addiction. I always thought the church taught that hell occurred in the hereafter, not the here and now. Perhaps I should have listened. The devil was on my tail here on earth, any day I ran out of Oxy.

Oxycontin tablets fit nicely in a wallet, on an airplane, in a desk drawer, or a book-bag at school. They require no expensive or cumbersome accessories, like syringes. They leave no unusual odors, like a pipe. Oxycontin leaves few visible signs like injection marks, bloodshot eyes, or revealing breath. And, if anyone becomes aware of your little habit, you can always pass it off as a legitimate treatment prescribed by your very own doctor. Oxy is the perfect drug, with the perfect high. You won’t be incapacitated, won’t stumble, hallucinate, or likely give yourself away. Board meetings are no longer “bored” meetings, isolation is joy, havoc is peace, despair turns to carefree, and all is well. Life is a seat on a big puffy cloud and smiles are easy to come by.

Oxy is perfect, or at least it seems that way. There is absolutely nothing that doesn’t feel better without Oxy. Physically, your body feels lighter, your pace slows down, and you feel comfortable no matter where you sit, stand, or move. You sleep well, eat less, and there isn’t a single pain in your body that matters. How could something so perfect be so bad? When I think about what the answer to that question might be, several possibilities come to mind, but none more important than the fact that: because Oxy makes everything seem so pleasurable, nothing else can ever be so pleasurable on its own. For example, would you really want something to be “better than sex?” If something really was “better than sex,” wouldn’t that “something” lessen and cheapen what most of us consider one of the most important aspects of being human? If you find something that really was better than the most wonderful thing you could ever experience, then whatever that “thing” is will become pretty underrated, and that is exactly what Oxy does. Oxy, in and of itself is not bad. Yet, Oxy, as perfect as it is, makes everything else in life seem less worthwhile in its absence.

For right now though, there are seven 80 mg Oxycontin tablets left in my wallet. So, I’m off to my private heaven. I will stop at the rest area ahead, just off the highway. I will pull over there, park myself on a picnic bench underneath a shade tree and grind up another tablet. There, my busted high will get fixed up and I won’t worry at all about the meeting I missed or the client I pissed off. And isn’t that what we all want: to be free from our cares? I can feel good about disregarding everything I don’t like about life when I am high. Oxy is perfect, isn’t it?

Withdrawal

2005-10-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

My hands feel like they are encased in two large blocks of ice. They feel like they are on fire, and as if they are frozen, all at the same time. The feeling is similar to the type of burn one might get reaching into a refrigerator, touching a frozen piece of metal.

I am lying on a bed in an unused, extra bedroom in our house. My wife kicked me out of our bed hours ago because of my restlessness. I can’t stay still. My legs, arms, and body feel uncomfortable no matter what position I lay. Everything that touches me feels like it shouldn’t be there, and the only relief is to move.

The sheets are soaked through to the mattress. Every inch of my body is oozing sweat. Every body part alternates between feeling searing heat and freezing cold. Right now my hands feel like I have set them upon a stove top and my back feels as though I were lying down naked on an ice rink. In a few moments it may change and the sweat on my back will feel like boiling hot oil.

I am trembling and jerking. The jerking streaks through me like a jolt of electricity, a convulsion that occurs every few moments. The cold ball of ice in my gut makes my entire thorax quiver, oddly resembling the way I’ve felt when standing in front of a large audience delivering a speech, like stage-fright.

My nose is running and my eyes are burning. Goose-bumps appear and then evaporate in patches all over my body. I have vomited twice in the past hour, and when I am not throwing-up, I crawl to the bathroom with violent diarrhea. I cannot walk without holding on to a wall. My legs and arms have barely the strength to lift their own weight.

It has been eight hours since I broke down and revealed my relapse to my wife. It has been 12 hours since my last dose.

The first time I realized I was hooked was also the first time I had experienced any sort of withdrawal symptoms. It occurred about a month or so after I first discovered Oxycontin. This was during a period of time when I would buy a handful of pills, enjoy them for a couple of days, and when they were gone, I would go for several days without them. No problem. I would casually pick up some Oxys before a big weekend, and when they were gone, I would go without them until the next “Special Occasion” came along. I did not realize that my Special Occasions were becoming more and more frequent. Nice weather and a sunny day were grounds for celebration. As the Special Occasions became more commonplace than extraordinary, I was only going for one or two days without buying Oxycontin, but either I wasn’t conscious of this fact or, more likely, wasn’t aware of the repercussions.

I remember waking up one morning realizing something was wrong. I had been using about two or three 40mg Oxys for several days and I had consumed the last pill the previous evening. As I made my way to work, I felt very tired and my energy was depleted. As I approached my office I barely had the energy to get from the parking lot to the front door. Coffee and Red Bull seemed to have no effect toward increasing my energy. I thought that perhaps I was catching a cold. The suspicion that I was going through withdrawal didn’t occur to me until the day afterward. It got worse.

By the second day, I was feeling frozen cold from the inside and I visited the bathroom every 30 minutes. I was weaker than the day before. It still hadn’t fully dawned on me that I was going through withdrawal. I simply assumed I had a cold or simply wasn’t feeling well. This provided the impetus for another Special Occasion, I reasoned. Off I went in search of my magic bullets. Thirty minutes after I scored, the frost melted from my frame, my head was clear, and I could leap tall buildings in a single bound. That’s the exact moment I knew I was hooked. I knew the reason I had felt sick was because I ran out of drugs and what made me feel better was getting high again.

As I drove away from my connection, feeling revived, I had a thought. There are many thoughts in a person’s life, but none more pivotal than the thought that “I have become…something.” These “becoming” thoughts are the kind of thoughts that acknowledge the realization that one’s life will never be the same, like “I have become…bankrupt,” “I have become…a convict,” “I have become…disfigured.” My pivotal thought was “I have become…a drug addict.” However, what makes this sickness so insidious is the fact that I didn’t care. It didn’t shock me to the core like the revelation one might have upon finally realizing they’ve committed some crime and are on their way to prison, but it should have. I was high, and when I was high, there was nothing that could bring me down...at least, not until I ran out of dope.

What I didn’t know then was that I would go through withdrawals many more times, with each time becoming successively more painful. Had I known then that I would wind up on a mattress, like a sponge, soaked with tears and sweat, I wonder if I would have quit. After confessing to my wife, we talked and I cried for several hours. After all we had been through in the past with my drug use and my lying to hide it, she could not believe we were reliving it all over again. On top of the pain I was about to experience, there was the realization that I had imperiled something far more precious to me than drugs: my wife and family.

I get a kick out of seeing the medical description of opiate withdrawal. It is so often compared with the symptoms of flu. What the medical literature cannot possibly describe is something that transcends the physical characteristics of withdrawal. Medical literature fails to include the emotional effects of withdrawal. Never have I felt so hopeless, helpless, and bitterly depressed as I have during withdrawal, and this was the worst ever. The despair is piercing.

I could not stop crying. After the sun rose, I managed to crawl out from under the tangled, wet sheets. I wandered into our back yard and collapsed, crying and vomiting. My wife had errands to take care of that Saturday morning and needed to leave. She had never seen me so incapacitated. I have often wondered what she must have been feeling at the time. On the one hand, she loves me very much, yet on the other hand I was a liar and a cheat, secretly getting high and spending our hard-earned cash on something I loved more than her. Here I was, completely helpless yet undeserving of empathy. I was a wretched splatter of vomit smeared clothing and frayed nerves, wailing like a baby in the grass of our middle-class back yard. Like a waterfall, a half-year of deceit and self-abuse was crashing down upon me. For the first time in my life I knew what it felt like to want to be dead. I could not feel the future. The future seemed futile.

As my wife prepared to leave, I sobbed incontrollably. The thought of being alone was too much for me to withstand. I spent the next eight hours crying and wretching in despair. The physical symptoms of withdrawal are intense, much more so than any flu I have ever had, but I can truly say that the emotional symptoms are the worst experience I have ever endured. To put the experience into words is difficult, but I can best explain it as the same intense feeling one might have at the death of a loved one or at the termination of a cherished relationship. It is this deep sad feeling, combined with fear, that best approximates the experience.

I tried as best I could to keep my mind together until my wife returned, but it was of little use. Somehow, I managed to pick up the phone book and contact a psychiatrist specializing in drug addiction who was available that afternoon. When my wife returned, we went to meet him at a nearby hospital. We arrived, me in tatters, and spent about an hour talking to him about approaches to the problem. He turned out to be some sort of an arrogant advocate for a treatment center, and confidently informed us that the only hope for me would be to enter an in-patient treatment center immediately. Most in-patient treatment programs require a 28-day stay. Because of the characteristics of my job we decided that an in-patient treatment center would not be an option for me. The psychiatrist pushed the treatment center upon us with the skill and tact of a salesman hawking time-share condos. He offered to give me a prescription for enough Methadone to make me well until Monday morning, when I could check in to the center. However, this offer of mercy was conditioned upon my checking in with the particular treatment facility he was pitching, which of course, he worked for on-the-side. The only other option he provided us with was to ride out the storm.

The psychiatrist-salesman had mentioned to my wife and me that an in-patient treatment center would probably prescribe diazepam (Valium) during the worst part of the withdrawals, to help me sleep off the experience. Fortunately, Valium is just one of the many a la carte items on the menu at Mexico’s pharmacies, and I happened to have some in stock (I’m not quite sure why. I never found a use for it other than helping to overcome an occasional sleepless night.) Over the next two days, my wife gave me a 20mg Valium tablet every six hours or less. It would knock me out for several hours and I would awaken again to the fear, despair, and pain.

By late Sunday evening I was able to walk again. I was feeling better, but not by much, just enough to keep me from shaking and crying uncontrollably. I had racked up almost 72 hours of clean-time, but I still felt half-dead and half not wanting to live. I had my fill of Oxycontin. I was done. I could not go through this again. I wanted to be alive again so badly, but I felt like it would be easier to simply die. Never again, I thought, would I go through withdrawal. The pain was too much, both physically and emotionally, but mostly emotionally. Oxycontin was an evil monster that I would need to slay. In fact, I did stop using Oxycontin, but my troubles were far from over. I was about to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Recover, relapse, repeat.

2005-08-15T01:49:00.000-07:00

I did “90 in 90.” That is 12-Step-speak for the regimen prescribed to the incoming wounded. For 90 days I religiously attended the non-religious meetings of Narcotics Anonymous. Did I mention I had been down this road before, in a different decade? Yes. I am not sure what the rationale is for doing “90 in 90” as the program dictates that you are suffering from “…a disease for which there is no cure.”

No bells went off at 90 days. No grand epiphanies. No astounding revelations. I was unhappy, frustrated, and reminded daily that I was a very sick person. The clamor that surrounds the effectiveness of 12-Step programs will likely go on forever, and I am sure that for some people, these programs have saved their lives. But at the time, I remember wanting more than just to have my life saved. I wanted to feel good too. Feeling good was a mere hour long drive and a dip into the ATM. I relapsed.

N.A. didn’t make me feel good, although the ritual may have actually helped to keep me from actually doing drugs for a while. I remember thinking though, that simply not doing drugs isn’t enough. I need to feel satisfied with life as it is. I was not.

So, I made my way back to the Mexican pharmacy. November 2004 came and went in a blur. The trips to Mexico became frequent. December 2004 bled just as rapidly. Each week I told myself that I would reduce my use, but each trip was like a reward. I would ignore my goal of reducing the amount I used and begin each haul with a celebratory high that far exceeded what I needed to simply and slowly cut down. Each trip increased my tolerance and dependence. I remember one morning, early, hauling ass down the interstate at 120 miles per hour to make the 75 mile pick-up. I needed to be accounted for back home at a certain time.

The braceros at the Mexican pharmacy loved me, but their love was truly more directed toward the portraits of Benjamin Franklin that emerged from my wallet every three or four days. There were no frequent-flyer miles, or baker’s dozens. I had inquired about getting a discount for my excessive patronage but was informed that perhaps, on an order of $2,000 U.S. or more, a couple of freebies might be thrown in. I briefly considered it.

The pharmacy opens at 9:00 am, Mexican Time. That means maybe 9:00, maybe 9:30, or maybe whenever. One particular morning I arrived promptly at 9:00 with the early onset of withdrawal. The braceros had not yet rolled up the impervious steel door of the pharmacy. Impatient, I sought what I was looking for at any one of the dozens of other stores that line “La Linea.” Buying Oxy in Mexico is not merely as simple as walking in, placing your order, and floating euphorically out the door. There is an element of trust that must be established, as even in Mexico, the sale of Oxy over-the-counter without a prescription is not necessarily legal. However, everything in Mexico is “not necessarily legal.” The concept of “Mordida,” the paying of bribes to officials, determines the trade of nearly everything in Mexico, from zoning laws to speeding tickets, and everything in between. I strolled the streets and inquired door-to-door for the pleasure I was looking for, desperately.

I succeeded. Because I don’t have the appearance of some young person seeking drugs, which arouses the suspicions of both U.S. and Mexican officials, and perhaps because I dropped the name of my contact at my regular store, I was obliged by the dealer-clerk at this pharmacy where I’d had no experience. $300 on the counter produced six 80 milligram Oxys in all their bluish-green glory. 240 paces later, I would be over the U.S. border and they would be ground to a fine powder and snorted off the console of my abused car.

As I strolled back to La Linea, happy at the prospect of thwarting withdrawal once more, I passed by the braceros at my usual shop. They were not as happy as I. Their faces, for the first time, lacked the love they usually showed for my presence. “What are you doing here, Gus?” they asked. I explained that I had just made a purchase at a competing store. This was a terrible mistake. They decried it as an act of “traición.” Betrayal. In all of my pick-ups in Mexico, I had never considered the prospect of violence, nor had I ever seriously contemplated that my life could be in danger. The silence amongst me and the three braceros was chilling. I apologized, repeatedly, and directed my contrition primarily at the jefe of the three, the one who runs the operation. His arms were crossed and he reeked of anger saying only these words: “If I ever find out that you’ve been buying from anyone else, there’s going to be trouble,” and he slowly turned and walked to the back of the pharmacy. The other two braceros explained that when I buy from them, I am protected, and mordida does not come cheap in Mexico. Buying drugs from someone other than them means they paid the protection but didn’t get the profit. It had never crossed my mind. I did not know the inner workings of their trade. Life is cheap in Mexico. The daily papers frequently display front-page photos of half decomposed corpses, each with its own tough luck story; an unpaid debt, a drug deal gone bad, a political opponent who was in the way. The local paper could just as easily display the mutilated body of a rich American drug addict who didn’t know the rules. Everyone sees the photo and life goes on. Just another brutal Mexican day.

The only result of my Mexican standoff was that I spent January 2005 looking for a connection that resided on this side of the imaginary line, La Linea. Not that I couldn’t have continued to patronize my threatening friends. My efforts were directed at making it easier to get what I needed, when I needed it. My tolerance and dependence were increasing markedly, but I wouldn’t become aware of that fact until a couple of months later. My preferred route of ingestion for Oxycontin was through my nose. I would grind the pills into a fine powder, and divide the dose into the necessary size, which might vary from between 20 and 40 milligrams. Oxy does not burn when snorted, like cocaine or speed. It tastes horrible as it runs down the back of your throat, but you don’t really care. The effect from snorting Oxy is markedly more potent than from crushing it and swallowing it. When snorted, the high begins within minutes, and interestingly, it does not seem to ‘wear off’ any faster than swallowing. Most drugs that are swallowed lose a percentage of their ‘strength’ in the gut. From what I have read, this is termed ‘bioavailability’. It is also probably the reason why so many illicit drugs are injected or snorted. High bioavailability means more bang for the buck. The downside to snorting, and I assume injecting, is that one’s tolerance and dependence increase at the same rate as the increase in bioavailability. So, if a person is snorting 80 milligrams of Oxy a day, and if let’s say, 50% of swallowed Oxy is destroyed by the gut, then the 80 milligram snorter is taking the equivalent 160 milligrams of swallowed Oxy. By the time I began my search for a local distributor in January of 2005, I was snorting about two 80 milligram tablets per day. It would only get much worse.

As a ‘working professional’, trying to hide an addiction, seeking illicit drugs of any kind opens one up to exposure, which is something that could seriously impair one’s ability to continue being a ‘working professional’. The addict in me got lucky. Where I live, there is a large underground economy, composed mostly of very young minorities, who can supply whatever an addict needs. One day, in passing, I asked a colleague where I could find some Percocet for my ailing back, explaining that I couldn’t get in to see my doctor. Popping that simple question landed me two phone numbers to two young Latina women who would supply the Oxy I needed, sometimes unreliably, for the next two months. With these two connections, and the always available Mexican pharmacy, I set a course for creating an incredible tolerance to Oxycontin. What is undeniably sad is that these young people traffic in drugs, not out of a desire to earn fortunes, but out of what seems to be the only way for them to survive. They sometimes live four and five to a two bedroom apartment, sharing expenses for college textbooks, tuition, and whatever it takes to live. Most of them have jobs at the prevailing $6.00 per hour that are the only kinds of jobs available to a young person. One would never know from their appearance that they deal in drugs to supplement their income. Forget any preconceived images of young gangsters. These are hard-working young people, sometimes with children they bore in their teens, seeking some way to manage. They have hopes and dreams of a better life, one that doesn’t include selling drugs to survive.

By March 2005 I was snorting between 240 and 320 milligrams of Oxycontin per day. The inside of my nose was beginning to peel and burn, and there were other noticeable health effects. Every aspect of my health seemed to be effected by Oxycontin, and each of those aspects are cited in any literature about the long-term effects of high doses of the drug. I was beginning to fall apart. It was becoming more difficult to pay for the drug, acquire enough of the drug, and keep all of it hidden. I began to work on something I called “The Project.” I researched all of the different therapies and approaches for getting myself out of the pit that was widening around me. One of these approaches is a new drug therapy involving a drug called buprenorphine. (http://www.recoverythroughsupport.com/treatment/opiate-detox.html?OVRAW=buprenophine&OVKEY=buprenorphine&OVMTC=standard) In short, it will keep you from withdrawing without getting you high. Using smaller and smaller doses, an addict can eventually ‘jump off’ without going through a serious withdrawal.

Buprenorphine is available in Mexico. A few years ago, prior to the flood of Oxycontin, the braceros called it “synthetic morphine,” and would pitch it to passers by at the pharmacies. I had even tried it once, several years ago, but found it worthless for getting high.

One Friday morning in March, my local connection had run dry, and so had I. It was getting to the point that I needed to take Oxy at least once every six hours or the symptoms of withdrawal would come on very rapidly. I headed to Mexico with the intent of starting on buprenorphine. I picked the wrong day. It appears that, occasionally, the authorities in Mexico visit all of the pharmacies with the intent of some sort of audit, and such was the case on this particular day. As I entered my regular pharmacy, the braceros told me that not only would there be no buprenorphine sold that day, but that Oxy was out of the question as well. In disbelief, I visited every other pharmacy only to be told of the government audit to be conducted that day. Withdrawal symptoms were setting in and my time was running out.

Buprenorphine, I was told, could be purchased on that day, but only with a prescription. I was directed to a medical office and ascended up a rickety elevator and down a corridor to the office of a physician. I entered the sparse office, shaking, sweating, and emotionally unstable. Unlike a typical U.S. medical office, there was no receptionist, no nurse, just a one-man operation, and he was with a patient. He emerged from the examination room as I entered and could barely speak English. It was obvious from his reaction that he could see there was something quite wrong with me. He handed me some paperwork and told me to wait. Sitting alone, trembling, under the glare of a flickering flourescent tube, I worried that I had finally come to the end of my ability to manage my love affair with Oxy.

My cellphone pierced my ears in the silent waiting room. It was the braceros. Amazingly, the auditors had left. They told me that Oxy awaits, but no buprenorphine. The Project could wait. I bolted the doctor’s office, never to be seen again. I picked up about six 80 milligram Oxys and headed home, shaken, knowing that the game had become unworkable.

That evening the game came to an end. When my wife came home from work and we settled down for a romantic moment, she sensed something was wrong with me. I could not hide any longer. I began gasping for air and my heart felt as though it would escape my chest. I now know that I was having a full-blown anxiety attack. I feared that if I did not tell her what was going on, that I would surely die right there. It was over. I made the admission. I had relapsed. I had lied. I had tried to hide it. I could do no more. I ran to my stash, turned it all over to her and cried until my eyes felt as though they were bleeding. What would happen next is the nightmare that anyone ever addicted to a drug fears most of all.

Meetings

2004-07-02T22:12:00.000-07:00

I’ve been down this road before. Back the 1980s there was an organization formed to deal with the special needs of cocaine addicts who were perched upon the crest of the wave of white powder that the tide rolled into the U.S. during the Reagan administration. The organization was Cocaine Anonymous. I had entered the CA ranks in the summer of 1985. I left a good job, career and friends in Las Vegas and sought cleaner pastures in Arizona in the hope that I could escape my dealer and drugging friends. It didn’t work. Within a month I had located ever source in town and was more strung-out than ever before. I spent 90 days going to meetings noon and night until I simply couldn’t take it anymore. When you enter a 12-step program they will tell you that you’ve got to do “90 in 90” which means ninety meetings in ninety days. The net result for me was that I never, ever did cocaine again. I abstained not because of the program, but merely because I knew, in my heart, that if I continued to do cocaine that I would have to spend the rest of my life with these people and with the program. It was a very good motivator. Unfortunately, Oxy was something I could not deal with quite so smoothly.

A lot of things have changed since the good old 80s. Now, NA is a big phenomenon, or at least bigger than it was. When I was in CA I would occasionally go to a small NA meeting, and as I recall there was only one a week, conducted in a small park around a tree. Now that I was faced with going to meetings again, I was surprised to see that there were NA meetings scheduled at least five times a day, seven days a week in my city.

My first meeting was dismal. I had failed. I had failed to realize the first step of any 12 step program: I was an addict and my life had become unmanageable. All of my attempts to keep my addiction a secret had failed. All of the hard work I had put into getting high had landed me here. I gazed across the room at homeless people, harpooners, meth freaks, parolees, white trash, brown trash, black trash, wierdos, freaks, and outcasts. I was now one of them. I was there because of my wife, but it became rapidly clear that I needed to be there because of someone else: me.

My name is Gus. I am an addict.

The Sh** has hit the Fan

2004-07-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

What has made my withdrawals so much easier is the fact that my wife has been very supportive of me. At least she was until today. Today the shit hit the fan and it spewed far and wide.

During my withdrawals I stole some of my wife’s meds just to take off the edge. We’ve had this problem before. Over the past ten years she’s resorted to hiding her meds for migraines and other ailments because if I encountered them, I’d steal them. I stole them last week. I also lied about it. This sent my wife into a rage. No longer was she the sweet supportive consoler. Now she was pissed. She has a difficult time getting the meds because of paranoid doctors and when she realized that she was not really going crazy, and that the amounts of her meds were shrinking because someone else was absconding with them, she freaked out. Her mandate: I must go to meetings.

This was my greatest fear. Meetings are the end of the road for any addict. Meetings means that the jig is up and the shit is over. Going to NA meetings means that you’ve hit the last house on the block, as some of the NA meet-o-philes like to declare. I realized that this was the end of the road. No more living a second life. It was over. I was fucked with no escape.

How Much?

2004-06-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

Last night marked five days. Yesterday, I was still feeling the physical symptoms of diahrea and fatigue, but I pushed through it and put in a full day at my job. It was difficult. This morning I am feeling better but have no idea what to expect. I know I can’t do Oxycontin any longer and I feel confident, but I know myself well enough to know that dedication can melt in the face of rationalization.

This morning, thinking back on how this all happened, and doing so within the context of this being my sixth day of what is probably the worst crash I have known over that time period, I realized just how much of the drug I was taking. I don’t think I realized it before, but I can’t remember going more than seven days without it in the past 26 weeks. When I get to seven days I don’t know what to expect because I haven’t gone that far. I really had never thought about it.

I crashed before, but none as horrific as this. Every time that I was feeling better, I rationalized that I was o.k. and that going to get more Oxy was no big deal. I reasoned that it was merely a type of recreation and that, if I could quit for a few days, then it was no big deal. However, reflecting back upon it now, I see that the problem was not quitting until I felt better, but rather quitting in the face of feeling better.

How did this happen to me?

2004-06-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across the Mexican border. Beer wasn’t enough. I had taken a summer Friday afternoon off. The thermometer was way past the century mark. I was simply out for a day away from work for a boyish adventure. In the potholed narrow streets of a Mexican border town you can buy anything: prescription drugs, weapons, or even humans. What I really wanted was Percocet, but it is not sold in Mexico. However, I had heard that one could get Vicodin. I had taken Percocet and Vicodin from time to time as prescribed by my primary care physician to help me get over an aching back, and I had enjoyed how it made me feel. I thought that perhaps I’d see what Mexico had to offer and maybe I’d get lucky and add some fun to my escape from the routine.

Tiny shops, crammed one after the other, dot the Mexican streets, and every four or five doorways leads to a Mexican pharmacy. Retirees, free to abandon the aching cold of the northern states, relocate to border states in large migrating flocks for cheap living and abundant sunshine. In the early 1990s, the federal government passed a law allowing U.S. consumers to travel across the border and return with enough medication for personal use. This has spawned an entire industry in border towns, where every other customer is a bobbing globe of gray, looking to stock up on cheap generic versions of Lipitor, Coumadin, and Viagra. In Mexico, prescriptions are required for controlled substances, but the line between what is controlled and what is not, is blurred to the degree that no one needs a prescription for nearly anything.

I wandered into a pharmacy that was down a frightening narrow tiled corridor and up a flight of concrete steps. It was a small windowless room about 15 feet wide by 8 feet deep and only accessible to customers by a waist-high counter cut into a small niche. I asked for Vicodin but was told to come back next week, which of course was not going to happen. I rarely, if ever, visited Mexico. I pressed the counterman for more. It was getting late in the day and I needed to return home, a very long drive. Finally I blurted out that I wanted anything with codeine. He handed me a thirty-tablet bottle and demanded eighty bucks. It was the summer of 2001. That was the first time I ever saw Oxycontin. I didn’t even know what it was.

The Fear

2004-06-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

I am two hours away from the 96-hour mark. Every hour or so, the fear sets in. This is unlike any fear you will ever know. We expect fear to come in response to something in our environment that endangers us, and in that context, we see fear as a normal productive part of life; it helps us to survive and succeed in the face of threats. This fear is like the 800-pound monster that lives behind your closet door, never seen, but lurking there, waiting to eviscerate you. This is fear in response to nothing. This is fear for no rational reason, but it is still fear nonetheless. It is a kind of fear that creates questions rather than responses: will I ever feel good again? Have I ruined my life permanently? What did I miss out on while I was high and will those opportunities ever present themselves again? What will tomorrow be like, and what if it is worse than today.

96 hours is a long time when you are crashing. It is an eternity, a milestone that I am clutching like a half-inflated life raft; I have watched the ship slide to the bottom of the sea and I made it off the deck, yet I do not know if, while clinging to my flotsam, I will survive, nor do I know if this is a better fate. The physical symptoms subsided at 72 hours. The runny nose, diarrhea, the flames and ice cubes darting from my flesh, and a never-ending stream of sweat, were nothing compared to the fear. Some accounts place the physical symptoms somewhere next to the flu, which I believe is accurate. At 24 hours my nose became runny and my skin began to feel like pinpricks that I could not discern were either hot or cold. But most of all, at that point, I felt weak. I left work early that day. I only made it through about two hours when the crash began to fall. I crawled right into the bed that I would later make slogging wet with sweat. At 48 things were still the same, but perhaps slightly better. But at 72, after I felt as though my skin had been zipped back on, the fear remained, and in the absence of physical symptoms it seemed to be glaring at me and no longer subdued by the trauma to my physical body, which had subdued it. And here I am staring it in the face.

Two months ago, while I was high, I took out a 3” X 5” index card and wrote myself a note from the dreamy world of opiate intoxication. Having crashed a few times before, but never with the serious intent of leading to permanent abstinence, I thought I’d leave myself a souvenir from the netherworld; something that would let me know that, from the other side, everything would eventually be o.k. On the other side, everything is cool and everything is fine. There are no worries, no fears, no scary monsters under the bed. Like a time traveler who leaves a message in the past in order to mark the future, I wrote this:

“It is an illusion. See thought it. Everything is o.k. Things are not what they seem. You have seen that peace is possible, now find it. If you could find it then (while you were high) you can find it again. Don’t be a pussy! Do what you need to do. Do what you know is right. You can accomplish whatever you need or want to. Just don’t do it! Nothing lasts forever. This will pass. Believe it. There is no substitution. Do it all. There is no honor in second place. Push through it. It is not real. It can be whatever you want it to be. Don’t be afraid. Believe in yourself. Don’t believe the fear. It is not real and everything is o.k. It will go away.”

I squarely folded the index card and tucked it into my wallet where it has resided for the past eight weeks, unfolded, until today. The fear is so pervasive that the words from the index card seem as shallow as words of comfort from the executioner to the condemned. The words make no sense at all. I read the attempted encouragement from the netherworld like a treatise from a sophomore-year philosophy course: it can never be the case that things are not what they seem because how things seem is the only way that things are. At least that’s the way it seems at 96.

I am afraid. Afraid the Percocet destroyed my liver. Afraid I altered my brain chemistry. Afraid I will die. Afraid that if I live, I will never know pleasure again. There seems to only be the pleasure of the drug or life without it, and each is exclusive of the other, as though there is only one choice, yet somehow I know that one choice results in death. Yet, what remains, the possibility of life, but one without joy, seems no consolation. I once heard a story that the lowest Roman slaves were given a choice between two destinies. Supposedly they could choose between either a lifetime of slavery, or one night in Caesar’s Palace enjoying the lustful splendor of all the pleasures it entailed, but be executed at sunrise. Sometimes a choice is no choice at all. I am indeed going to die. We all are. I have merely made a choice about how I’d like to do it, and hopefully it won’t be drowning in my own vomit. That’s my choice at 96.

Tomorrow: How did this happen to me?