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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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

(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?