Introduction
My story is probably similar to many of yours (except for the part where I am now clean). I was addicted to a very high dose of Oxycontin (1500mg-2000mg daily), and I am now clean. I am clean From Oxycontin for 5 1/2 years and I am clean from alcohol & all substances for nine months. I would like to share my story of how I successfully beat the Oxys so that I no longer need a daily fix just to get out of bed and not want to kill myself. My goal is to provide hope for anyone addicted to Oxycontin that it is possible to get your life back and not only function without the oxies but have a good normal life as well.
Beginnings
Beginnings
I grew up in a home with both parents, the eldest of eight children; I had a few wild teenage years but settled down and got married at 22. I lived a normal happy life until I turned 24 and a friend gave me a few Percocets at work. I didn't think that anything bad would happen so I popped them, needless to say I felt GREAT (not that I felt poorly before that), all of my senses were heightened I was able to work, drive, have sex, eat, sleep (okay not able to shit) in a much more enjoyable manner than I had experienced before. So immediately I set out to get more because it felt so great that i wanted to feel like this all the time. My friend that gave me the pills, sold me the rest of the bottle - like 360 pills (his father owned a pharmacy and he swiped em one day) Oxycodone 10/325 . Wow I breezed through the entire bottle without being aware of how many I was taking, but a few days later I open up the bottle to take my morning fix and damn it was almost empty. The thought crossed my mind to let it go - and forget about them, but I am a greedy addict & said to this voice NO WAY I feel so effing great there is no way I am giving up this feeling and going back to being sober all day long. Well I now needed to get more pills FAST! After exhausting all of my friends and acquaintances supply via a search & seizure performed on their medicine cabinets, I found out that you can order Vicodin (hydrocodone 10/325) Brand name: Norco, online without so much as a phone call (this is going back 10 years, nowadays I understand it to be a bit more difficult). I went online filled out a one page questionnaire - it turns out I was suffering from excruciating back pain and didn’t even know it until I need a reason for ordering 120 pills of Norco. I gave my credit card number and presto Fedex showed up the next day with an envelope containing my drugs. OK now I was good for only a few days (I still haven’t discovered the joys of Oxycontin). Well I thought to myself if there is one online pharmacy / doctor willing to ship me hydrocodone there are probably more, but before I went looking for another site to order from I borrowed 3 or 4 friends credit cards (I paid them cash) and placed orders to their houses (from the tried and tested pharmacy) so I got another 3 bottles within two days.
A joyful stoned week later and I am now an expert on all online pharmacies - they had entire message boards dedicated to people who were sharing their experiences of only BUYING NORCO ONLINE, it was amazing - with a few taps of the keyboard I was able to bring my fix via FedEx every day to my house.
MONEY PROBLEMS
It took me some time for me to realize that my new habit was quite expensive; if you go to a regular local pharmacy with a prescription for Hydrocodone 10/325 you'll only pay around $10-$15 for 90 pills. Online the cost was a staggering $200 for 120 pills, they claimed that this was their Doctors consultation fee - OK who am I to argue with the dealers. At this point I'm probably up to 50 pills a day and am suffering financially not to mention how all the Tylenol is affecting my liver and stomach.
SOLUTION
I come up with a brilliant plan why don’t I start selling (to people I know who used these pills recreationally) and this way I’ll have enough money for my own consumption. I still haven’t even thought about recognizing my behavior as problematic, why should I – I feel great and I found a solution to my one problem which is money. My business started picking up within a week – who knew that every person that I seemed to know was a weekend consumer of pain killers, I was happy as a pig in shit. I did remember that old adage about: ‘Don’t get high on your own supply’. So in an effort to build up profits from my newfound business , I tried to stop taking so many pills everyday but I quickly realized that I couldn’t feel any affects if I took less, rather I needed to increase my dosage as my tolerance went up. This presented a slight problem of supply – I was already tapping every online pharmacy at least once a month (you cannot reorder until 28 days have passed from your last order). I needed a new source of pills quick – I was already limiting my sales to 10 pills per customer per week (because I needed the rest for my own use). I stumbled upon a new source quite by accident.
NEW SOURCE
One day I am with a friend and we are talking about different types of pain killers, and his elderly father is in the room listening to our conversation, at some point he remarks
‘My doctor gave me pills for my arthritis’
my ears perk up immediately and my mouth replies
‘do you take them Mr Smith’?
‘No, I cannot sleep when I take them’
‘How do you feel about selling them to me’?
‘Take em for free, you’re a nice boy’
‘OK great, but I want you to keep getting prescriptions for the pills from your Doctor every month, I will make it worth your while’
‘Sure whatever you say’
Next day:
‘Mr Smith, perhaps you have some elderly retired friends who want to supplement their social security checks by getting me pills’?
‘OK, next time I go to play cards, I will ask everyone’
Within a month I quit my full time job, because I had a new job. Every day from 9:00 in the morning I acted as a chauffeur for elderly people, first I would drive them to the Doctor followed by a trip to the pharmacy before dropping them off and picking up the next senior citizen. At 3:00 I was done for the day, and then made my round of customers dropping off pills (in exchange for money – obviously).
MEETING WITH THE DEVIL (OXYCONTIN)
One day one of my customers tells me he doesn’t have money to pay me – can he pay me tomorrow? I ask him how you will be able to pay me tomorrow.
Simple, he responds I have pills of my own that I plan on selling. The pills are called Oxycontin, they are too strong for his girlfriend which is why he’s buying hydrocodone from me, naturally I swap him some hydros for some oxy’s.
I was hooked, this is great I thought, instead of taking 50 - 60 pills a day I only needed like 15 of this new kind. Plus it had the huge advantage of not containing any Tylenol which I knew (but did not acknowledge) was really bad for me. The next morning I had my first patient of the day request from his doctor Oxycontin 40mg in place of all the Hydrocodone/Ocycodone because he read somewhere; it is better to take the time released versions of pain medicine. Seven out of ten of my ‘patients’ were successful in getting their doctor to switch over to the new and improved OXY, I was shining!
FIRST ATTEMPT TO QUIT
I wont bore you with the details of the next two years that passed in much the same fashion as what you have read above, fast forward two years later to when I now need 40 pieces of Oxy 40mgs & 10 Bars of Xanax (2 mgs) just to get out of bed in the morning. I no longer enjoyed the high which I became numb to, and I no longer felt the elation that I had felt at the beginning of my excursion, also there were a ton of disadvantages – not being able to take a dump without an enema, non-existent sex drive etc. I now wanted out. Instead of doing any research into what exactly was going to happen I simply stopped taking them one day. I don’t have to describe the world of pain which I entered, I am sure you are all very familiar with it. After three days of not taking anything – I decided to take my family to a hotel – they knew I was sick but not why, I told them maybe I just need to get away for a few days. Two days later (away from home), I told my wife something is very wrong…
‘I just don’t feel normal, I have never felt like this before I think a may be losing my mind’
‘what do you want to do’?
‘Please call an ambulance and get me taken to a hospital’
Upon examining me and not finding anything physically wrong, the Doctor recommends a Psychiatric evaluation. Somehow we manage to get home. After my psychiatrist sees me (I forgot to mention that I had monthly visits to a Psychiatrist to obtain 90mgs a day of Addrerall), he immediately checks me into the Psychiatric ward at the nearest hospital. My feelings of extreme detachment from all my surroundings are getting worse by the hour. After 12 hours in the hospital I get an epiphany – perhaps all this is happening because I detoxed cold turkey. I told the next Doctor on duty my revelation, he glances at me for a second like I am the world’s biggest idiot, and immediately gets me checked into the detox floor (in the same hospital). I started to feel better after a being on a high dose of methadone for a few days (they taper you off slowly using methadone). After returning to a state of being able to carry on a conversation with someone other than myself, I receive the following news from the doctor in charge; ‘You have experienced a severe anxiety attack brought on by a combination of the withdrawal mixed with Depression’
I was able to swallow the withdrawal aspect but since when was I depressed? Little did I know at the time; but one of the withdrawal symptoms which last long after the physical symptoms go away is major depression. I completed my two week stay at the hospital detox and return to my life thinking that I can refrain from the god-awful pills (which put me in the hospital).
RELAPSE
Within a week I was back on the same dosage. Here’s what happened: I felt physically ok after the three weeks of sobriety (a little weak but I was functional) however every time I went out of my house I became consumed by suicidal thoughts, for no apparent reason; other than that I felt mentally like total and utter shit. My life is at risk I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be better to just take a few pills and see if it helps. It took me no time at all to get back to a similar dose as I was taking before I tried to quit.
SECOND THROUGH FIFTH ATTEMPTS
Over the next few years I tried unsuccessfully a few times to stop. Through the fifth try I had very similar experiences as the first attempt (minus the mental institution) – I learned from my mistake and now only attempted to clean up in a detox program
SOMETHING GOES VERY WRONG
By the sixth attempt to clean up I was taking a whopping 1600mgs every day (I weigh only 165 lbs). Everything starts out as usual, after saying goodbye to my wife and kids (Daddy’s going on another business trip for two weeks), I check myself into my favorite hospital detox program (I should write a tour guide of the Tri-State detoxes available). For whatever reason the medical staff either didn’t believe me as to the amount I was taking, or wanted to punish me so they insisted that they can only give me 100mgs of methadone, obviously not a good idea – but I was already starting to feel sick so I said ‘whatever, just give me some drugs now’ (instead of checking out of the hospital). I woke up three weeks later from a coma in another hospital, with no idea of where I am, the first thing on my mind was where are my pills? It was later explained to me that I suffered severe trauma brought about by an overdose of pain killers.
‘What the hell are you talking about, I cant OD on pain killers even if I wanted to”
After explaining to them the dose I was taking prior to entry into a detox program, where I was immediately transferred from 1600mg of Oxycodone to 100mg of Methadone they were able to better understand the nature of my coma. I remained at the hospital for three months.
SKIPPING TOWN
During my stay at the hospital I had a lot of time to think about my life. I was 29 years old I had a little money but no real employment or marketable experience with which to start a normal life. The only thing that I knew was that I wanted to be clean. I was no fool and unable to see how I can accomplish this goal in the same environment I had left. On one visit to the hospital I discussed with my wife the possibility of moving to another country (I wanted to run as far as I can from this Gorilla on my back). It wasn’t as difficult as it may sound since my wife is from Israel and has family there so after a little chaos, a few months later we are in Israel. At this point I have been clean from Oxycontin for around six months. I still feel the urge to kill myself but try ignoring it. After trying to find a job unsuccessfully, and being miserable twenty four hours a day, my wife starts getting fed up with me and things start escalating into constant fighting. I think to myself all my problems started when I cleaned up from OXYs, now I know Oxycontin is the devil itself and I almost died from it but maybe there is something else that can help me become ‘happy’ (or at the very least not suicidal).
INTRO TO SALVATION
I decided to pay a visit to the nearest methadone clinic (they have them all over the world). I quickly find out that it takes a few months of paper work to get in the program, but upon my exiting the building I am approached by a local who assures me that he can sell me a weekly supply on methadone, sure I said. I am now taking 150mgs of methadone daily but at least I am fully functional and not suicidal. I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that kicking methadone is almost as bad as kicking Oxycontin, but I rationalized it by saying that at least its legal and not so expensive. One day on my trip to purchase a weekly supply of methadone I am told that he doesn’t have any to sell me this week. After shouting at him for a few minutes I tell him to call up friends and find me some, now! After a bunch of calls he tells me I couldn’t find any Methadone, but a friend suggested you may be interested in some Heroin. Before all of the Heroin horror stories had a chance to flit through my mind I immediately responded: ‘hell yes, tell him to get his ass down here pronto’.
Wowee! It was love at first site, any problems that I had immediately disappeared I felt unbelievably great for the first time in 4-5 years. I ran home to tell my wife that I found a new ‘medication’ to make me ‘normal’.
To be continued...
