2 weeks today, no Oxy, and man, am I tired.

[ColdInCanada]

Hi all

I've been reading all your stories, and getting inspired. (I won't be using any swim-type metaphors or pseudonyms, I hope nobody minds. I can't wrap my head around speaking of myself in the third person, and I have no fear of legal exposure).

I've been a lifelong addict to one thing or another, and I really should have known better than to start using opiates. I smoked two packs a day for close to 30 years, and quit cold turkey over seven years ago. That was tough, and it was about my tenth try. I drank myself into a coma practically every day for many years. I quit that cold turkey about four years ago. That was pretty tough too, in a very different, life-changing kind of way. I wasted many, many tens of thousands of dollars on cocaine over the years, haven't touched it in over ten years. But then I went and got sick.

I got diagnosed with MS about three years ago. I can no longer use strenuous excercise to help beat back the bad angel, and that was my most valuable tool. Along with reduced physical function comes a great deal of nerve pain. I tried all the generally useless, over-marketed bullshit like gabapentin and it's newer, much more expensive twin pregabalin. I've tried Elavil and trazadone and tegretol. None of it made a difference. Then I convinced my doctor to let me try Oxycontin, and for the first time in over a year, I was almost pain-free, and I slept a whole night through. I also had the best buzz I've had in years.

Over the past two years I've been gradually upping the dosage as I got more and more hooked. My doc would write me a presciption for three months and it wouldn't last more than two (luckily, the pharmacist would only release one month at a time, or it would have been gone a lot sooner). The nerve pain was gone, but a whole new kind of torment was building up rapidly.

I could no longer extend my prescription long enough to even appear slightly reasonable to my doc. Buying Oxycontin on the street has cost me a lot of money that I can no longer work to replace. Things were beginning to spiral out of control, and I refuse to cause my family to suffer any more than they have to. So I made the decision to quit.

I knew from the start that this day would come. I'm an old hand at self-assessment, and I knew very well that even as I was asking my doctor to let me try it for my pain, I was anticipating the buzz. I won the lottery when I got struck by the MS lightning bolt. I could get wasted every day, and I had a legitimate excuse. I kept telling myself I could keep it under control. I needed the shit, after all. I ought to be able to swallow a pill without chewing it, right? Right??

So here I am, two weeks to the day after quitting cold-turkey, and I'm in far more pain than I ever was before I started my magic journey on the opiate train, and I haven't slept in days.

Ah, life. What the fuck did I ever do to you to bring this on?