Sore subject ???

I just got a personal email from another forum member that wanted to know what she should do when she wants off of pills, but always seems to run into a reason to keep taking them, chronic pain, surgery, any other reason.

I have read this from alot of postings lately, so I wanted to share my point of view.  Maybe this might be a good thing to talk about today:  Why do we keep going back to pills?
Here was my response to her:
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Yeah, thats so tough.  I just had my breast implants removed last month because a raging infection, and not ONE time did I take narcotic pain meds.  I wouldn't recommend going through that to my worst enemy, but thats where I am in my life.  I will NEVER take another pain pill, no matter what.  I think you have to make a decision in your mind, you have to actually be  so fed up, that you would be willing to go through something like that 10x's over again before resorting to narcotics.  If you are always finding a way to take them, then you are probably not at that point yet.  It has to come from you, inside you, not just running out and not have access anymore, I mean you have to really dig deep, and decide.

[catseye820]

I think you are 100% right on. I thought that I could just take a pill here or there in the past, and truly I have just taken a pill here or there in the past and not ended up in the awful spiral I'm in now (day 2.5...I repeat to myself like a loon every hour...). But you know what? That was then. That was once upon a time. BUT this is now. I think at one time this was true of me, but not anymore. Same with cigarettes. I finally stopped smoking and it's been over a year now; January 4th 2006 was my last cig. Do you kow why it's been over a year? Not because I am over the addiction or because I'm lucky or special in any way, it's because I haven't stuck a lit cigarette in my mouth! Plain and simple. I know there are social smokers, but I know now that I am not one of them. Each time I have quit smoking before, I became so confident in my "overcoming my addiction" that I guess I didn't consider myself a nicotine addict anymore. So I smoked a cig at a party, which led to oh just one more, to bumming cigs daily to then buying pack and there I am right back to a pack a day within 2 weeks. I get it now; I CAN'T smoke, period! Same with this...I can't take pills! I mean I am hooked on tramadol which I began taking to wean off of Norco (Hydro 10) but now I'm hooked on the tramadol. I had to get over my damn jolly rancher addiction which replaced the smoking.I mean it's like I just replace one with another. I'm SOO glad you brought this up!

[TXRebecca]

We are ALL like this!  Thats why we are called addicts. We get addicted to any and everything, even people, or things.  It is just recognizing it, that is the hard part.  Most of us, I think, live alot of our life in denial.

[tomanypills]

this is why telling a true addict to taper is a joke,,,a cruel one

[kvmj]

You are absolutely 100% correct !!!!!! 1 is too many and 1000 is not enough, there is no ocasional pill here or there, or whatever your addiction is.

The only way to not relapse is to not take A pill or to not smoke A cig is to not put it to your mouth !!!!

Why is this so hard for us??? or me anyway????  

[swirlingcoffee]

Going further with your thought - the really insidious and dangerous thing about always finding a reason, especially if it's drastic like surgery, injury, etc., is that you could be unconsciously creating the situations in order to justify further use.  You wouldn't necessarily consciously hurt yourself, but if you believe in any of Freud's and Jung's ideas (and I do, though not all of them), then if you're not supremely in touch with yourself it's amazing how effective and hidden self destruction can be.

Obviously, most surgery probably doesn't count, but any injury, condition, etc should be examined in terms of how it happened.  Coincidences are rarer than we think.

Excellent book on the subject:  "The Psychopathology of Every Day Life", by Freud.  Since reading it I have a deeper understanding of Freudian Slips, and I never, ever lose my keys! (used to be a major daily problem).  Not to trivialize it, however, I've found some gigantic, tragic life errors were actually caused by me to avoid something I thought was worse.