The shadow addicts

I just read an article on addiction that made it obvious to me that the person who wrote it never has been an addict and probably never knew an addict.

There are many levels of addiction as well as many things a person can be addicted to , I have read that man needs to be addicted to something, work, family, or drugs and alcohol, anything can be an addiction. I am going to address the most known forms of addiction, drugs.

You have addicts to, heroine, cocaine, crack, pills, uppers and downers, most pain reliever pills can be addictive. Some people start from dr prescriptions, other get turned on from friends or just being bored. They say most addicts are people trying to forget or trying not to feel, maybe trying to compensate for something in their life, or something not in their lives, either way I think that is more of a mental addiction.

I personally became addicted to pain reliever pills that I was prescribed for years, moving, getting involved into a not so healthy crowd, and having to change dr, I started buying on the street. Once I decided it was enough, I went back to the dr and was put on suboxen, a drug they prescribe to help people get over addiction, like methadone, it has a blocker for opioids in it so if they are taken you can’t get high, ( although I’m sure people tried everything) the most you can do is nod off.

The drugs they made to help people get off street drugs are so much worse, you trade one for another and those make you sicker if you go with out. It is worse, it is so much harder to get off suboxen then any of the actual drugs! From reading and hearing it from people I know, you can get off pills and feel almost normal again in a week or so depending on the person, with suboxen it can be months if not years before you feel normal, again, depending on the person and the amount and length they were on it. Here in Maine you go to a clinic and they don’t wean you off they jack up your doses and don’t push people to get clean, which is what a clinic is supposed to do. That’s a whole different article though!

I am physically addicted, yes there is a difference, I have had a couple doctors tell me my body could not handle detoxing, which I know is true, but that’s cold turkey. If I didn’t get the nurses to get the papers in to the insurance company so they could get them to the pharmacy before the weekend I have had to go without, I ended up in the hospital. That was when I had a dr who only gave me enough for one day after my appointment. The dr I have now believes in me and gives me enough for, just in case. I have been taking suboxen for about ten years give or take. I have tried to wean off but failed multiple times. My endocrinologist just told me I have to do the weaning in more triple times between dose changes, so months not weeks. The last step is the hardest and I have been putting it off. All of my disabilities revolve around pain and fatigue, weaning causes pain and fatigue.

So it is not so black and white as some may think and it is not always junkies trying to get the next fix. I never sold things or robbed anyone, I never did or said anything in front of my kids and they never ever went with out anything. There are people who do and some even loose their kids, but not all. There happens to be quite a few people like me out there, we are just the ones you don’t hear about.