I'm not a doctor, so I can't give any advice as to which meds to take or not. I am a recovering alkie, with a few very painful medical conditions, so I'll share what works for me. See if any of this is useful to you.
My "drug of choice" is _more_. More of _anything_. Booze worked pretty good for awhile, but it eventually turned on me. But booze is _not_ my disease, it's only a symptom of my dizease. I've gotten addicted to sugar, to TV, to work, to money, to adrenalin, to _anything_ that can turn off my head and give me some kind of "safe place" where I can stop feeling bad about me. My problem is not in the chemical, it's in my head.
There is no medication in the world, not matter what the docs say, that I cannot turn into an addiction and use it as an escape for reality. That's just the way my head works. For awhile I was taking Aspirin to help control the earlier stages of pain. What did I do? Start taking more. and more. And next thing you know I'm getting stomach cramps.
With me it doesn't matter _what_ I take. If I let my head go, I will get addicted to it.
My ex-wife was a normie. No addiction of any kind in her family. Fought a nasty disease all her life and eventually she got addicted to pain meds. A normie. Took those meds for _decades_ and had no problem, but eventually it got out of control. I know people who are food addicts. They go to meetings of Overeaters Anonymous. They work the steps same as I do, except they partake of their "drug of choice" three times a day. It's _hard_ on them, but they manage.
What I have done is follow the advice of other people in my meets. When my docs say I have to take a certain medication I tell 'em about my history, and ask them what my options are. As it turns out, there's lots of meds with slightly different effects. We then take a few weeks to experiment with the med and find out what is the dosage that has the best effect with the minum problems.
However, I don't do it alone. I share about it at my meets. I tell people how scared I am of losing my life as a result of getting addicted to the med. I keep a little notebook where I write down every time I take the med and how much and share that book with any alkie that walks in my house. It's out on the kitchen counter where the whole world can see it. I keep _no_ secrets.
Every year my docs "rotate" my meds to something similar, but chemically a little different. We will continue to do that every year until we run out of meds, then start again with the first one. Every time I take one of those pills I _first_ say a prayer, which I learned from the OA people:
"God, come between me and this chemical before the chemical comes between me and You"
As a person who suffers from an addiction to "more" I know I have to spend more time in recovery, more time in meets, more time on the phone with people, every time I take one of those pills. However, I also have to spend more time in recovery every time I get a paycheck, cuz I have been addicted to spending money, every time I go to work, cuz I've been addicted to over-working, every time I sit in a friends house and watch TV, cuz I've been addicted to that.
It says in the big book that all my recovery really amounts to is "a daily reprieve". That's all it will ever be, meds or no meds. I will have to work this program, and work it _hard_, every single day of my life. Pills or no pills. Everything in the world is a temptation to me, because I have a "spiritual malady". So the pills are no different to me than any other source of "more".
I take my meds _exactly_ as my docs have told me. _Exactly_. Not more, not less. If it's not enough I tell my docs and we talk about it. I do other things that my docs have told me, like mild exercise and yoga. Like quiting my high-stress career and taking a simple little desk job for a whole lot less money. I do what I never wanted to do when I was drinking, gunning and running. I follow directions. I share my secrets so they no longer hound me, and I work my recovery all day long, every single day.
This is what works for me.
Mike
