Originally Posted by
ddod27 
Wow, thank you both so much for posting!! You are right....I still have an addict brain. When these really became a problem for me is after I had a csection with my last daughter and got put on perks....again. The biggest thing that sticks out is something that came from my own mothers mouth. She sat me down one day and said to me, "Dana, I just want to tell you how proud of you I am. Since you had this latest baby, you have been so on top of things, and super organized. You have somehow been able to keep your house SPOTLESS and keep everything in order for that baby. You are such a wonderful mother, keep it up." And then, a few weeks later, I returned to work. I was diagnosed with a bladder disease in the mean time that causes chronic pain, so my doc gave me a script for those little green devils - 15mg oxys. Back to me returning to work - I got a very prominent promotion within the first week of being back. My boss said something along the lines of how well I have been doing, and so organized with everything, and that I def. have earned my way up the ladder very quickly. What neither of them knew was that I was that organized on top of things mother because of the oxys. And that is how this began. I just cannot fathom as to WHY I am in out patient treatment and still having such a hard time getting off of these. I truly want this to be over.
Hi again ddod27:
Hey this morning!
When you are able to read some of the posts on the other threads, you will see yourself in there so clearly. I think most of us THOUGHT at one time, at least, that we did our "best work" while on oxys. I think you probably even still think that now. Because, at first, it seems to be true. It's hard to work when you are in pain. All of a sudden, not only is your pain lifted, but so is your mood, and SUDDENLY you can FLY!
Oh man, how I LOVED that! What a miracle drug this is, I thought to myself! Wow! Where have you been all my life! I've battle depression at times all my life, and OXY FIXED THAT, TOO! Oh My GAWD! OXY Baby!
Ha!
Even this short term "addict brain" lie is really short lived. And it really is a lie. During those first few weeks after your section, you probably SHOULDN'T have been cleaning your house like a super woman -- you should have been logging in hours hugging your new baby and letting someone else do that other stuff. Seriously. After all, you had to go back to work, and you probably would and should have rather spent some of those hours enjoying your kid. That said, it is a false state of being that is unsustainable, and should not be sustainable, given the cost on so many levels. How old is your baby now?
As to work, the same goes but in a different way. At FIRST, oxy seems to give more than it takes. Those first few weeks, and months, of oxy use are unsustainable. The way this drug works is to block pain response by filling the dopamine receptors in the brain, the pleasure centers. That works great until something called ADAPTATION sets in. The pleasure centers soon expect these regular bursts of oxy-produced-dopamine, a literal "flood" of pleasure which I'm sure you'll recognize by name by now. The brain knows that ALL of the dopamine centers are not "supposed to" be filled and so adapts by making more of them. Adaptation occurs again. The "addict brain" knows you have to give it MORE drug to keep filling the receptor sites, so you do. Your brain adapts again. Pretty soon, the adaptation can't keep up, and a saturation point is reached. At this point, the feelings stop being so pleasurable, and more of a sense of "normalcy" is the result of dosing. No more highs, but the "addict brain" keeps chasing them.
After adaptation and saturation is toxicity. This is when THE OX, which oxys have now become, starts making your body sick. Your brain/body has adapted so well, you can't feel normal anymore without using. You might get the "pleasure" feel after a dose, but not like it used to be, not like you want it to be. Pretty soon, you start using only not to feel sick. Because that is what you have now become, addicted. You stopped using long ago for pain, because that wouldn't bother you if the pleasure comes with it. And even the pain isn't well controlled by oxy after prolonged use.
Sorry to rant, or ramble. I do that a lot, and I've said most of the above elsewhere here. But not to you.
Once you have had a chance to review your work life off this poison, you likely will find out that you have not been doing your "best work" for a long time. At least not how you could be doing it if you weren't using. It is another "addict brain" lie. You may still good work, but your thinking is not as clear, you don't reach conclusions as quickly, you don't do anything as well anymore because you have become anesthetized to your world.
None of this is intended to be insulting. It just is what is going on, what you are likely thinking. I did, and I am a medical legal writer and have to review medical cases with a clear head. On oxy's, I truly thought I WAS doing my best work. I've only been clean since December, but I can still remember what I was doing last year through the OXY FOG, and I recall sitting at my computer, my chin hitting my chest as I found myself dozing off right after a dose kicked in. Funny thing is, I chased that same "high" all day long, never getting it by the end of my personal OXY HELL RIDE, only chasing it. I was NOT doing my best work.
I quit when the OXY was making me so sick I had to quit or die. Even at the end, though, WANTING to quit was not in my vocabulary. OXY doesn't work that way. You won't WANT to quit. You will be AFRAID to quit. Because, right now you may think you won't ever feel normal again. Can't feel normal again without the OX. But, that really is not true. ADDICT BRAIN LIE (I'm shouting to myself!).
I won't go in to all that, how and when I quit, it's all here on these threads. I always talk too much anyway.
You can quit oxys. You really need to, for you, for your kids. So you can live normally again. You can.
Oh, the pain part, just quickly. I have severe osteoarthritis, had two major orthopedic surgeries back to back, which is how the OX got me. My pain was no longer helped by oxys at the end of my run. The oxys actually made it worse by then. It isn't a good drug for long term pain for most people. That kind of pain requires professional management where drugs -- narcotic and non narcotic -- are managed in a combination that permits maximum effect and often rotation of drugs to avoid the adaptation/saturation/toxicity cycle from stopping their effectiveness. I won't go into those things here, but you won't find the American Arthritis Foundation recommending Percocet for long term, or even short term, arthritis use. For your renal issues, there are other ways. Your docs should know if you need long term pain management, and go there with you.
Hope you are well today. We all want to hear more from you.
FT