Hi.
I wrote this in my blog, but I figured i'd copy and paste it here too:
I'm 25 years old. I have an addiction to pain killers.
I have suffered with headaches and backaches since puberty. I have had 3 MRIs, CAT scans, been to dozens of doctors, neurologists, chiropractors, sleep studies etc. No one can every find anything abnormal.
When I was 21 years old, I went to a new doctor who was okay with giving me muscle relaxers and vicodin. I got fired from my job and took a turn for the worst emotionally and started taking the vicodin and muscle relaxers more frequently. I spiraled down from there. As my tolerance grew, he continued to fill my refills more frequently. I was up to 120 pills a week. That was just the pain killers. After a year of this, he dumped me as a patient.
My new doctor knows of my history, therefore doesn't prescribe them. I have suffered debt from accessing them illegally. I'm lost.
It takes me 6 Norcos (10mg hydrocodone) now to feel a thing. I'm extremely afraid of liver failure. I don't know how to stop. I'm in pain everyday and I know this is worse because my brain has stopped producing the chemical that blocks pain, because it has been getting it from the pain killers.
I can never go more than a week without some kind of pain killer. I have gone a month or so, but lately I can't even do that. Since it's so expensive illegally, my usage is much lower than before, but it's still a problem, a big one. If I have them, I take them. I can't save them as hard as I try.
I also dabble in xanax, muscle relaxers, tramodol, percocet, marijuana...anything I can get my hands on that will provide some kind of relief. I am ashamed. I am disgusted with myself.
I'm afraid to go to NA meetings to learn the steps and get a proper sponsor. I work in the school system and am so afraid of seeing someone I know. Or someone seeing me and recognizing me and telling someone I know.
I can't tell my family. My relationship with my mother is so damaging and awful. She treats addicts like they are awful people. Before I was addicted, she caught me stealing back painkillers I found out she stole from me a year prior when I had my wisdom teeth out. Now any argument we have, she brings it up calling me a pill popper and addict, mentally ill etc. She can't know how bad it has gotten. I'm just now coming to grips with how abusive she is verbally but it doesn't make it any easier. I also take Cymbalta for depression/anxiety/pain.
I need someone to talk to. I found this site. I don't know what to do anymore. I know I should go to a meeting but I haven't found the courage. I'm a coward. I hate who I've become.