Originally Posted by
SecretLife1111 
I need someone to talk to. Someone who has been in my shoes or someone who is right where I'm at. Someone unbiased. Someone to tell me I am NOT a horrible person, wife, mother. I have so much more to say. But I am at work. It feels so good to let this all out. Even if no one responds, it was a release for me. Maybe some reflection. I fear someone (mainly my husband or a friend) will find this link on my phone. Or somehow it will be linked to my facebook & my suffering will be shared for the world to see. I fear the embarrassment & consequences. Someone, anyone, please help.
Hi SecretLife,
Hey, you are NOT a horrible person, wife, mother! I think you can tell by the posts you've received in response so far that you are VERY welcome here.
The SR forum is quite a diverse group of people from ALL walks of life, many of us mothers and wives who never thought they would be in the position of fighting addiction. I know that is true of me. Before it did, I thought addiction only happened to "those" people who had no self control. Ha!
Whatever got you there, it doesn't matter now. Addiction does not care WHO you are, and opiates don't care WHOSE receptor sites they occupy. And once they do, quite a few of us were hooked before we knew what hit us.
This is a great place to come to vent, which in and of itself is therapeutic, but also to hear stories just like yours to tell you that you are not alone.
If you want to get off opiates, you don't have to face a life of pain and misery. You feel even more pain than "normal" on your unmedicated days because you are accustomed to having the drug in your system, and opiates hypersensitize you so that your pain is felt more acutely than if you weren't taking them. It's a vicious cycle, and it's part of addiction.
I was horribly fearful of what was going to happen when I quit opiates. I was on them for severe osteoarthritis so bad I could not walk, and then after double orthopedic surgery to have both knees replaced, I was on even higher doses to deal with surgery on somebody who was no longer opiate "naive". It took another year after that to get off.
What I have found, because I still have severe osteoarthritis despite having two nice titanium knees, is that my pain threshold has improved tremendously off opiates. On opiates, I couldn't stand the slightest discomfort of any kind. Things that I would never take pain pills for in the past were so acutely painful, I couldn't dose myself fast enough.
It doesn't stay that way. Yes, I was miserable in withdrawal for a few weeks, and yes it took a few months to feel human again. But it can be done. And I can tell you that my life is so much better now off opiates.
Pain management has changed a lot in the past few years, and there is more to it than just being prescribed opiates, if you are at a good clinic. Don't fear going off. There are ways to manage your pain with a good doctor and not be an addict at the same time.
So, welcome here, and we're so glad to share our stories with you. Now we'd like to hear a lot more from you.
FT