RobbyRobot

Hi mybook,

I have 30 years, no relapses. I've had spinal surgery since quitting alcohol. I had my right foot amputated at 2 years. I had spinal surgery, at let's see 1994-95 I'm thinking, so at 14 years. I had demerol and morphine for both surgeries in hospital. Of course, lol.

Those narcotics had absolutely no effect on my 'sobriety'. I took the demerol on discharge to manage the pain, and that worked well. When the management of my pain no longer required demerol, I simply didn't need the narcotics so I just stopped taking them of course. There was no high with the demerol because I was using it to manage the surgical pain. It all balanced out for me no problems. There have been other times i had to use short durations of demerol for other times as well, again no problem. The last time I required demerol for help in managing my chronic pain was let's see, more then 5 or 6 years ago. I don't routinely use pain medications as I prefer to deal directly with what is what. It works so why take the narcs unneeded. I have an extremely high pain threshhold, fwiw. However, if that didn't work I would happily use whatever to manage my physical pains. Pain management is more an art then a science for me.

I have more surgery coming up in 2012, and I'll not hesitant to use narcotics for pain management as required. I have a long and complicated medical history all the way back into early childhood. I speak from direct experiences. When I was using, before my sobriety, absolutely I abused alcohol and drugs. That was then and this is now.

You talk with your doctors and be upfront. I was clear and upfront and they knew all about my past alcohol and drug addictions. We had no problems with working out a proper pain management plan tailored for ME.

Best wishes, mybook. Look after yourself, and just deal with what is happening in YOUR life. Be true and honest with yourself and you'll be good to go