sobe1

hello all I am new here but I just wanted to say I am entering day 7 of sobriety from my 5 year daily addiction to pain medicine. Did I start because I was truly in pain? Yes, I had multiple surgeries and it was hell for me to deal with but then I found myself enjoying the pain meds too much and tried to control my emotions with these little pills. I would bite off half to go to work then months later I was taking a whole one in the morning and biting off half at lunch. The abuse and addiction became obvious but there was no stopping me, pretty soon I asked for pills from other source because I came up short on my script. Then when I finally got arrested and not until I got arrested and put in holding cell for 12 hours did I suddenly realize I had gone too far. I am now 7 days sober and withdrawal has not been bad at all, the first 2 days were the worst and boy was I craving but I resisted the urge to obtain any more of those pills I just got tired of something so easy to kick controlling my life. The reason I say they are easy to quit is because all you need is NO access for 12 hours then it is all about willpower. What helped me quit is some advil pm to sleep and any time I felt a trigger I would take a shot of whiskey. Now I know what you're thinking, you will become an alcoholic but thats not the case, I have had only 4 shots since quitting and I have never really drank alcohol my whole life. I hate the taste of beer and the whiskey is hard to swallow but it does take away the edge of a pain killer craving. I am up typing and craving as I think about the addiction but I would prefer to type than to look for some more of those controlling little pills. I do not want to go to jail because that was humiliating. I also don't want to hear people use that crap against me like family, neighbors, wife, kids one day. "You're addicted to painkillers!" was thrown up in my face twice this week while our family is going through a difficult period of trying to make peace of my recent arrest. It made me cry to think they all hate me for what I became and I hate myself for what I became but painkillers no more! I hope to be typing good news here next week by saying Day 14 and still on the road to recovery. I should also add that I was up to 12 pills a day at one point and these were 10mg pills of hydro. I probably should be dead but as you can see tolerance was taken to the extreme and my body became used to the high doses but I was lucky enough to taper down to just 3 a day before I finally got arrested and just quit cold turkey.

sobe1

i'm going to reply to my own thread because sleep is huge factor while quitting and i want to elaborate on the subject. For the first 24 hours I didn't sleep a wink but part of that was the shock and everything from being arrested. I did sleep about 4 hours on day 2 because I was just so exhausted and yes I took a shot of whiskey to help the cravings. The 3rd day I slept about 5 hours with some help from advil pm. Day 4 I was past the hard part and slept 6 hours no problem with no help. Day 5 I had a couple of shots to resist the cravings and no advil pm. Day 6 I had to take 2 advil pm. Tonight it seems I will need to take only 1 advil pm and hope that does the trick. So I will leave you all with a mental note, be ready to be awake laying in bed with a bad headache and restlessness from quitting cold turkey but to me it is so worth it because each day i wake up is a huge milestone that I can look forward to.

ACT10Npack

Using whiskey to help with your addiction to pills is a bad idea even if your not an alcoholic. You said after 12 hour mark it's easy to manage but it does not seem so if you need to take a whiskey shot to get through sometime in the day. It's different if you like to take a shot of whiskey but taking it for urges with painkillers is just going to take you down an ugly road.

I don't know much about drug addiction but have you ever look in to NA? Also advil pm can be addicted drug too. Go to your doctor and ask for help with your problem.

Good luck and welcome to SR.

Dee74

Hi sobe1

Glad you've found us

I'd really caution you against using alcohol like that - it's very very easy to develop an addiction to something you're using to get off another addiction....many of us can speak with experience on that score....

you think it'll never happen to you...then it does.

Have you thought about other, more positive, ways to deal with the cravings?

D