daisyjen

I have a question... Does AA teach A's that they can become addicted to other things once they are in recovery and what to watch for?

My RAH was involved in a small explosion and had his left eardrum ruptured. I had him back and forth to the ER and drs because his pain was unbearable. Initially he was given a fairly mild pain reliever, I am assuming because the dr is aware of his alcoholism.

Then next ER trip, the ER dr suggests something stronger and I intervene ( ok, maybe it was AH's job to say something...) and ask for something non-addictive. ER dr says all pain meds that will work are addictive including the one he is taking. He decides to give a RX for a moderate pain med and a stronger one, just in case.

I discuss with RAH that the pain meds are addictive and he should be careful, but he tells be he's an alcoholic, not a drug user.

I have the mod one filled, AH goes in a rage cause I didnt bring home the stronger one. At 2 am, he's in pain and its all my fault...As soon as the pharmacy is open, he picks up the strong pain med and finishes it in probably 24 hrs. Again, at 2 am he wakes me with a rapid heartbeat, cold sweats etc. I roll over. He finished all the med, and is now withdrawing... The next day, he says he wished he died in the night, so that I would go to jail for not helping him. Huh? A few days later he also admits (ok, he lied profusely first) that he took (stole) my Xanax during that time because he couldnt sleep. (There's none left out of probably 15 or so!) Now, he sees that he MAY have been getting addicted to the meds.

So, should he have known this by now? He's been sober a year and been going to AA and the Christian 12 step program.

mike_mass

Most AA's I know are prone to a host of addictions, both chemical and behavioral.

Sweetiepie1

My other half has been warned to be wary of replacing one addiction for another so I think it's something that gets mentioned but I suppose it depends on the group

sailorjohn

Somewhat funny, recall having a similar discussion with my exabpgf, by her own admission she was a cocaine addict, but she DIDN'T have a drinking problem! Drug's a drug. They don't talk much about it at AA,either in the literature or at meetings, but if you go to groups like NA or CA-Cocaine Anonymous they talk at length about switching addictions.

We are addicts, the easiest thing in the world for an addict to do is switch drugs of choice and then con themselves that they don't have a problem.

DesertEyes

Hello there DaisyJen, and pleased to "meet" you

Yup, there's tons of pamphlets put out by AA world service that talk about "Problems other than alcohol", a good place to start is:

http://www.aa.org/en_pdfs/p-11_aamembers.pdf

Yours truly has serious health condition, and the docs pump me full of all kinds of meds. This is what we do:

- I keep a log of all the addictive meds I take. The day, time and dosage. That log is reviewed by my sponsor, my docs, and anybody else who cares to look at it. It helps keep me honest.

- My docs rotate my meds. I can't live witout them, but there's many different "flavors" of the same kind of med. By switching to a different flavor every year or so it helps keep the side effects under control, and the addiction potential low.


- I follow a very strict "step-up" schedule. When I need a med to control a particular symptom I start with the _weakest_, and give it time to work. If after the med has had enough time to work the symptom is still not gone I take the next more powerful one, and so on.

- I know that with time I will only get worse. At some point in the future I will be turning over my meds to my sponsor, and he will give me only a couple days worth at a time. I'm not there yet, but I have a plan in place.

All us alkies are human, and sooner or later we're going to get hurt, sick, or just plain grow old. We _can_ use addictive medications as they are intended, but we have to follow the guidelines that have worked for millions of alkies before us.

Mike

tennis71

AA (or at least the groups I attend) focus solely on alcoholism and what we want to do to beat it. The Alcohol and Drug treatment that I do does address most addictions and it is possible to replace one with the other.

daisyjen

Thank you all for responding. And thank you deserteyes for the explanation. I am hoping my RAH gets it now, but I can see that he really does need to be more careful and aware.

justjo

Who knows the real answers. I think addiction is addiction. When you need to fill that hole - my as starting with a spending, then eating, then drinking addiction. All were as bad as each other, the only difference is alcohol will kill her eventually unless that hole is filled.

RosieM

I've mentioned this here before, but my stbxah would hoard pornography when he wasn't drinking - I mean hundreds of mags and dvds in a period of about 2 mths! Really skanky stuff, too. Weird. I thought that was a kind of transfer addiction but I'm not sure.

gabenyc

Not sure about AA's position, but in my experience, cross-addiction is a major dynamic for A's not in recovery. My xabf had problems with both heroin and cocaine and kept drinking. When he quit smoking three years ago, he took up porn in a big way (actually had a netflix-like service for porn) and was pretty compulsive about sex as well. From what I saw, it seems like A's need to be really mindful about the risk of cross-addiction once they decide to remove themselves from their drug of choice.

Gman813

O.K. here's my twist to the question...Can a RA control other substiances (namely pot), or are they completely unable to controll themselves. After all I've been told it's like an alergy to alcohol.

My AW walked through the door at rehab saying "I want to get off the booze and pills (xanyx), but I still want to smoke." and has brought it up a couple of times since she's been home.

I admitt I haven't abstained totaly since she came home, but I've not done anything either at home or when we are together. She has asked me to go out with my friends, and is fully aware all that that means.

I know that somewhat hypacritical, but I have told her repetedly that I don't feel totaly comfortable asking her not to, while I do. At this point I'm making excuses to stay home, but she keeps saying, she the A not me.

At at this point I'm starting to wonder if maybe she's just going through the motions, buying some time or is she thinking there is no connection between the 2?

This might be the 90 day jitters I've heard about ::wtf2

tennis71

Rehab will want the person to be off all mind altering substances (some will allow prescription meds but will make sure patient is using them according to Dr's orders). The fact that a person is willing to go to rehab, risk a drug test showing their use of an illegal substance and either getting booted out or bumped into a higher level of treatment shows how rational the addicts mind can be at times.

If someone is willing to do that despite the negative consequenses, it indicates to me that they cannot control their use.

Back to Daisy - I hope RAH does come to the conclusion that he needs to stay away from any controlled substance that he does not need or use as intended by his Dr. The last thing any addict needs is another addiction to quit.

sailorjohn

Just me and my experience, but my first go round with sobriety was with my first ex and she said I had to stop drinking, or else. She didn't have a problem with me smoking dope or doing an occasional line. My best friend at the time used the "weed" method to stop his VERY heavy drinking.

When I finally went on that last road trip, I eventually started smoking weed. And stole the wifes Vicodin. I can remember my sheer pleasure locating a bottle of 70 that she had misplaced/forgotten about, she was changing painkillers constantly. Point is, I am an addict, as a practicing addict, would do/take anything to change the way I'm feeling. My advice for a recovering addict is to refrain from taking ANY mind/mood altering substance, period.

If prescribed a mood/mind altering substance by an md, it might be a very good idea to tell the doctor that you are a recovering addict, they might have safer alternatives available.

mike_mass

I know two old timers who have done time for child molestation and another (20+ years in AA) who is looking at serious time for child porn. Believe me, sex addiction is huge in the halls.

RosieM

Mike, stbxah doesn't really see the connection at all and told me I was over reacting. I mentioned this to my therapist and he didn't have much to say about it. It just seems so obviously connected to me - R

hadenoughnow

My STBX would use anything he could get his hands on, the month before I filed for divorce he was using codine cough syrup and drinking. He was acting stranger than usual one night and it didn't appear that he had much to drink (he was "showing me" that he could control his drinking). I knew he had to be on something and he finally admitted that he was using the codine to supplement his buzz because he was "cutting back on drinking" (I insisted he tell me in case he ended up in the hospital).

He was switching his drug of choice to prove to me that he "didn't drink much". He really didn't get that it was dangerous and stupid.

DesertEyes

Hey there Rosie

Have you heard the expression "quacking"? When an alkie / addict is moving their mouth and making noises that the whole world know is BS, but the alkie keeps insisting it's not, us alanoids call it "quacking".

It comes from the analysis that if a critter _walks_ like a duck, _looks_ like a duck, and _quacks_ like a duck..... it's a duck. So if it _walks_ like BS, _looks_ like BS, and _quacks_ like BS .... it's BS.

Mike

RosieM

I have heard that, Mike! There has been a lot of quacking around this joint in the past few years. Thanks for the smile.

mike_mass

I know plenty of people who use porn addictively. The adrenaline rush is just being used as a substitute for the chemical. No clue why your therapist would not see the danger in this behavior.