Privet

First of all, I never EVER noticed, back when I was in high school any problems with pills in our area (it is a backwater, rural area). Then, it seems some "doctors" in the area were selling scripts to Oxycontin, Vicodin, what have you. Does anyone have that crap in their area? Where in the hell do people find these pills??????? This really started SUDDENLY. I hope every doctor who writes phoney scripts lose their license to practise medicine, and get thrown in prison.

Anyway, I don't know what to do, and my dad and mom are at their wit's end. My sister was "clean" for a year, after some false starts, and I was so proud of her. She was a pill addict for many years, got on Methadone a couple of times, it didn't work, then found a doctor to prescribe "Seboxin". That was a program where she had to taper off over the course of a year. She KNEW that day was coming, when she would have to quit the damn Seboxin. I talked to her last night, after no contact with her for a few months (I'm in another country, and she NEVER answers her phone, and she doesn't have long distance calling. Also never writes e-mails). The weird stories started immediately...mom found drugs in her bag, but they weren't hers, etc. I just knew. Then: She had to get off the Seboxin, and the withdrawal effects were so bad, that she took a Lortab. Just one, just that one time.

Will this crap ever end? I KNOW that she hangs out with active users. Why can't she get rid of those trashy people in her life? She has a little son, it makes me crazy that she is chopping up pills and snorting them up her nose right in the next room.

This has been going on for years. That doctor made her go to AA...I thought she would make some sober friends there, but I guess not.

Anyway, the past times she has relapsed, when I try to talk to her about it, she gets SO angry and doesn't talk to me for months. I just worry, worry, worry and worry. My mom has gone over there and refuses to leave. Dad is dropping by every day, there is nothing else to do. I'm way the hell over here, far away. Should I write her a letter? Call her and confront her?

Bernadette

Anyway, the past times she has relapsed, when I try to talk to her about it, she gets SO angry and doesn't talk to me for months. I just worry, worry, worry and worry. My mom has gone over there and refuses to leave. Dad is dropping by every day, there is nothing else to do. I'm way the hell over here, far away. Should I write her a letter? Call her and confront her?

hey Privet - I really feel for you. I have 3 alcoholic/addict brothers in my life. It is so hard. And I have been through all the questions you ask above....over and over. And I watch my mother suffering...so for me all that pain is just TOO much. I had to get busy on ME or I was gonna lose my mental health. Have you tried AlAnon or reading up on codependency and enabling? It helped me enormously - at first AlAnon was weird and I resisted but I was in so much pain and at such a loss I decided to do what I WISHED my brothers would do and I just "followed directions." I did what other people who had been in my pain before told me to do. And slowly, slowly it all really got so much better. Like night and day.

Maybe we all have to reach our own bottom with this stuff too. I wrote the letters. Got nothing but anger/denial in response. (they like to bluster - like a porcupine - just throw out their quills and make the enemy (truth) go away!). I had the phone calls, mailed them the books, called them on the phone to call them out or question their decisions...NO ONE changed.

Then I had the Ah-ha moment - like well, who do I think I am?? I cannot tell people what to do. They are adults. They have the right to live their lives and meet their destinies however sad pathetic and small I might think that road is....they have to live their lives. As long as I am not enabling, by engaging in the drama, by bailing out, by opening my doors, covering for them, etc. Then they can do what they like cuz it doesn't affect me anymore. I let it go. It takes daily effort to feel this way and I've been working this stuff for almost 17 years now..but there is no other way.

Detach. Work your own program. Do not enable. Have hope and warmth but zero expectations. get out and LIVE your own JOYFUL life. Your anxiety will lessen alot if you do these things...
yes it goes against everything you'd like to have in a sibling relationship, yes there are days when it is so very very painful and I am so angry and sick of having this in my life AT all.

If Love or saying just the right thing could REALLY cure addiction then none of us would be posting here!!!
Peace,
B

Bernadette

P.S. I totally agree with you about these doctors!!!
I feel like this willy nilly prescription writing of oxy and vicodin has created thousands of really messed up addicts - and the doctors and the DRUG MAKERS should be made to STOP handing this stuff out like candy.

Ha! Too much $$$$ being made off the backs of the addicts and their families and so that'll never happen.
B.

Lynette57

My daughter's doctor got arrested last May, and is awaiting trial. He is being charged with 5 deaths.

His game was: $80 in cash for office visit which amounted to waiting in his waiting room for hours then a 2-3 minute visit for your scripts. He was giving my daughter 100 80mgs of OXY plus anything else she asked for.
They figure he was seeing maybe 100 patients a day.

This is somewhat of an epidemic in the US.

She is clean today, but she will always be an addict.

You cannot do anything to help her unless she wants to quit and even then it is her journey. You can love the sister you know that is trapped inside the addict.

I am sorry for your pain.:sorry

Danishthorn

I am so sorry you are going through this.

I have the same situation where I live. There are so many "Pain Management" doctors here who give it out like candy. My husbands doctor charges $100 a visit (even though we have insurance), then they wait...sometimes the entire day in the waiting room because there are so many people there. Then the scripts are already printed out before they see the doctor. He will give anything you ask for. I once complained about my weight to my husband and he said "I can get you adderal. My doc said if I want to loose some weight it will help." Okay, why is a pain management doctor offering adderal to anyone??? It is amphetamine; has nothing to do with pain!!! They cover their butts by drug testing the pts when they first start visiting their office to make sure they are already on Oxycontin. I think the only reason they do this is to make sure its not a cop or DEA officer investigating. But, thats just my 2 cents. I have had 5 friends/aquaintences die of overdose of Oxycontin in the past few months and I dont see anyone around them even flinching. I just watch and wait to see who's next. It seems like all you need is an MD or DO after your name and you can legally deal drugs to addicts. These are kids we're talking about. 18, 19, 20 year old kids who trust these doctors that they will be okay because its a DOCTOR giving them the drug. It just amazes me and makes me so mad.

itisatruth

Just had to reply to this because I do think the pill problem is getting worse. My AH was driving 2 hours away to a doctor an addict friend of his "recommended". 2 HOURS!!! He would give him anything he wanted pretty much -- in higher and higher doses. He finally did get caught for overprescribing and was accused of giving high doses to drug dealers so they could turn around and sell them on the street. I think eventually he was arrested and sent to jail. My 26 yr old stepson tells me these pills are all over the place. What makes this problem so bad is that an addict can justify taking them for pain, they are legal when prescribed, or because..."hey my doctor gave them to me I need them"
IMO that makes the addict's excuses easier. Just my two cents.

ZombieWife

I guess that oath that doctors take means nothing to a small percentage, huh?

I wonder if people can also get them online?

Danishthorn

Absolutly.

The problem lies in our system. We have to make changes or continue to watch our children die a horrible death. Oxy is spreading like crazy in the Tampa area. Recent reports have the death from Opiates up 300% in the past 3 years!!!

Privet

I think if you know a doctor who is doing this, you should call the local authorities and tell them what is going on. They probably already know, sigh, it must take years to get enough evidence together, in order to prosecute. In the meantime, the pills flow forth.

It is horrible in Southern Ohio. I know 4 people who have died from prescription pill overdose there.

Do you know anyone who recovered from this, and has been sober for awhile? And I'm not talking sober, but on methadone or suboxone. I'm talking totally clean...because all the addicts I know who say they are sober now are on methadone or suboxone, and they don't even bother to go to NA, or they do, and bitch about it. My sister has tried both methadone and suboxone....and when the time came to get off those, just took a damn Lortab to ease the withdrawal, and pretty soon she was back where she started...a full blown addict, crushing up the pills and snorting them. MAKES ME SO ANGRY! Is she totally ********? Does she realize that drugs have 1) destroyed her marriage 2) Made her look like a complete flake and liar in the eyes of her family and that she could 3) Lose her job 4) Lose her son 5) DIE???

When I look in our newspaper, and see someone's obituary who is in the 25-40 age range...I know how they died, and that is an OD.

outtolunch

The crap ends when it ends.

If it was possible to talk an addict out of addiction, we would all talk till the cows came home.

Just curious, what's the source of your sister's income that she lives away from home, has a child and a habit. Who is enabling her?

ZombieWife

anvil posted:

I totally agree. But I also think that people who prey on the misfortune of others are very bad people and should be dealt with. But, in the end, you are right. It's up to the addict. You could remove all the doctors from that area that prescribe it, and they'd find it online. Then, you could remove all the internet access from that part of the world, and they'd drive 50 miles to get it in the next town over.

Privet

Who is enabling her? That is an excellent question. I guess that would have to be the whole damn family. The first time I found out about her addiction, I didn't say anything, didn't tell anyone. When she relapsed, and they were buying her groceries and paying her bills, I told both of them.

It makes me mad, that she will take hundreds of dollars from them, and not get clean. This is the cycle. First, the phone gets turned off (the phone is always first to go), then the cable and internet. Then, the more critical stuff: heating, electricity (imagine having no heating with a kid). Then there is no food in the house. Mom goes out and buys bags of groceries, dad pays the bills.

Then she gets on methadone or suboxone and everything seems to be going well for one year or so. So when the phone gets turned off that first time, you can just say, oh well. But then other things start happening.....

I think my parents are about sick of it.

littlebird77

I wish I could report the doctors and see something done.

My ex took a bottle of pills, and ended up in the ER... I called the doctor screaming, asking, why is he giving pysch meds if he is not a doctor, his response was that my ex said he could not get a appointment soon enough for his psych doctor... I then asked why is he handing out a 90 day supply? Why can't he give him a few to hold him over 'till he sees his doctor... no response.... Guess what happened the next month, same doctor gave him a 90 day supply again... now if you give someone a 90 day supply, and the patient comes back the next month, why would you write a script for another 90 day supply... and guess what? the ex ate the whole bottle and ended up in the ER again.... and another thing, guess who paid for all of this? YOU AND I!!!! He is on medicaid.

marle

The History Channel had a show about the history of drugs in this country. Quite interesting as at one time there were no drugs that were illegal in this country. You could purchase heroin from the Sears and Roebuck catalog and it came with syringes. Heroin was given by doctors to help addicts in withdrawal from morphine addiction. What the doctors did not realize at the time was that heroin synthesized into morphine in the body but was more deadly. As long as there are addicts there will be drugs and addiction. Marle

katiedid79

Ive been watching that as well. I recored it to my DVR....