bullmasTIFFgrrl

Hi everyone.
I just found out this week that my husband has been doing (snorting and taking) prescription pain meds for the past 3 months.

He says he is not addicted and can quit he has just been doing it because it makes him feel good and he can get a lot done. Work has been bad lately because of the economy and he has been so busy and stressed.

He promised me he would quit over the next week or so, slowly, so he wouldn't get sick. I'm so scared he is lying and going to continue doing the pills, I'm just so scared and lost. I don't know what to do.

Any advice?

lunarise

I dont have any experience with your situation but I am sure that some others who can share more will be along soon. I just wanted you to know that Im thinking of your family.

:ghug3

Daisy09

Hi, and welcome.

I'm not a really good "advice girl" (I'm sure some of them will be around soon ) but I can definitely relate to your fears for your husband. A couple of months ago I discovered that my husband had been snorting heroin for about 8 months. I was angry, scared, sad, freaked out...basically I was an emotional wreak for quite some time. He is now officially 5 weeks into recovery, and it has been a very difficult time emotionally for all of us. All I can say is hang in there, and keep coming back here. I have learned the hard way that an opiate addiction is not an easy thing to get rid of, and the loving support I have gotten here has really been a life line for me.

Best wishes,
Daisy

RedTailHawk

Take a deep breath!

I have years of experience with an opiate - pain med - addict. The only advice I can really give you is to be good to yourself. Be open and honest with how you feel about what he is doing. You can't make him not take pills if he wants to. I understand your worries and your fears and feeling lost. You are justified to feel the way you feel. I hope he can find ways that support a healthy body and healthy mind in times of stress that do not include pills.

I am not sure from your post how he has pain meds? Are they leftovers, or did he buy them off the street? I know folks who have leftovers and take them on occasion to sleep or whatever - I don't support that behavior, but I understand it. Buying them off the street would feel a bit different to me. You mention "snorting" and he is aware that he has taken enough for long enough that stopping cold turkey would make him sick. It sounds like he knows a bit about what he is doing.

jerect

Hi and welcome..

My AH is addicted to opiates and I know all to well your anxiety and stress

.

By the sound of it, he is already addicted.. normal pain medication use does not include snorting.. a drug addict snorts pills so that they will hit their system faster.. Did your husband tell you what he had been taking?

The cold hard truth is that most addicts lie. I have lost track of the times that my AH has looked me in the eye and told me that he was not using all the while being high as a kite.. He is going to continue to use those pills until he is ready to stop and not a moment sooner..He will justify his use by any means necessary.. stressed out at work, the economy is bad, his back hurts, he doesn't take that many and quack, quack, quack..

You are posting here because obviously the problem with your hubby is bad enough that it is affecting your sanity... So that in itself indicates a problem..

First know that his drug use is NOT YOUR FAULT... You did not cause it, you can not cure it and you cannot control it..

Start educating yourself on drug addiction and it's affects on family's. Start taking care of you and if you have kids, taking care of them as well.. Your husband is going to do what he is going to do..whether that be continue using or getting himself some type of help.. Nothing you can do will stop his drug use.. it does no good to argue, accuse, threaten, or nag.. those things generally make the situation worse..

Coming to this board is a great start.. read everything you can here.. there are so many people that are or have been in your shoes and we know all to well the frustration of living with an addict...

so keep on reading and keep on posting and there will be more people along with a lot better advice then I can give you

bullmasTIFFgrrl

Thanks for your words of wisdom.

He thinks they are percocet, but after I looked them up on Webmd, they are oxycodone. He has also taken hydrocone and oxycontin. He is definitely getting them illegally.

I read on here that the pills are the same as heroin. Is that true??

I know he is addicted, I just don't know what to do next. He is defintely not going to seek help anywhere and I doubt he will even try to stop. Not sure what my next step should be but I do not want him to continue this until it gets any worse.

jerect

Oxys are nothing more then synthetic heroin...

Your husband is addicted to the same crap that mine is... girl I so know your pain..

Unfortunately there is not a whole lot you can do to help your husband and to keep things from getting worse for him.. the truth is things can get a lot worse before they get better..

You AH will tell you he wants to stop all day long.. he will make so many promises that he cannot keep.. he does this because those pills have hijacked his life.. They are the most important thing in his life... more important then his marriage, his family, his job and a stable home...

Opiates are the devil to get off of.. and he will most likely need help from a professional because the withdrawals can be dangerous and life threatening. However, he will not stop until he is ready.. not a moment sooner..

Sweetie, your next step is to take care of you.. find an alanon meeting or a naranon meeting in your area and attend as many meetings as you can.. read through the stickies on this board and through the threads.. there is so much valuable information on here to help you cope and set boundaries to protect yourself and your sanity..

If he is getting them illegally and most addicts do.. then you need to take the steps to protect yourself and your family..

Good luck to you..

bullmasTIFFgrrl

I'm really freaking out. I can't believe the pills that doctors prescribe people are really the same as heroin. I love my husband more than anything in the world and am scared to death.

Suspicious

My Hubby also abuses pain meds, vicodin (hydrocodone). Oxycodone can be percocets and if he has done oxycontin he has messed with some very powerful stuff. IMHO oxycontin is the last step before heroin and the only thing that decides when the addict goes on to heroin is money... when there isnt the money to support the oxycontin habit (cuz they are pricey, around $40- $60 per pill) he will then either get help or just go on to heroin.
Others have given you good advice. Here is another bit... get you an emergency fund started ASAP! Get your finances separated and lock up anything of value that you cherish... preferably in a safe deposit box. Then, once you have started protecting yourself you can do what you feel is needed to give your husband support in getting off of these.
In the meantime find a poster named Callie and read her posts as well as on the substance abuse board there is a post by bvaljalo to Callie that is loaded with info. Her situation was a lot like yours and when you see where she is at now you will get an idea of how this usually goes.

Good luck to you.

bullmasTIFFgrrl

Having trouble navigating the site. I will try and find posts from Callie. Meanwhile what else can I do? Should I leave or ask him to? I want this to end now before he gets further gone. This is a nightmare. I am so sorry for everyone on here. I never imagined being in this position.

whereami

That is how my relationship started...1 year later I am living with my parents, new baby and he is living with a woman 12 years his elder with grandchildren and a pothead...Good luck with this and I think you have a huge advantage that it is in an infantile stage so far... I say tell him to talk to his Dr about getting over this before it becomes a huge issue...please do not listen to anything he says when it comes to his pills, he is defending what makes him feel good..."he isn't addicted" wish I had not heard that 235 times before...you know what you know and that is enough...he already said the magic word...energy, that is how it starts...not for pain, they should be gone...set your boundaries now or the pills will replace everything in his life in a matter of weeks...

cassandra2

Lets see if i did this right. If I did you should be able to click the link and it will take you to the post mentioned above about Callie from BV. Great information.....

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...g-answers.html

jerect

Take some deep breaths and calm down... I know that is hard to do because when I first found out the ugly truth about my AH's addiction I did a lot of freaking out too.. But I can tell you from experiance, freaking out is not going to help you at all.. it's just going to make things so much worse for you...

I know for me, when I found out that my AH was using.. it changed the whole dynamics of my marriage... the first thing you need to do is to take care of YOU... As someone suggested.. get a seperate bank account and make sure that he cannot touch it... My AH was spending upwards of 1,000 a month on pills.. at least this is what he admited to spending.. my guess is it was a lot more... if you have any jewelry or anything that might be valuable.. lock it up or give it to someone you trust for safe keeping... cause when he is desperate for a fix, he will pawn his first born to get a hold of those pills..

I tell you all of this not to upset you but to make you aware so that you will be able to do what you need to do to keep yourself safe..

jerect

Three years ago, I never imagined myself in this situation either.. but.. here I am...

That is a decision that you don't have to make today.. in fact in alanon, they tell us to wait awhile before we make any life changing decisons like this... No one here is going to tell you to leave or to stay ... unless your life is in immediate danger and by the sounds of it, it's not..

Ending it is up to him and him alone... you cannot love, nag or beg someone clean... but you can love yourself and thats the most important thing that you can do...

Yes, it is heartbreaking and it is very damaging to a marriage.. It's not just the drugs that you have to deal with... it's the lies, the secrets and the hardest thing is the lack of trust....

But as long as you are taking care of you and putting your best intrests first.. You will be fine...

ventuhome

My sis-in-law is addicted to prescription narcotic pain-killers - hydrocodone, codeine, vicodan, oxycodone, etc. THey quickly learn what pills are in the narcotics family and substitute one for the other. She got pills by doctor shopping (signing up w/ more than one doctor for the same ailment), then she started forging her own prescriptions. FInally she got arrested and sent to jail. Six times. SHe's there now. SHe started taking them for a legitamate pain, then because they made her feel good. Now she takes them becuase her brain tells her to.
Unfortunately there's nothing you can do about his addiction. Here are some things you CAN do: Protect as much of your financial assets as you can. Look up the liability laws in your state online of from an attorney. In my home state, if you are driving under the influence (of alcohol or drugs obtained illiegally), get in an accident and hurt someone, you can be liable for millions of dollars.
I have never heard of opiate withdrawal as "life - threatening". WHen she's in jail, my sis-in-law gets to go cold turkey with nothing but the latrine in her cell. (But withdrawal from alcohol or benzodiazepenes (Valium, etc.) can be). THe reason I mention this is because someday he may call you from jail and ask to be bailed out because he is getting sick. You can decide on your own if you want to bail him out for other reasons.
Its a real good idea to go to Nar-Anon, to really understand in your gut it is not your fault and you can save him. Only he can save himself. Check to make sure you dont enable him, and stash that cash.

Piglet123

I am so sorry you are in this position.

I don't think many of us expected to find ourselves married to addicts. Like Daisy09, I found out about my husband's drug habit about a month ago (prescription drugs; mostly oxycodone). To say I was shocked and horrified is a gross understatement. To his credit, he told me about his problem, the day he began receiving treatment.

We have three small children, and for their safety and my own sanity, it was (and is) unacceptable to me for him to be taking ANY drugs he didn't need, so my decision re staying/leaving was actually pretty simple. He knows the next time he takes something, he isn't welcome in this house.

One thing I did in the earliest weeks, was try to accept the fact that it was genuinely possible I might have to parent my kids on my own. So I planned for the worst (looking at part-time work, child care, moving house etc), but hoped for the best. Luckily for me, (touch wood), it seems that my husband WAS ready to start working on his addiction. Things are still very strained before us, but I can see he is making an effort.

If families' love and hope could change addicts choices, there wouldn't be any need for forums like this, because we would all have "fixed" our addicts. I initially felt a strong urge to "fix" my husband- to (if you like) "be" his willpower, because he was so obviously lacking in it himself. But no one can change- REALLY change- unless they want to do it for themselves.

I understand you feel overwhelmed. I think it's important to be gentle with yourself; surround yourself with your own support network as far as possible (for me, this meant confiding in my close circle of girlfriends, some of whom I already knew had lived through a loved one's addiction).

Learn as much as you can about addiction; knowledge is power. Start to turn over in your mind what behaviors you might be prepared to accept from your husband, and what you are not. You are at the start of a very steep learning curve, and you will find this site very helpful.

All the best.

bullmasTIFFgrrl

After lots of talking and arguing last night he promises to quit. I know, I know...its probably a lie. Thats why I have this emptyness in my stomach and am filled with anxiety. I haven't slept in three nights. I feel like im having panic attacks constantly.

We are getting a week of vacation in July and he seems to think that will be his week to quit. So he won't have to worry about working and going through withdrawals. I'm not very hopeful and don't know how I will make it through the next three weeks knowing he is still doing them.

ventuhome

You can make it - come here as often as you can, read and post. We are all here for you. Try to give yourself some "ME" time - even if you just sit at your table and read a book or watch TV. Force yourself not to think about his problem even for a few minutes. You need the break!!!

Suspicious

You should know what to expect with withdrawals. It is not uncommon for the addict to fake wd's and then just hide the use. It is also not uncommon for an addict to start trying to get off of them and then just not be able to make it through till the end.

Withdrawals last about 5 days for the physical part of it. Some symptoms are ( he might have some or all)... stomach upset, diarrhea, goosepimples, aching body especially his joints, restless leg syndrome when laying down, unable to sleep, sweating, bad chills, low fever, headache, anxiety, depression, jittery, no energy, feeling of the body being so SO heavy. (think I got them all)

To help him thru the wd's get him plenty of liquids, immodium ad (name brand or store equivilant but THIS kind) for the diarrhea, a good multi vitamin, hot baths are great for the body aches and the restless leg syndrome but pump up the potassium after cuz the bath will deplete it, if he has access to a mild nerve pill it will help with the intense cravings during the first few days plus it will help with the no sleep, if nothing else benadryl will help in a pinch, use OTC pain meds for the intense body aches. I am sure there is more that someone else will fill in for you.

Most important thing tho is that the physical withdrawals are the easy part. After that can come months of depression and anxiety. That is because he doesnt have the pills making the endorphins in his brain and his brain is still not making any of his own. He NEEDS to know that he should not be expecting to feel great or even good for at least 90 days. This time will be the hardest for him because he will think that if he just could take a pill he will be able to be happy... litererally, he will fill this way. He should think seriously about a form of aftercare such as NA or something.

YOU should understand that it is rare for a person to get clean and stay clean on their first try. This is hard, maybe the hardest thing they have ever tried to do. YOU should know that it isnt because he doesnt love you if he doesnt do it. The addict you have now is TOTALLY different than the person you fell in love with. Read the sticky 'what addicts do'.

rose

I am so glad that you found this sight, each and every one of us have gone through the pain and freaking out that you have. We are not Doctors here, we share our experiences and try to bring comfort to what helped us get through some very very trying days.

Snorting pain meds is not is not looking so good, I wouldn't think that the Dr. orders are to snort it. If and I say if he is wanting and willing to stop using, that to should be discussed with the Dr. not something to take into your own hands, you just have no idea what complications could occur.

Rose