EPISODE 5: MY LITTLE PIECE OF THE PIE
So, life is actually good for the first time in my life. I'm still dealing with chronic pain and a chemical dependence on a very powerful narcotic, methadone, but my life is in order. A wonderful job at Citibank and my family life, although, chaotic at times was good because I had what I truly wanted and that was living with my son. I was making the most money I had ever made and it was a easy job sitting at a desk reviewing our customers credit reports.
I think back now and it's hard to believe I could even function on 140 mgs of methadone a day. That's like going to work high on heroin every day. There really is not much difference between the two. As a matter of fact I think the Methadone was worse. At least that is what the detox center told me when they flat out refused me admission because of it. During the 15 years of dependence to methadone I tried to get into detox three times and was told by the admitting nurses all three times I would have been better off shooting up heroin all these years. Then they could help me, but methadone is a monster to detox from because it takes so long. The detox facility said I'd be wasting my time, their time, and tax payers money because they only allowed thirty days and I would just be getting into the worse withdrawals at a month.
I was maintaining and my life was not being disrupted by the medication. I hated being in bondage to the drug, but I really did need something for my Chronic pain syndrome. That's really the best way to tell if someone is an addict or just chemically dependent. Does the drug cause disruption in one's life. At this point I would say I was not an addict, but I felt like one which is common for people that are dependent on a drug.
Around this time I started having anxiety attach's for no reason. I would be fine one minute and all of the sudden I felt like I was suffocating. It is a fear that I can only describe as what it would feel like to be drowning. It is a fear like you are literally about to die and even after several times you know you're not going to die because you've been through it before, but you still feel that same fear. Just try to imagine not being able to get any air into your lungs. Anyway, my doctor prescribed Xanax and wow what a powerful drug. I liked it a little too much. As I said before I never took pain medication for the purpose of getting high, but the Xanax mixed with the methadone was extremely euphoric. I think what really got me was the way anti-anxiety medication completely takes away stress which then takes away depression. It does this by just numbing you. Xanax has some terrible side effects like memory loss and it impairs cognitive function. With myself because I was mixing the two drugs each one was making the other way too potent. I would take one and forget I took it and take another one thirty minutes later. Just to note; it is now known mixing Xanax and methadone is the most dangerous two drug mixture. I have had three very close friends die from the combination and a few friends of friends. Prescribing the two drugs together would now be tantamount to malpractice.
It got so bad my wife forbid me to take the Xanax and one day we got in a fight about it. I jumped in my car and drove off which was my routine when we fought. I drove off right into a tropical storm. I'm talking tornados which we never get down here in Florida. Long story short I'm driving down US1 and I'm watching, fifty feet away from me, a roof being ripped off a restaurant and my little Toyota ends up running into the back of a school bus sitting at a red light. My car ran under the bus all the way to the trunk. The entire top of the car was peeled completely back. I should have been decapitated. The EMT's and firemen didn't even initially check on me because they just knew I was dead, but somehow instead of on impact my seat jerking forward like the law of physics would claim the seat jerked backwards just enough that instead of being decapitated my neck was broken and I suffered yet another head injury. I believe this would be my fifth or sixth serious concussion in my life.
So, Citibank puts me on temporary disability for eight months. They paid me around seventy-five percent of my salary. After the eight months I went back to work, but now instead of just dealing with debilitating lower back pain I now had serious neck pain. There were two major problems. Because I had been on such a high dose of pain medication for so long and become tolerant it did nothing to help the neck pain and because my job consisted of sitting and staring at a computer all day I began really doping myself up just to get through the day. If you've ever sat at a computer for eight hours you know it can be rough on the neck. Well my neck was and is severely damaged. So, my bright idea was take more Xanax because it intensified the pain medication. I was found passed out at my desk and quickly fired.
This begins the downward spiral that would take me into the world of addiction. I've struggled for years pinpointing when I actually became a drug addict. I recently realized this was it. Drugs had so disrupted my life that I went from a great job and family life to having nothing. The next ten years were a collage of overdoses and high risk behavior.
This point of my life is, in all honesty, one big blur. I do remember one time I had ran out of my pain medication and was in full withdrawal so I took ten Xanax to basically just knock myself out and get some relief from being extremely dope sick. I remember taking the Xanax and ignorantly getting in my car. I had taken this much before because my tolerance was so high, but this time I completely blacked out. I woke up in a jail cell. To this day I don't remember being arrested. I don't remember being booked into the jail. I just woke up in a cold observation cell. I asked the guard watching over me what were my charges and she said DUI with personal injury or property damage. I said that's two very different things, but she said that's all I know. So, I sat there not knowing if I had killed someone or damaged a shrub. Thank God it was the latter. I was sentenced to six months probation, community service, and DUI school.
It was good for awhile but sooner or later your sins catch up to you...........To be continued
I think back now and it's hard to believe I could even function on 140 mgs of methadone a day. That's like going to work high on heroin every day. There really is not much difference between the two. As a matter of fact I think the Methadone was worse. At least that is what the detox center told me when they flat out refused me admission because of it. During the 15 years of dependence to methadone I tried to get into detox three times and was told by the admitting nurses all three times I would have been better off shooting up heroin all these years. Then they could help me, but methadone is a monster to detox from because it takes so long. The detox facility said I'd be wasting my time, their time, and tax payers money because they only allowed thirty days and I would just be getting into the worse withdrawals at a month.
I was maintaining and my life was not being disrupted by the medication. I hated being in bondage to the drug, but I really did need something for my Chronic pain syndrome. That's really the best way to tell if someone is an addict or just chemically dependent. Does the drug cause disruption in one's life. At this point I would say I was not an addict, but I felt like one which is common for people that are dependent on a drug.
Around this time I started having anxiety attach's for no reason. I would be fine one minute and all of the sudden I felt like I was suffocating. It is a fear that I can only describe as what it would feel like to be drowning. It is a fear like you are literally about to die and even after several times you know you're not going to die because you've been through it before, but you still feel that same fear. Just try to imagine not being able to get any air into your lungs. Anyway, my doctor prescribed Xanax and wow what a powerful drug. I liked it a little too much. As I said before I never took pain medication for the purpose of getting high, but the Xanax mixed with the methadone was extremely euphoric. I think what really got me was the way anti-anxiety medication completely takes away stress which then takes away depression. It does this by just numbing you. Xanax has some terrible side effects like memory loss and it impairs cognitive function. With myself because I was mixing the two drugs each one was making the other way too potent. I would take one and forget I took it and take another one thirty minutes later. Just to note; it is now known mixing Xanax and methadone is the most dangerous two drug mixture. I have had three very close friends die from the combination and a few friends of friends. Prescribing the two drugs together would now be tantamount to malpractice.
It got so bad my wife forbid me to take the Xanax and one day we got in a fight about it. I jumped in my car and drove off which was my routine when we fought. I drove off right into a tropical storm. I'm talking tornados which we never get down here in Florida. Long story short I'm driving down US1 and I'm watching, fifty feet away from me, a roof being ripped off a restaurant and my little Toyota ends up running into the back of a school bus sitting at a red light. My car ran under the bus all the way to the trunk. The entire top of the car was peeled completely back. I should have been decapitated. The EMT's and firemen didn't even initially check on me because they just knew I was dead, but somehow instead of on impact my seat jerking forward like the law of physics would claim the seat jerked backwards just enough that instead of being decapitated my neck was broken and I suffered yet another head injury. I believe this would be my fifth or sixth serious concussion in my life.
So, Citibank puts me on temporary disability for eight months. They paid me around seventy-five percent of my salary. After the eight months I went back to work, but now instead of just dealing with debilitating lower back pain I now had serious neck pain. There were two major problems. Because I had been on such a high dose of pain medication for so long and become tolerant it did nothing to help the neck pain and because my job consisted of sitting and staring at a computer all day I began really doping myself up just to get through the day. If you've ever sat at a computer for eight hours you know it can be rough on the neck. Well my neck was and is severely damaged. So, my bright idea was take more Xanax because it intensified the pain medication. I was found passed out at my desk and quickly fired.
This begins the downward spiral that would take me into the world of addiction. I've struggled for years pinpointing when I actually became a drug addict. I recently realized this was it. Drugs had so disrupted my life that I went from a great job and family life to having nothing. The next ten years were a collage of overdoses and high risk behavior.
This point of my life is, in all honesty, one big blur. I do remember one time I had ran out of my pain medication and was in full withdrawal so I took ten Xanax to basically just knock myself out and get some relief from being extremely dope sick. I remember taking the Xanax and ignorantly getting in my car. I had taken this much before because my tolerance was so high, but this time I completely blacked out. I woke up in a jail cell. To this day I don't remember being arrested. I don't remember being booked into the jail. I just woke up in a cold observation cell. I asked the guard watching over me what were my charges and she said DUI with personal injury or property damage. I said that's two very different things, but she said that's all I know. So, I sat there not knowing if I had killed someone or damaged a shrub. Thank God it was the latter. I was sentenced to six months probation, community service, and DUI school.
It was good for awhile but sooner or later your sins catch up to you...........To be continued
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