Until now I really didn't have this thing sorted out and yet I want to be transparent, honest if you will, about who and what I am.  So here goes. 

My name is Jim.  I am a Christian, born again believer in Jesus Christ and have been since 1975.  I am a drug addict.  Opiates as in codeine, vicodin, percocet, oxycontin, mscontin, etc., opiates.   If I could snap my fingers and make every pill I ever took one thing, it would be Percocet.  Settled for Vicodin. 

I was a hospital corpsman in the Navy but assigned to the Marines between 1972 and 1976.   Did not go to Vietnam.  Came close.  Saw some action but mostly was stateside. 

I discovered that I could use opitates to mitigate the impact of traumatic circumstances when I was a freshman in high school.  My dad was with GE and the NASA/Space Administration and was part of the group of folks who helped bet men to the moon.  Part of the price for being in that group, they were called the GE Gypsies, is we moved a lot.  By the time I graduated high school I had been in 13 different schools.  As smart as this group of folks were, and they were smart and mostly WWII veterans by the way, none of them had figured out that once the goal was reached, man on the moon, they didn't have job.  Part of the spoils of victory for these folks was getting laid off.  We walked on the moon, most of the workers were laid off.  BOOM.  We were living in Florida on the island that Cape Kennedy, now Cape Cannaveril, was on the north end, we on the south end, Merrit Island.  Had been there for the longest stretch/longest amount of time in my entire life.  I had not only made friends, I was cool.  Played football, part of the in crowd, rolling along as a 9th grader, figuring out who I was and liking what I was at the time.  And then boom, we are moving to Phoenix, Arizona where by dad has a job with GE.  So we went.  Devasted me.  Every morning of the drive from Florida to Arizona I woke up and vomitted until about 10.  My mom was a registered nurse.  She picked up some paregoric, it is an opiate as well, to keep me from puking so much. 

We arrived in Phoenix and now I'm new, awkward, not part of nothing, dad is a drinker-alcoholic (although he cleaned up I'd say based on what I know now he was a dry drunk in the later years), my brothers into their own thing just trying to get back on their feet, I have a twin brother who was struggling as well.  My mom for some reason had prescription codeine.  I took one.  That was it.  The codiene didn't fix anything.  Just made it so that stuff didn't matter.  And more importantly in terms of my addiction it cemented the equation "Feel bad=take drugs=feel better". 

During high school/college/Navy I did recreational drugs.  I am a child of the 60's and 70's afterall.  However none of those drugs really were driving my addiction.  While its weird, I wasn't addicted to and was never addicted to things like pot.  I could take it or leave it.  Tried lots of drugs, same thing, take them or leave them.  Those drugs were not the formula that drives my addiction, "Feel bad=take drugs=feel better".  That drug is/are/were opiates.

Had I discovered one of those other drugs at the exact moment I was vulnerable, it most certainly would have been one of those drugs.  Had I discovered porn, it would have been porn.  I am an addict and the mind set is an addicts mind set.  The timing of my substance of choice is the only reason it is opiates and not any of the others.

When I became a Christian I dropped all the drugs, had already stopped smoking, never was a big drinker as my dad, uncles, grandfathers on both biological sides, etc., all alcoholics.  Booze scared me so while I drank a beer or two, maybe a Vodka Collins once and awhile, was not a boozer.  So I didn't drink after I gave my life to Christ but that was not a struggle.  I didn't drink like an addict anyway.

Out of the Navy I went to college, married my most beautiful wife, married since 1976, graduate school, nursing school, have 2 lovely daughters in their early 20's.  I have a Bachelors Degree in Bible and English, a Masters in Education and I am a registered nurse.

I worked for a couple of years in the church, didn't like the "fish bowl" nature of it, taught at a Christian Elementary School for awhile but really wanted to do something that allowed me to earn an income and be home more.  So nursing it was as I could work 3 12 hour shifts and be home most of the time and still earn a living.

I didn't take any drugs regularly but when I could get them, I got them and enjoyed them through prescriptions.   I really had forgotten about the codeine and my freshman year in high school.  Was not using anything like I have done the last 2 or so years.  However I blew out my knees, not at the same time but did so, I was a runner, played football, etc., and ended up needing both needs repaired due to injury.  It was then I was introduced to the wonderful world of Percocet.  My goodness, does it do amazing things to one's mindset, world view, feelings, etc.  I loved them.  But still at this point my use was not consistent.  But if I needed something, I sure asked for Percocets. 

Worked well.  Always great evals, etc. 

I had a chance to work in the Sudan.  Southern Sudan to be specific.  East Africa.  Went with Christian organization and did medical outreach/relief.  I functioned more like a nurse practioneer, very independent.  Love it.  Helped lots of folks.  With one of the public health programs we were able to implement for River Blindness, we have helped hundreds of thousands of folks not lose their eye site.  We trained the locals, connected them to the resources, over saw the program for a short time and then turned it over to the locals to run.  Hear from them once and awhile and each time the numbers of folks being helped is overwhelming and I thank God for the opportunity He gave me to have an impact on such a thing.

When I went to Sudan it wasn't popular like lately with folks going to Dafur.  When we went it was a war zone.  Glad I had my miliatary training.  And when we went it was at the worse of the worse for the folks in Southern Sudan.  I spend the summer of 1998 in a village named Tonj.  When we arrived at the village there were still about 25,000 folks alive.  But barely.  The Islamic government of Northern Sudan was using famine and starvation as a weapon.  They would destroy food AND they would divert the U.N. World Food Program food drops so the food was dropped to folks for the North Sudan.  Starvation was rampant.  By the time we left Tonj at the end of the summer there were about 5000 people left.  We turned the tide, stopped the death march, I get letters now from folks from Tonj and have a close friend who is working there.  The peopel and the village did not dissappear.  A lot of them did however.

One of the huge problems was children and babies who were starving to death.  You can't just over feed starving folks.  You can't just give starving folks IV fluid, etc.  You will kill them with the treatment.  Bringing starving folks back to life takes time and very careful treatment.  The big problem with infants/young children is their metabolism is so low that they can't keep themselves warm.  They can't keep their body temperature up where it belongs.  We had no electricity, no incubators, we were in the middle of the jungle.  WE were the incubators.  WE held the children/babies snuggled close to us and our body warmth was theirs.  And when the child we were holding died, as they did every day in my arms, we put that dead child down, gave it back to their grieving parents, took a deep breath and picked up another hoping to keep that one alive.  I did that all summer long.

One of the most glorious things I think I have ever experienced is when I received a letter, hand written, from one of those babies who survived by the way.  I have it on my desk and will probably forever.

As you can imagine that summer took its toll.  My wife phrased it as, "Something in you broke...".  My counselor brother is not sure if its secondary post traumatic stress disorder or full blown post traumatic stress disorder but he thinks its one of those.  And has thought that since my return at the end of that summer.

I did not get help.  I did take some drugs.  Not a lot at that time.  In Europe and the UK, there is a motrin with codeine that is over the counter.  Motrin Plus.  I would always get as many of those as possible.  But when they ran out, did nothing illegal to get more and did not doctor hop, etc., to inappropriately get opiates.  And to my discredit, I stuffed all of what I had experienced and just left it be.  As a Christian I was sorta expected to just hand it over to God, not talk about it, and frankly, I'm not sure who I would talk to about it.  Its not exactly like I was getting angry for being in traffic or something.  And mostly, I did not want to put the burden I knew I was carrying into anyone else's life.  Interestingly all of us on that team have had "issues" one way or the other.

I continued to work in Sudan going back and forth for another 3 years.  Finally I had enough, the timing was right to do something else.  So stayed home and took a job with a hospice organization.  Yes you read that correctly,  I went to work helping people die.  I know death.  I know it very well.  I've smelled it up close, have its singe marks burning into my arms and can still feel it.  I'm not afraid of death.  I am a great hospice nurse in fact.  I did in home, help people die at home, kind of hospice nursing.  Interestingly all the drugs they had, never really tempted me.  I'm a nurse.  IF I had ever gotten to the point of taking something from a patient under my care so that I felt good but they were in pain, I would not deserve to be a nurse.  Regardless of how much I liked the feeling of the opiates, I would not ever make a patient suffer for my needs.  That's just sick.

However while lifting weights one day, doing bench presses, I blew out both of my shoulders, BOTH rotator cuffs at the same time.  I do not suggest you try that.  Man, it hurt.  Had to go through the steps to get to surgery, had to do PT, etc.  Well for the run up to the surgery I had vicodin, post-op and percocet, backed down from the percocets to vicodin.  The way the whole process works, do one shoulder, rehab, do the other, it dragged on for about 18 months.  Had opiates the whole time.  But was finally off them.  And it was okay.  Missed them.  But I was okay.  With my shoulders, all the other stuff, I was totally inactive.  Gained weight.  Gained lots of weight.   I saw my PCP and we did my yearly physcial.  I had been using motrin daily, couple of times a day actually, for the arthritic pain.  Motrin is not good for you kidneys, some impact on your liver.  Well my labs came back and my PCP asked me exactly how much motrin I had been taking.  He told me to stop the motrin now, not take one more, and come by the office and pick up a script for Vicodin.  That was 14 months ago.  That was my green light. 

We have random drug screens at work.  Part of my not taking drugs was not due to my changing my mind, way of thinking, it was fear.  I didn't take them cause I didn't want to lose my job.  Not because i dealt with WHY I was taking them and got into recovery.

Once I had the script, it was my get out of jail free card.  Basically I was already an addict and now had the meds at my disposal with no threat of punishment and I only had a 5 dollar co-pay.  NIRVANA.........!

Took them every day since July 11, 2007.  Averaged 4 to 5, range was 3 to 8.  I would self titrate to avoid withdrawals and get to the refill date.  I did not want any red flags to go up on early refills.  I know how it works.  I'm part of that system.  Out smarted myself you see.  Smarted myself right into vicodin addiction.

I had a couple of wake up calls last month.  Over the last few months I now can see how I had missed turning in this piece of paper, missed that spot or section in my nursing notes, etc.  Little things.  But about 5 weeks ago as my wife and I were drifting off to sleep I told her what a great wife she is.  She said, "Are you kidding?"  That shocked me.  I was of course expecting a purring coo kind of response.  I asked her what she meant and why would I kid about that?  She said its been so long since I said that kind of thing she thought I was kidding.  SLAP.  Man, I was bungling it so badly my wife hadn't heard me tell her what a great wife she is in a long time AND I thought I was doing a good job.  I was kidding myself.  The vicodin was numbing my brain to not even realizing I was not telling the love of my life that I loved her and she is the center of my world.  Not good.....

Then I had a patient assigned to me.  He was very much like me.  About my age, dying, he was a male nurse as well.  We had a hard time getting pain under control and part of the reason why was his own pain medication use.  All prescription.  Not a bad guy.  A good guy actually.  But he had drawers full of all kinds of pain meds.  And guess where he started?  You got it, vicodin.  He had tupper wear bowls full of vicodin that didn't work any more.  I saw myself in him and knew I had to do something so that in years from now, I was not him.

Stopped the vicodin on my own by simply taking the last of them, any others I had laying around, and not calling for a refill.  I didn't not anticipate how hard it would be.  I had been sick as well so I couldn't take them.  Cold turkeyed for 2 days, went for help on the 3rd.  By taking them every day even at a low dose, my body and neurotransmittors had gotten quite used to the opiates.  My body missed them.  Took my last on 9/1 in the morning.  Got off the suboxone quickly and only needed it for a few days. 

Self reported everything by the book to my employer.  Because the meds were prescription and legal, there was no indication I had ever acted inappropriately with patients, no harm to patients, and that I self reported, I am not in trouble.  I can not work until cleared but that is usually about 2 months of the intense outpatient therapy, meetings, etc.  In other words, not too long.  Currently I am on 3 months short term disability, with savings and vacation time income stable.  Still have health insurance.

But I have some work to do.  I am an addict.  Currently stuggling with the whole credility thing as in how can I speak to anyone about anything as if I know something?   Some of the PAWS stuff.  Have some major revamping of strategies to deal with trauma to do.  Have some major trauma scars to work through.  I've worked with hospice folks for 4 years without a real break.  Nothing like Sudan but the continued non-stop dying adds up as well.

Having a break is a good thing.  I most certainly needed it.  I am coming back to life.  Glad to be back.  Shoulders and neck hurt but I do not want any opiates.  I do not crave them.  I want to get busy on what work I need to do and I can not succeed and take mind numbing drugs.  Won't work.

I also am struggling with how it is you can be given an addictive substance and then when addicted, its 100% your fault.   Not dodging that I am an addict.  Just seems a little out of balance.

Glad to still be an employee of the company I work for even if I am an unemployed employee.  Look forward to getting back to work but not until its time.  This is it.  I am dealing with this thing.  If it takes longer than a few months, I have 3 more months of short term to use.  And when "they" say to put money aware for a rainy day,  "they" sure got that right.  We can make it.  Family will be okay.  Mostly, I am going to be sober and be me.

Thanks if you made it through all this.  Addiction hits all sorts of folks at all levels.  We're not bad people.  But we do have something that we need to take seriously and address.  And that something is addiction.

Mine is out in the light.  It will stay in the light and not run back into the darkness again.   The Lord still loves me.  Did through all of it.  And am so glad to be relating to Him clearly again as well.  Its not easy to explain but some times the Lord leaves us in our sin and dysfunction to come to the end our ourselves and finally surrender and submit to His perfect love and will.  Bonehead that I am or was, I am so thankful that His love is unending and unconditional.

My prayers are for you all and my heart felt hope is you all succeed in getting sober.  Life is to be lived, not to be numbed.

Jim

-- Edited by imikens at 16:50, 2008-09-20