I Was Addicted to Painkillers: Here’s What Saved Me

I didn’t realize I had a problem until I woke up one morning and couldn’t move without swallowing three pills first. My hands were shaking, my mouth dry, my brain fogged over like I’d been underwater for days. That’s when I knew. Not when I started lying to my doctor. Not when I faked a back injury for a refill. Not even when I hid a bottle in my bra during a family dinner. No, I realized it only when I couldn’t exist without them.

It started small, as these things always do. I had surgery, nothing major, just a torn ligament in my ankle after a clumsy fall down the stairs. I was given hydrocodone. I remember how it felt the first time: warm, like my body was finally allowed to rest. Like someone had turned down the volume on every screaming part of me I didn’t even know was screaming.

That peace… it was addictive before the pills even were.

No one tells you that painkillers don’t just numb physical pain. They quiet everything: the ache of loneliness, the dull echo of anxiety, the creeping self-loathing you try to bury under busy schedules and polite smiles. I took one when I didn’t need it, just because I didn’t want to feel. That’s how it starts.

I wasn’t a junkie in an alley. I was a woman with a job, a family, a decent apartment with throw pillows I fluffed every morning. I paid my bills. I smiled at the grocery store clerk. I went to brunch and pretended everything was fine while a bottle of pills clinked against my phone in my purse.

But inside, I was unravelling.

I told myself I could stop any time. That was the lie I needed to believe the most. But the truth was, I didn’t want to stop. Because the comedown was hell. When I tried to quit on my own, it felt like my skin was on fire. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. My body ached in places I didn’t know had nerve endings. My mind was worse: panicked, trembling, screaming for relief.

I was scared of myself. Scared of what I’d do just to make the withdrawal stop.

The turning point came on a Tuesday. I remember it because the sun was too bright that morning, and I hated how cheerful the world seemed. I was driving to a different doctor, one who didn’t know me yet. My usual pharmacy had started giving me strange looks. I’d told too many lies in too many waiting rooms.

At a red light, I looked in the rearview mirror and didn’t recognize the woman staring back. Her eyes were hollow. Her lips were cracked. Her skin looked like it hadn’t felt love in years. I don’t know what happened in that moment, but I pulled over, turned off the car, and started sobbing so hard I thought my ribs would crack.

That was the first time I asked for help.

Not from a doctor. Not from a prescription pad. But from my sister. I called her, barely able to speak. She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then she said,

“Okay. Let’s fix this. I’ve got you.”

And she did. She showed up twenty minutes later, climbed into my car, took the keys, and just held my hand while I broke down. We didn’t talk much. I think she knew I wasn’t ready to explain it all.

She got me into a detox centre. I won’t sugarcoat it, it was brutal. I wanted to quit every single day. The cravings were loud. Louder than logic, louder than guilt, louder than love. But somehow, I kept showing up. I kept sweating it out. I kept screamin into pillows and crying in group sessions and telling strangers things I hadn’t even admitted to myself.

Recovery isn’t a clean line. It’s jagged, ugly, humiliating. I relapsed once. Maybe twice. Depends on what you count as a relapse, because even after I stopped swallowing pills, I still thought about them every damn day.

But slowly, the silence inside me became less frightening. I learned how to feel again without numbing it. I started journaling. I took long walks without my phone. I learned how to breathe through panic instead of drowning it. I started telling the truth to myself, to others, and eventually, to the world.

What saved me wasn’t one big heroic act. It wasn’t rehab. It wasn’t some guru or miracle cure. It was the people who refused to give up on me, my sister, my therapist, the quiet friend who texted “I’m proud of you” when I hadn’t said a word in weeks.

What saved me was remembering that I am not the worst thing I’ve done. That I am allowed to rebuild. That healing isn’t pretty, but it’s mine.

I still get tempted. I still get scared. But today, I wake up and I don’t need a pill to function. I wake up, and I breathe.

And sometimes… that’s enough.