Another Accidental Addict

Those were the words I said at the first NA meeting I ever attended when I was sixteen years old.

Two years prior I had been involved in a horrible bike accident. I shattered most of my face, including my eye socket, cheek bone and nose. I received three hundred and fifty stitches across my forehead and up into my hair line, and twelve more to reattach my nose.

Any accident is traumatizing for sure, but as a fourteen-year old you are still heavily entrenched in how you look, not to mention it happened the first day of summer vacation between 8th and 9th grade. Not the way I wanted to enter high school if you know what I mean.

One does not merely splatter their skull open and walk away problem free. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was a vain teenager, but I was definitely a teenager who was conscious of my appearance. I was aware enough of my looks to be self-conscious of going out into public, I didn't want to be seen.

As a teen, I was an extrovert to the extreme. Add on the never ending pain I was experiencing and I became severely depressed.

Between my newly developed migraines, the neck and back problems I'd received from the landings impact, and the aches of bones trying to heal I was a mess.

That's when I was put on medication for the first time. Paxil, for my depression, and Vicoden for my pain.

Neither worked for me, but boy I wish they had- it would have saved me from even more pain that was to come!

The Paxil had to be stopped because I became suicidal, and the Vicoden made everything hurt more. But, that didn't happen right away. I had been on them a few months by the time I was brought back to the doctor.

The doctor was concerned about giving me anymore heavy narcotics due to addiction, but my mother wasn't having it. Later that week I was sitting across from another doctor, this time getting Percocet.

This behavior of my mother continued for over two years. The medicine would work, then eventually wouldn't work as well, I'd need more, and I'd need it more often. Then I'd be ripped off it and put on a new one.

It was two years of side effects, mixed with withdrawals.

I couldn't eat properly because of the damage and pain to my mouth and face. Plus, the nausea from the migraines and the pills. I was in an ongoing cycle.

I couldn't sleep because of it all either, so my mother got me a prescription of sleeping pills.

By the time I was fifteen I could no longer function without aid of some kind of medication.

I was brought into see a doctor on one occasion. I was in pain, this pain hadn't let up in weeks, and I could barely keep food down because of the dizziness.

As soon as the appointment started, my mother started talking. Telling the doctor everything I had been on, up til that point. And just generally acted like she knew more than him about neurological conditions.

Halfway through the appointment the doctor had asked my mother to step out, so he could do some tests. She was hesitant to go, but she finally went out like he asked.

Once she was gone he looked at me, and asked me what I wanted. "To not be in pain, and to not keep getting sick on the medicine." was my automatic response.

He sat and asked me a bunch of questions, and I answered them all honestly. As an adult now - one who has been around and worked in healthcare - I now understand he was finding out if we were working as a team to score pills, or if I was in an unfit home.

He talked about me having reconstructive surgery on my sinuses to help reduce the pain and pressure in my face. And gave me a recipe of No-doz, aspirin, and Tylenol for the migraines. He said he flat out refused to prescribe a sixteen-year old anymore pain pills of that kind. Not after being used as many times a day as they had been, for two years.

The trifecta of the caffeine, aspirin, and Tylenol worked amazingly. Even better was when Excedrin came out with their migraine relief pill, it was the same recipe as what the doctor said, but in one pill.

The pain didn't magically go away, but it brought it to a manageable level. Something I could deal with, and learn to live with on a daily basis, which meant I could start getting back to living again.

One little snag happened early on though, and that was detoxing.

I had no idea that that was what was happening. I didn't see myself as a drug user, let alone abuser. Detoxing was what addicts when through. I had been in pain, and took them as prescribe. I took them the way my mother gave them to me. I didn't buy them off the street to get high!

At about the same time, my mother started dating a new guy. This guy was actually quite nice, and normal. He also had no problem calling bullshit when saw it. And he saw it.

It took one look at me for him to see the signs of someone in the middle of detox. I remember he sat next to me and asked me if I'd like to go to the next narcotics anonymous meeting with him. He told me he was five years into his recovery, and he would help me get settled in there if I wanted to give it a shot. At that point, I'd have done anything to feel better.

NA wasn't for me. I went to a couple meetings with my mothers boyfriend, before she kicked him out of her life, and by extension mine. But, I did see him as he was leaving, and he asked if he'd see me at the meetings still. The look on my face must have given my answer away, because he said "NA isn't for everyone, but recovery is. Don't let the want win, don't let it make you like the others." The last part was said over my head in the direction of my mother lingering in the door way.

While to this day I can't say for certain what happened to all the left over pills, I can say for certain my mother has always been a walking pharmacy.

I did fully detox. I have found my own way to deal with the lingering urges I sometimes still have.

I am open and honest with my doctors about my past, and I have proven to them that I can be safe and responsible in the presence of medication.

When I was prescribed medication for anxiety I was given a script for Ativan. I was beyond terrified to take it. I told my doctor why, we then talked and found a plan together that made me feel more comfortable.

Now, after almost six years, she knows a prescription of fourteen pills will last between four months to a year. Oddly, every time I refill it, she makes sure to tell me I did good. I should feel belittled, but I just feel proud each time.

I don't talk much about that time in my life. Not because I am ashamed of it. But, because I don't want it to take anymore away from me.

Yes, I remember vividly how good they could make me feel when all I felt was pain and hurt. But, I also remember vividly the cost of that relief.

A cost I will continue to pay every time I need something stronger than Tylenol. It's a longing, mixed with sadness, mixed with hatred. Hatred for myself, my accident, and even my mother. And then to round it all off, a sense of distrust of doctors who so willingly prescribe them.

Today I am as whole as I've ever been. Every day I remember the words of my mothers boyfriend all those years ago, and do what I have to do to stay true to them. I don't remember his name, but I wish I did. I owe him, at least a - thank you for helping me find my way to the right path.

Authors Note:

This post is a scrubbed down and polished up version of this period in my life. After writing the original post, I decided that it would be best to omit some of the more graphic images of that time in my recovery from this post. I may do a more in depth one in the future, but please be advised that if I do follow it up, that post will have trigger warnings attached to it.

If you feel so inclined as to share some of your own stories, I would love to hear them and root you on, but please add TW at the beginning if its of a graphic nature.

Take care