I have spent the last year diving into the drug epidemic in
this country. All the families that suffer from just one person’s misstep, misjudgment
or caught off guard weak moment. I hate it but in some way, I get it. I recently read an article from the medical
director of a hospital in CT where his primary function is to review autopsy
reports. The overdose deaths taking
lives so early is disturbing. What stood
out to me was the fact that a lot of the overdoses weren’t because of too much
of a drug, ie. pills, heroin, or street
drugs but a combination of pain killers used in the correct dosage but as a
mix. Simply taking a Valium, a Xanax and
your other meds can result in your going to sleep and never waking up.
Many people I talk to in day to day conversations are
appalled at the over usage of Rx medications and I agree with them, especially
when it results in the harm of our children and the destruction of our
families. It always leaves us asking “Why?
Why are these people choosing this path?”.
If we are going to help people, we need to understand what’s going on in
the hearts and minds of the victims.
“I just had knee surgery, next thing I knew, I was on the
street waiting for my contact to bring me more Percocet. The doctor stopped prescribing it, but I’m
still in so much pain.” This is the
beginning of so many addicts’ stories.
Pain is a terrible thing and the prescribing of so many opioid pain
killers, is hard to resist. I completely
understand this mentality. In fact, my heart goes out to those who start out in
this realm.
I have had chronic pain for 10 years. About 5 years ago, I cracked a tooth down to
my jawbone and had to have it pulled. I
am an anxiety nightmare when it comes to dentists, so I had them knock me
out. When I woke up after the procedure,
they had also given me Demerol for my pain. I remember thinking… this is the first time in
years that my body isn’t riddled with pain! I was so happy to think that this
is what it must be like to be normal
without the chronic fibromyalgia beating me down! I immediately turned to my husband and said
“Never let me have pain medications again!”
I knew right there that if I were to ever start treating my pain with
pain killers, I wouldn’t stop. It was
the best feeling in the world. Since
that day, I have chosen to live with my pain and make that choice on a daily
basis and function to the best of my ability without medication. I was thankful
for that revelation and understand the attraction. On a good day, my pain is a
4 and on a bad day, its unbearable; yet in my life, I have seen so much
destruction from pain killers and pain numbing street drugs that I just refuse to
choose my personal pain over causing others I love pain.
And the point? I
think in this day and age, there are so many new and existing chronic pain
conditions and post-surgery, injury pain, that we need to look at the science
of our medical approach to treating it.
We can’t help people with pain without creating addicts unless we start
researching safe ways to treat the conditions.
There are so many alternative approaches (biofeedback, acupuncture, and
therapy) that would decrease pain and keep patients off tempting medications.
We are dumping billions into drug research.
If just a portion of that funding would go to alternative therapies,
release the findings, educate the medical profession, we could save lives. Not only lives of adults, but families and
children affected by the byproduct of abuse. The
domino effect would be unmeasurable.
