I remember the first time I was prescribed pain medication… It was around 2015, and they had given me codeine.
I hated it.
As it turns out, I was mildly allergic. I had a pretty bad rash and case of hives, mild fever. And so I never touched that again. My doctor later said I might be allergic to the whole oxy’s genre of drugs. Frankly, probably having that as a note in my medical profile ensured my lack of relapse in that regard.
Fast forward several years. I’m in recovery, and I’m back to that same square. I had an dental emergency just prior, and remember that I loved the rush of steroid treatment I felt to accelerate my healing. And then, I was faced with that decision: to pain pill, or not to pain pill?
Everyone seemed to have an opinion. My non-addict friends were like, “Oh nice, you get to have some at least afterwards!” But my new friends in recovery had another opinion. It was more like, “Don’t fucking do it!”
I totally believe that I’m fine. That even if I enjoyed the pain medication, I’d pay with that rash that always annoyed the fuck out of me. That was before I kept noticing a pattern. That many people with more years clean that me had relapsed on pain medication. Sometimes, it was the justification of using since they were already loaded. Or it would just be the fast addiction to the pills, leading them use other substances. All in all, I knew I had to make a choice.
So despite my own beliefs in myself, I trusted in my support group, and my sponsor. I have a few in my home right now, enough for a day, in case the pain has kicked in. But my sponsor has the rest of the bottle, and if I ever do need them, it will be closely monitored.
It hasn’t.
And so, I think I just dodged a bullet. As the lyrics to Metric’s Gimme Sympathy go (yes I know, but I fucking love that song), “We’re so close, to something better left unknown… Stay with the all unknown, stay away from the hooks.”