Getting Clean

I was addicted, but I wasn’t an addict. How I kicked pain meds before they kicked me

- Linda Maher

MY HUSBAND, MIKE, AND I sat in the office of a pain management doctor. I felt worse than I’d ever felt in my entire life. There was only one thing I wanted from the doctor.

Permission to stop taking my pain medication.

I had been in a terrible accident. A car going highway speed had run a red light and T-boned me. I’d suffered devastating internal injuries. My pelvis was shattered. I was in the hospital for a month, undergoing multiple surgeries. I came home in a wheelchair.

I also came home with a physical dependence on the array of opioid pain meds I’d been given in the hospital. I knew right away something was wrong. I was lethargic, depressed, nauseous, disoriented. I could barely sit up. Sometimes I didn’t even respond when Mike came into the room or my grown kids brought grand kids to visit.

Physically I was getting better, but emotionally, spiritually, I was a wreck. It was after Christmas. My daughter McKynzie was due to give birth in February. Her sister Brittany was engaged to be married in June. I wanted to be there for them, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything. I could hardly pray.

Any amount of pain, I thought, would be better than this. At first my surgeons argued I had to stay on the medication to allow my body to heal. I agreed—but why did I have to depend so much on these powerful drugs? It felt dangerous. At last they agreed I could wean off. They were as perplexed by my urgency as by my insistence. Most patients want more medication, not less.

The problem, they said, is that I couldn’t just stop taking the drugs. I’d go through severe withdrawal.

“You mean I’m addicted?” I said.