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My dear wife has had a very bad back condition for the past 5 years that has required Doctors to treat the pain because no one would fix the problem. Her condition was not bad enough for surgery according to her Doctors until the last 6 months when her spine just gave way. She had L-1 through t-4 fused. Pain managment the last few days has been a problem as she thinks she needs more drugs. I found a large number of codine pills that she brought to the hospital just incase the Doctors did not medicate her to her liking,(her words). Now I am public enemy number one according to her because I felt I could not alow her to take these meds without the doctors knowing I have opened a can of worms but i think I did the right thing. I now realize she is addited to the pain meds and is going though the withdrawls My question is did I do the right thing and how do I handle this in the coming days weeks and months???
You have just described what caused my husband's relapse. My husband was an alcoholic and addict for years, went to rehab, got into AA and was clean and in recovery for several years. The relapse began with back pain that the docs couldn't diagnose or treat, except with pain meds. Finally, he also underwent spinal fusion. The hospitalization was a nightmare, because he had been on such a high level of pain meds from his primary care physician, and the surgeon did not follow up in the hospital with the same meds. This meant much more pain and symptoms of withdrawals, which can be dangerous. I am a nurse, as is my husband; so he was excellent at prescribing what he needed and I trusted a lot of his judgment. Anyway, during the hospitalization, I did end up giving him extra pain medication we had from home, because I had seen him go through withdrawals in the past and no one at the hospital would listen to me. I know they saw him as just seeking drugs, which he was in a way, but he was also in a lot of pain and starting withdrawals, right after a major surgery. Even the medical field is pretty judgmental and not always the best educated when it comes to addiction, withdrawal, etc. Anyway, we got through the surgery and then his use just kept escalating over the next year. I didn't know if he was truly having pain that required that much medicating, or if he was just in a full blown addiction . . .he is a very convincing addict. When it comes to chronic pain and addicts, it is such a hard road.
My husband did finally go into rehab to wean off of the pain meds . . . once this happened, he realized his back pain had greatly subsided (use of morphine, etc., can actually lower pain thresholds over time), and now he uses non-narcotic pain medication and muscle relaxers as needed. He admits that his disease was kicked off by the pain medication, and once he started using he couldn't stop on his own. By the time he went into rehab, he was home bound, hardly moved off the recliner, was fired from his job, had been hospitalized for brain swelling (a reaction to the pain meds that caused him to act pretty much well like an alzheimer's patient), almost died from an overdose, and on and on. It was horrible. I watched him killing himself and felt helpless. It really was him losing his job that pretty much well made him realize he had hit bottom (all of my crying and pleading didn't do much of anything . . . just caused him to withdraw more).
I remember that he had a doctor's appt. to get more pain meds, and I told him I was going with him, because I wanted to talk to the doctor about his pain management. When we got into the office, he said to me, "I'm asking you to leave." I just laughed at him and told him he would have to physically throw me out . . . that I wasn't going to watch him die. So when the doc came in, I discussed my concerns of addiction in a loving, caring way . . . it was not his fault, it is a disease. He just crumbled and said, "yes I need help." So, off he went to rehab a couple days later . . . I kept waiting for him to back out, but the loss of his job the next day cinched the deal. Thank God for intervening! Too many people had been enabling him at his job.
Things are not perfect now, but he has been clean for 1.5 years. He has back pain, and he is learning to cope with it without drugs.
I can only share my experience with you. My strength was God. For a while I tried many things that didn't work . . raging and crying at him, threatening to leave, losing myself in my work and the wrong friends, trying to control his use . . . but there came a time that I told myself I was committed to my marriage and wanted to stop looking for a way of escaping the pain . . . I prayed a lot, practiced detaching, offered love and support to my husband, tried to not do things for him that he should and could do for himself . . . I also pretty much well resigned myself to the idea that things may not get better with him, which meant I had better start living life myself. Geesh, him going into recovery is a whole other story and the process over the last year and half has been so up an down . . . I am such a perfectionist and I keep expecting to "make It" one day . . .but remind myself that recovery is a process, not a destination.
My hope is that when things looked hopeless and I had finally admitted my powerlessness, my husband did go into recovery . . . I really thought it was a lost cause.
You asked if you did the right thing with your wife in the hospital regarding her codeine . . . I don't know . . . I'm not sure if there is a right or wrong when it comes to this disease and when addiction intersects with other medical diseases that do create the need for pain relief in the form of addictive medications. I would try to find a doc that has a background in addictions . . . get a plan for weaning off of pain medications . . . and get lots of help and support for yourself.
Wow, sounds familiar. My wife was dry for 3 or 4 years. Got pleurisy and it was very painful. In the hospital they had her on morphine drip and I was concerned but she was in pain and they were perscribing it. Upon release she was requiring huge increases of morphine and nobody could explain it, they sent her to physical therapy dr who does pain. He explained that the levels of morphine Rx'd in pill form were no where near the IV dosage cause they did a unit for unit swap and there is actually a calculation involved. He put her on Oxycodone and Oxycontin. This worried me a bit knowing her alcoholism and addictive personality.
I know we were heading into addiction one time when she snapped my head off for showing some honest concern over her levels of med. She then got a psychiatrist to Rx Xanax for panic attacks as well. She was taking the max dose of Xanax in no time and the Oxy's required constant increases. She signed paperwork stating she would not drink alcohol during this period in addition to many other stipulations.
At nights she had the alcoholic gate, she had the look in her eyes, she couldn't stand and she'd slur and not make sense. I was terrified to tell the dr but one time when he asked I mentioned the sluring when he asked if she becasme comatose at all. The A went off on me. Then she began to drink on these medications, slowly, then more and more.
I told the pain dr and he stopped her medication until she had a detox screening. She was about to get weaned of (there is a more proper medical term, I'm told weaned off is a rehab term) anyways because she is now getting injections, never blocks to ease the pain. She got an appt with a therapist specializing in addictions and he agreed to see her and allow her the Oxy's. She got a 7 or 9 day wean off supply. She was still ad the max dose of Xanax though and drinking even more afterwards.
She went into the hopital in the summer w/ a kidney infection and she was begging me to bring in Oxy's and Xanax. I would not. She said that her primary doctor told her that they marked her as a narcotics seeker and abuser. She also said the kidney dr said she should have gotten more pain meds cause her infection was very painful. I don't know. I just knew that I wasn't going to give her more meds and be responsible for any intereactions etc for her taking meds they didn't know about.
I also told my A's psychiatrist about the drinking and he changed he treated her and would not script alot of meds w/ her drinking. She switched physicatrist.
Soooo......that's my relapse story. It sux. But I understand where your coming from. I can say this, I probably wouldn't have come back to alanon so soon and it has me looking at things in myself that really needed working on. So thank HP for that.
Bob
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You are a perfect child of God and God and I love you just the way you are! (added by me...in that special alanon way)
Don't know what was the right thing to do - but I do know that it is better to have things out in the open, rather than hidden behind a curtain, stinking up the house.
Her doctors need to know what she is taking - hope they can get someone with experience with addictions involved in the team treating her. But, in the end, it is the same story - no one can do it for her, if she doesn't want to get well, you and all the treatment in the world won't do it.
