Publisher: Guinevere Gets Sober | news, reviews, and straight talk about addiction and recovery

I started writing about addiction in August 2008 on the public forum Opiate Detox Recovery. The day before, I’d gone into medically-managed outpatient detox from high doses of painkillers prescribed for two neurological disorders. Here’s my first post… a letter from an over-fearful, over-functioning Super Woman In Her Own Mind, deep in detox and denial. Even while detoxing, I didn’t believe I could get off drugs. I certainly didn’t believe I was an addict. The term “addict” didn’t fit with the ways I thought of myself: a professional with two degrees and a track record of success. After all, an addict is somebody who smokes crack in a derelict house, who snorts coke in a dive-bar bathroom, who shoots smack under a bridge. Right? Sometimes. Skyrocketing numbers of addicts buy their drugs in drugstores, or steal them from others’ handbags or bathroom cabinets. About 6.2 million Americans abuse prescription drugs, more than the number of people abusing heroin, cocaine, crack, pot, Ecstasy and inhalants combined. Add to that the numbers of people addicted to alcohol, nicotine, and junk food (never mind sugar, sex, gambling, porn, etc.), and addicts are a lot more common than people think. Legal drugs are just as life-threatening as illegal ones. Maybe more so, because they seem so non-threatening. Eat too much junk food and the risks of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes shoot up. Nicotine addiction leads to lung cancer, the most common cancer both in terms of incidence and mortality among both women and men—far more common than breast cancer, and more preventable. Though I couldn’t admit I was an addict, I somehow knew I had to quit to save my life. I knew that addiction is fatal. I’ve lost a number of people in my family, including both my parents, to the consequences of addiction—to street drugs and legal drugs, plus alcohol, nicotine, relationships with dealers gone bad: you name it. I didn’t want my son to watch me die, quickly or slowly, from addiction. So I kept on detoxing. By putting the process in the hands of a capable doctor, I was drug-free within two months. During those weeks I admitted to myself that I’d used painkillers not just for my physical pain, but also to manipulate my energy levels, my sleep cycles, my sexuality, my feelings, and other aspects of my life. And that in doing so, I’d lost control of my use. The awesome thing is, by quitting drugs, I gained back my strength, and my neurological conditions have improved. I have many friends on the internet and In Real Life who have done the same.