Suffering in Silence

I am forcing myself to blog today. It's been a couple weeks at least. A lot of things have changed around here. It's actually pretty good. I have a friend living here who needs help and then I met a girl through her and have become friends w/ her pretty quickly. Jess and Gracie are their names. I love them both and see so much strength in them that it has actually given me what I needed to finally decide to fight this god-awful addiction that I deal with 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. I listened to a song yesterday that really choked me up. It's a song I used to listen to for hours on end....Cry out to Jesus by Third Day. There is a line in there about addictions and the guilt and shame and chains. Gosh, it hits it right on the head. Um, is that how you say that? Yea, you know what I mean. I'm suffering inside.... really suffering and I'm trying to do it in silence. At least I have been. I sleep a lot of the time. A LOT of the time. To the point where I have been abusing Benadryl.... yes BENADRYL.... this is getting bad because the overdosing on Benadryl has affected me already.... I think I may have had minor seizures... I'm not sure, but something happened last week and it wasn't anything I was taking before I started taking benadryl.
Anyway, this is the plan. We are going to Disney (yes, again YAY!) Oh, and this is a big dream of Jess and Gracie.... and Im so excited to be able to do this for them... they deserve it.... big time. So anyway, back to my plan. I plan on going to rehab (it's a place called Bradford and it's in Alabama... but thanks to Tricare my options have been pretty limited.... but this seems to be an alright place.... never know til ya try!) right after Disney.... immediately after Disney.

This is the situation. For those who don't know everything, I started dabbling in pain pills in December of 1999 when I had my first bout with kidney stones. At that point, I realized "wow I can get high from a pill a dr gives me" but after months of doing it, I realized I was addicted and I came off of them when a great military family took me in and nursed me back to health (mind you, I was also battling a severe eating disorder and weighing only 89 lbs at the time) and helped me get a job and get back on my feet. But in 2001, my world was turned upside down when I broke my neck and soonafter, ruptured a disc in my neck. 2 years later, I ruptured another disc and have been dealing with chronic pain ever since. That same year, I lost my dad to alcoholism and my will to fight became pretty much non-existent. I don't know how I existed that year... that's ALL i did was exist and pop pills.  I have also had multiple other surgeries (knee, gall bladder, you name it). So I have had my share of pain pills over the years and have been guilty of doctor shopping and prescription fraud and all that. Like I said in another post, I have overcome an addiction to crack, have beat an eating disorder and yet, these pills have a hold on me like no other I have ever experienced. I have been in pain management since June of 2008. Then I was in a horrible car accident in Feb of 2009. Things only got worse. My husband deals with chronic pain too because of an old injury from when he was in the Navy. So you can see where this is going, I'm sure.... (if you're as insightful as I am... haha). He got into pain management back in October. Anyway, let me back up a second.... we were getting ready to go on a LONG road trip to Louisville to surprise my lil sister and then up to Chicago and we had planned on seeing other friends from my hometown but that didn't pan out like I wanted it to. I wasn't real happy about that, but life happens. I was happy to see my oldest friend though (not old as in old but yea, Heidi, we ARE getting old you know, haha.... no, old as in the longest anyone has remained friends with me.... Heidi, you get the prize.... you have no idea what you have added to my life.... no idea... maybe I should tell you more.... ) but anyway.... I was waiting for my monthly Rx of pain meds before we could leave on our trip.... so the morning I was scheduled to get them... I get a call from the Nurse.... I thought.... ok cool my meds are ready we can go now..... instead I get the shock of a lifetime... they put my name into the  Virginia Narcotics Monitoring System..... wow... big oops. They had a record of absolutely every Rx I had gotten from the time I started pain mgmt. Of course no addict can actually allow the amount of pain meds they are given to last a whole month, so I did what any addict will do and I dr shopped. No, I'm not making excuses. I'm just saying that's what we addicts do and I'm ashamed of it. But I'm trying to face up to it. I really am. It's killing me inside like no addiction has ever done.  So anyway, I got kicked out. Big surprise there. Ok not. So anyway, like I was saying my husband was in pain management until I got him to get me pain meds (don't blame him... he has been between a rock and a hard place because he hates to see me in pain but he hates to see me deal with addiction too.) So yea, he got a letter a few days ago that said he was being discharged from the practice for getting multiple Rx's from other doctors. Big surprise there. We have a total of another month's worth of pain meds and I've pretty much burned all my bridges in Hampton Roads so it's time. It is simply time to face up to this and deal with it head on. I finally broke down this morning over it. I could get more pain meds today from my foot doctor (I just had foot surgery about a month ago) because he is the most naive doctor on the face of the earth. No lie, I outright walked into his office and straight up ASKED for a narcotic by name, strength and dosage. Roxy 30's 4 times a day I told him.... and he said ok and wrote the script... .I was like, are you kidding... I wonder how many other addictions you have facilitated. Yea, I know.... I have to take responsibility but some drs are just plain dumb. Anyway SIX weeks after my foot surgery, he is STILL giving me Roxy 30's. I am sure that will only last for so long, but I am astounded it has lasted THIS long. Basically I have some meds to get me through Disney and then we are out and I'm ready. I'm tired..... really tired. Emotionally.... I cannot suffer in silence anymore..... I need y'all's support. I really do. I started preparing myself for this a couple months ago..... and I haven't meant to lead anyone on.... I'm sure if you haven't experienced addiction, you expected this to be done and over by now....not me having not even begun a rehab yet.... there is just a lot emotionally that I have to deal with before I can take that on.... because this is going to be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.... and I don't say that flippantly ...... i'm done suffering in silence.