Since I finished coming of my bup/nal, which means off all my pain meds, K and I have made some interesting if ultimately upsetting discoveries.

Once I hit right around a month from my last dose, I started thinking to myself that I just felt happier, sure I was in more pain, but I was just overall peppier. I stopped watching almost any TV, including long standing things I had loved only weeks earlier, and spent most of my time listening to music. Kent was worried it was because he was here and interrupting my regular routine, and while he technically is, that has nothing do to with it. I also started feeling like writing more and crafting less, something I didn’t really think much about, stories come when they feel like it.

Then one day Kent said “Don’t take this wrong, but you seem a lot more like you old self. You laugh way more often and are singing like I haven’t heard in a long time.”

“Yeah but I sing in the car all the time.”

“Not all out like this.”

Very simply I hadn’t noticed that, nor I had I really noticed anything much else except being happier and wanting to write more. So Kent and I sat around and started talking about the things he’d noticed, what I noticed…and realized that the change happened right around when I first started taking pain meds, and then I went back to “normal” almost as soon as I was off them. That’s just to much of a coincidence for either of us.

That’s not to say I’ve been miserable and completely not me this whole time, but it became obvious to us both that I had changed.

Slowly I noticed more things, like suddenly really wanting to get back into learning German. I hadn’t given up on the idea, but I hadn’t really put any real effort into learning in…oh lets see, yep, about 10 years. I had loved learning it 10 years ago and then that desire just, stopped. Once Kent pointed some stuff out I would notice he wasn’t wrong. That’s not even mentioning a smattering of physical stuff.

Now, I’m totally thrilled by this, but at the end of the day, I’m also pissed. I NEVER wanted to go on 24 hour pain meds, I just wanted something to take for when I just can’t handle it any longer. I even told the doctor that I had a family history of addiction and the idea terrified me. His answer was “it happens”. WTF?! Now I know neither he or any other doctors have all that much of a choice. In the pointless attempt to cut down on people misusing pain meds, they had made it so doctors didn’t have all that much of a choice. Iif they just handed me the meds I wanted without trying tons of other stuff, they could lose their licenses.

I’m not wholly ignorant on how addiction can affect you mentally, and make no mistake, while I wasn’t mentally addicted, I was physically addicted. And I’m not shocked there was a change in me, I just hadn’t realized how huge a change it had made. Ultimately I wasn’t given a choice, if I wanted anything to make myself less miserable, I had to go on a 24hr medication and try all kinds of crap I never wanted to do.

I’m not sure I can stress how fucking pissed this makes me. It isn’t exactly that it had changed me, it was that I hadn’t been given a choice. Nor was I told what might happen. The really shitty thing? I’m only in slightly more pain than when I was taking my old meds. So I lost 10 years of happiness and writing, for almost no fucking reason.

Are you starting to get why I hate the drug war, and the opioid war so very much? If you are me you have NO CHOICE but to take something you don’t want to if you don’t want to be miserable, and who wants to feel miserable? I’ll grant, there have been plenty of doctors who prescribe stuff they really shouldn’t, but the larger amount of us aren’t going to abuse our meds, we should have a choice. Especially when you add in the fact that you can’t force an addict to stop being an addict, they have to make that choice, and no matter what you take away from them, they’ll find something else. There is always something else.

In closing, I am not saying I got nothing from the last 10 years, if nothing else, I got R, and really that’s worth it to me.