I have been straddling this issue for 32 years. At one point i stopped using painkillers for 4 years. Other times would go months at a time and maybe only 2 week binge. Bottom line is at age 11, I read somewhere in some associated assigned reading for school that "a truly self-actualized being will use drugs to improve the quality of their life, only for positive reasons, not to escape or denigrate their humanity."...something to that effect anyway...
Soooo here we are thirty-something years later after experimenting with everything available on this earth as a child, (and maybe some things that are no longer available)...and I find myself arguing a no-win argument with my detox Dr. that i really need counseling for the depression and anxiety and have only been "self-medicating" to get through the all-nighters required by life when you have multiple life/death situations hit you all at once for a period of 9 years...I think the meds for depression are worse than a couple vic's in the morning and a couple 8 hrs. later...if I got on ok like this for YEARS at a time and only recently needed more to stay productive and stable emotionally am I really addicted? Yeah, says the doc...you've got a 32 year history. None of my so called "friends" can cop and keep it for weeks at a time...None of them can believe that I do...
I guess I'm writing on here now because NOTHING is helping get my life back on track after death, bankrupcy, abuse, alzheimers', raising a child alone, becoming a caretaker, losing my home, losing my business, losing my dreams, losing my retirement fund....i mean, c'mon - do you guys ever watch "House?" Somedays are just beyond functioning when you've a history of producing a productive life....and it's all gone, and you hafta start from scratch again.



omg