When I came home from Iraq, I did not know what to do. I was on some pretty heavy pain relievers for my injuries. I came home to a mom and a younger brother who wanted to do anything they could for me. It looked like I would be getting a medical discharge. I hoped not as I wanted to make a career out of the Army.
I got depressed when the medical discharge came through. I wanted to fight it, but the doctors said they would not sign off on returning me to active duty. I began taking the pain relievers more than I should, but they were helping me to forget, at least for a little while until they wore off again.
My mom catered to me. She tried to make me comfortable and do things for me but I just yelled at her to leave me alone. She tried to approach me about the prescription medication I was taking when she figured out I was taking too much. I told her to mind her own business. I had never talked to my mom like that as a kid and I know she was confused and hurt, but I was too busy trying to figure out how to keep the medication coming and feeling sorry for myself.
Most of my wounds healed, but the memories didn’t. I found myself feeling more and more sorry for myself and thinking everything was all about me. Every time my mom tried to get me to do something I would just tell her to leave me alone. One day she told me I needed to get on with my life because I had survived for a reason. Then I did the unthinkable. I hit my mom. I did not intend to and I never would have thought it was possible, but I just wanted to be left alone in my medication-endorsed misery.
My younger brother jumped up and got between us. He had gotten taller than me over the last year or so. He looked me in the eye and said “I love you, but you will never touch our mom again, do you understand me? You will get help today or you will leave. Now be the man I know you are and let’s get you some help. I want my brother back.”
As our roles reversed that day, I found a new hero. My brother saved my life, my self-respect and my relationship with both him and our mom.
It is a story that Narconon and other rehabilitation drug centers hear all the time because it is true and it is unfortunately, easy to do. Someone takes medication for a physical problem and before they know it, they end up addicted. How did it happen? When medication becomes a drug addiction, Narconon steps in to help so you can get your life back on track.
A lot of times, it has to do with how our bodies deal with pain. Truthfully, they don’t handle it in good way. Any pain relief is seen as a godsend and the brain tells the body it wants more so that there is no hint of pain coming in. This has a person unwittingly taking a higher dosage. Unwittingly in this case does not mean, not knowing the consequences; it means thinking that addiction just can not and will not happen to him.
When Medication Becomes a Drug Addiction
Doctors can often find themselves in a catch-22 position. A patient will come in complaining of pain. This is the leading cause of most doctor visits. The doctor then has a critical decision to make. How does he prescribe an opiate-based pain reliever when so many of them are addicting when not taken properly? This judgment call has many doctors underprescribing which can be detrimental to someone in pain as well as those who over-medicate themselves when their doctor does give them a proper prescription.
People who have never been hooked on drugs have similar stories; a severe pain following an accident or chronic back problems has them suddenly addicted to medication when they had lived their entire lives free of such addictions. How is this possible? The brain tells the body it needs the medication before the first dose has worn off so the person innocently takes a little “extra” and before he knows it, he is doubling and tripling his dosage, leading to addiction.
What does a doctor do? Some religiously monitor their patients. They do not want them to suffer needless pain but they look them in the eye and tell them that they are going to monitor them closely and keep them on the straight and narrow. This is for their own good. If you have a doctor telling you this, consider yourself lucky that you have a caring one who wants to alleviate your pain and keep you from becoming addicted to your medication. Because the truth is, when medication becomes a drug addiction, you are in a different type of pain that can be a lot harder to overcome without help.
