Everyone is addicted to something: drugs, alcohol, sex, food. This is a paraphrased quote from our ‘all too human’ former President Bill Clinton. He used to tell us he felt our pain, so we elected him twice. Then we discovered he was a serial womanizer and carried on with many affairs. He was impeached essentially over his sex life. But Clinton understood something about the human condition perhaps because he understood addiction.
Now that President Trump has declared the nation’s opioid crisis—with more deaths every day than car wrecks and gun deaths combined—maybe something can be done to save lives. Last year 50,000 Americans died from this addiction, the great majority no doubt slipping into death unintentionally. But drug deaths have been going on since, well, rock and roll: Jimi, Janis, Jim, then Elvis, later Michael, most recently Prince. Their deaths were accidental, too. They weren’t suicidal, just abusing drugs. They were caught in a trap. And at least two had money to seek modern-day treatment. They couldn’t say they had no idea they were addicted to drugs. They knew the game, played, and lost their lives—and in so doing caused a great deal of grief to their families and millions of fans around the world.
Something for the pain
Why do some people get addicted to drugs and others don’t? Since the days of LSD, our scientists know so much more about addiction, brain chemistry, and genetics. Will power may be a part of the equation. Americans have a long history of cramming that thought down the throats of our loved ones, especially the older generations to the younger. Still every day more and more people get hooked particularly on a cheap heroin derivative. It might have started with an injury or surgery and some very effective pain pills. The prescription ran out in a week or so and either was refilled by someone else or the street dealers came around or were pursued. But when the addicted start committing crimes to support their habit, everyone knows the situation is deadly serious and must be stopped one way or another.
What is a family of an addict to do? Television shows like “Intervention” chronicles such plights. We are allowed to see how low the addicted go, how they have their daily plans to score dope, how they search their body for a vein that isn’t blown from overuse, how awful they look, how they lie and steal and prostitute as their lives are absolutely worthless … to them. That’s the addiction, the sickness, the change in the brain. And after addiction, through recovery they may find little joy in living the clean and sober life. That is part of the price of addiction and sobriety. Addictive drugs can rewire the brain’s pleasure sensors.
Science has taught us no one is really to blame for becoming addicted. About the only thing we can do besides stop being judgmental is to be empathetic. “Look, that could be me,” and with the right level of pain and new pain killers, anyone can get addicted. That’s what the fear is about our latest drug crisis: It crosses every race, age, religion, and socio-economic level. But the same was said about black tar heroin, then cheese, maybe even meth to some extent.
Comfortably numb
Pharmaceutical companies are being blamed for convincing doctors that pain management is true medical care nowadays. Hah, what a laugh, based on my own experiences. One of my doctors never refilled a pain killer used when passing a kidney stone. The specific pain killer now is highly regulated with our government telling docs to avoid prescribing it altogether. So I suffered through a day or two of horrific pain using over-the-counter alternatives that do not work. I knew I’d live, however. I knew the pain would go away.
In 1990 I underwent a state-of-the-art dental procedure to remove impacted wisdom teeth. They were sideways and were never going to sprout, so I took the option which involved anesthesia. The moment I awoke from the surgery, the pain was excruciating. I was given a week’s supply of Percocet, which for me really didn’t alleviate the pain. I cried myself to sleep every night, praying for the pain to go away. But I could not imagine not taking that pain killer. How much worse would the pain be, I feared. Sure enough, when the pills were gone and I called the dentist for a refill, I was told to take Tylenol. I knew Tylenol wasn’t going to relieve that level of pain. So I suffered for another week or so of agonizing hellish pain; it felt like my teeth had been ripped from the roots. And that’s exactly what had happened during the oral surgery.
What was never said to me was the pain will go away. Now we are learning that doctors want us to experience pain after surgery because that indicates our bodies are healing. Who knew? I figured there were the old-school docs who wanted patients to ‘suck it up’ when it came to pain after procedures and the modern docs who sympathized (not unlike Bill Clinton) and would permit patients some sort of prescription pain reliever. I guess we’re seeing the old-school docs were right all along. Think back to the days before anesthesia (not that I would ever want to go back, so keep it coming). Yet those old-timers, our forefathers, lived. Perhaps we are made of tougher stock than we realize. Maybe we’re going to have to start discovering our inner and outer toughness.
This latest drug epidemic involving opioids brought to mind a nurse I met who cared for terminal patients. In 1994 she was speaking to hospitals nationwide to promote better pain management for patients in the end stage of a terminal disease. Back then doctors were very reluctant to prescribe pain killers even for the dying. This made no sense, as the good nurse said sarcastically, “Terminal pain is no time to be giving Tylenol 3.” She also said something else a non-medical person like me—and most of us in the general population—would know: People don’t understand opioids can be increased indefinitely.