I can understand this. I was on pain meds for 4 months with my j pouch surgeries. I had some complcations after my step one and I really depended on the Vicodin to help me thru. But then I realized after the pain started getting better that I just plain liked the stuff! It's so addictive. Now I understand how people can get hooked on it. I threw the last of the pills away and just stopped cold turkey. For a couple of days I was very anxious but it passed. Don't beat yourself up but please do get off of them asap.

SOME PEOPLE HAVE ADDICTIVE PERSONALITIES IS WHAT I WAS TOLD.? not saying you do. I have been on Percs since my surgery in 2008. i only take them as needed for my intestinal spasms. I dont always need them though. I have gone weeks without taking them and i have been fine.

Becoming physically dependant on opiates and other meds happens frequently. They are physically and psychologically addicting. Please don't try to do this cold turkey. You need support and the guidance of professionals who can guide you through this process. Do you have a pain clinic I your area or one that you could be referred to? Is there a physician or psychologist close by who could supervise your slow tapering of doses? It seems that you recognize that you are dependant on these meds to make you feel OK and help you get on with your day. It is possible to feel this way without the benefit of medication. It should be a slow process but you can do it. Good luck from one who has been there.

Thanks everyone! I talked to my neighbor who works at an out patient clinic and will be calling them tomorrow to get some treatment started. I told my boyfriend that I want a "sober house" so no alcohol, pills, etc and he was not happy but if he doesn't want to help then he can just leave.

Please do remember that "addiction" and "dependence" are NOT the same thing.

ANY person who takes opiates long term will have physical dependence to them. If you are prescribed opiates, and take them as prescribed, you can become physically "dependent" on them.

Addiction is when you're inappropriately using opiates to get a high. Like melting and injecting your Fentanyl patch or taking 3 Percocet at a time, or stealing from dying Grandma's end stage morphine, or switching to heroin, because a $10 street bag is cheaper than the oxycodone you're buying outside of your script.

It does sound like you are borderline entering the world of using your meds inappropriately. No matter if just physical dependence or more, if it takes having experts help you wean off the meds, then that's definitely appropriate.

Opiate withdraw isn't pretty, but it's WAY less deadly than alcohol and benzodiazepine withdraw.

You don't also take things like Xanax, etc. do you?

Because I am a personal injury attorney I see this a lot. It is all over the board from dependence to addiction.

I did have a worker's compensation client some years ago who was a flat drug addict and used the worker's compensation claim, which was semi-legit, as a gravy train for pain meds. At some point a large amount of money was put on the table to settle his case and he did not take it, for reasons that made no sense. I think he just wanted to keep the gravy train going. The doctors were wise to what was going on as they made him sign various agreements regarding renewal of his prescriptions, because he was constantly calling them for premature renewals using excuses that were often laughable (dog ate the prescription, kid accidentally threw it out, basically all a bunch of BS). It is the only time a doctor's office ever called me/wrote to me about a client........they basically wanted guidance on what to do which I could not give them any as it would be unethical for me to do something like that.

More often I am on the defense side and having to investigate suspicions of addiction or dependency driving treatment. Medical treatment is what drives the value of PI cases and some people are "rock stars" when it comes to treatment and others are not, they are more like one-hit wonders. The rock stars draw scrutiny both from insurance companies and doctors. I have basically seen it all, some of it is personality and some of it legitimate need. Some people are accident prone for reasons that cannot be explained and what happens is the pain meds for one case become the pain meds for another, even with two different injured body parts or two different pain-generating conditions. I have a case right now where I have to subpoena the pain management specialist to a deposition because his office is very sloppy and they are not distinguishing treatment for the back injury from treatment for the neck injury. It's a huge problem because the worker's compensation insurance carrier has a lien for what they paid but their lien encompasses all the treatment for neck and back and we are only paying for the back. Since this guy has been a "rock star" with his treatment for many years, there is going to be a huge fight at trial over what is related and what is not related in the case that I am defending, which is the back injury case.

If any of you have legal cases and are taking pain meds for two different injuries and there are legal claims for one or both, make sure your pain management doc separates out the bills, because if he does not, the defense attorneys will make money fighting with each other and at trial it could be a big problem for your attorney......and if it is not properly separated the jury will hear about the unrelated treatment and think you are grabbing into the cookie jar too much and they will slap that hand, maybe hard. This applies to social security disability claims as well.......when people apply for SSD they tend to list every reason in the world and when you then have a PI case it will come back to bite you as it becomes discoverable if one of those reasons was the body part injured in the PI case.....ditto with worker's comp and other cases.

I know of a case where someone was taking NSAIDs like candy and eventually died from it because of internal bleeding. Then there was a fight over the treatment immediately before she died (hospitalization, etc.) because the insurance company said the excessive consumption was a suicide. Not clear if it was suicide, dementia ,addiction, dependence........all that we know is she is dead because she took too many NSAIDs.

Regarding addictive personality: Yes, there is such a thing, but you don't need to have an addictive personality to fall into addiction. But, having those traits does increase your risk. Addictive personality increases your risk for all sorts of addiction, such as alcohol, gambling, sex, even cell phones and internet use.

Even if this does not describe you, being on opiates for more than a few weeks makes you physically dependent. The unfortunate thing is that it is very easy to feel that you still need the opiate long after the source of the pain is mostly resolved. The reason is that the discomfort of withdrawal can be difficult to distinguish from other pain. Your brain is urging you to resume the opiate because of the withdrawal, not because you are still experiencing the original pain. It is an extremely compelling urge. This is the reason you taper and even use other medications to help with the withdrawal symptoms.

Some people say you cannot become addicted as long as you take opiates for pain. But this creates a false sense of security. You do not need to consciously be seeking a high to be addicted. You could be trying to simply avoid feeling terrible when you don't have opiates in your system. I have been on low dose opiates for many years and try to be very vigilant about my use. My rheumy tells me that I under medicate, but my preference is to feel tolerable pain, rather than keep increasing my dose. I KNOW I am physically dependent.

Is it necessary to rid your house of all things with abuse potential? Probably not, but you know yourself better than anyone. Getting guidance from a professional is a good idea, particularly if you tried on your own and failed.

Good luck to you!

Jan

I'm like Jan on this one. I know I'm physically dependent. I am always in pain but I limit the amount of pain medication I take. At one point I was taking the maximum allowed daily and it affected my memory so I scaled it back and take more pain. Life isn't fair, it is what it is.

From my 1st surgery, i was in hospital for 9 weeks. on a pretty migh dose of Dilaudid daily. after finally getting out, I never did feel the need to takepain meds unless I actually had pains. I guess I'm lucky. I am still on percocet on an as needed basis for my intense intestinal spasms that antispasm meds just dont work. I have gone weeks without taking any sometimes and no issues.

An addiction to pain meds most of the time is not the patients fault it is brought on due to a medical necessity. It's inevitable that you will become addicted to the medication if you are taking it for a long period of time. My surgeon explained this to me after my surgery that I was going to need this medication for a while and he was going to taper me down slowly to avoid any type of withdrawal. He put it in the terms that I was a "medical addict". He gave me a piece of mind by saying to not worry about becoming addicted because it is going to happen because I was going to need the medication for a while but he also said that we will deal with the addiction part later. I was on an extremely high dose of medication and I also have a high tolerance which doesn't help. It's been over a year and I am still tapering down because he wanted to make sure he did it slowly due to the high doses that I was on. I go along with whatever he tells me and can only get my new scripts the day he writes them for. I think when you get to the point where you are making excuses why you need to get your meds early or go to different Drs for medication then you are starting to develop a real problem. It's good to know you are aware of your addiction and you are looking to do something about it. That's the first step and you have taken it congratulations. Good Luck we are all here for support. DO NOT GO COLD TURKEY!! THAT IS THE WORST POSSIBLE THING YOU COULD EVER TRY TO DO. YOU WILL MAKE YOURSELF SICK AND POSSIBLY END UP IN A HOSPITAL BED BECAUSE OF IT!! Seek professionals to help.

Again, I work with an addiction specialist... High doses of opiates creates physical *dependence.*. It is incorrect to label physical dependence as *addiction."

Addiction, as he describes it, is inappropriate use of the med. Stealing to get it, chewing on your Fentanyl patch to seek that high, starting to take your prescribed med in inappropriate ways (earlier than due, more than prescribed).

That does not mean, that at big doses, you don't need monitoring to wean off.

Your doctor labeling you as a "medical addict" if you were taking your meds, even in high doses, as prescribed, is very poor medical lingo. I can feed anyone opiates on a regular schedule for a year and cause them to become "physically dependent." And yeah, it's going to feel bad to come off of it, if done incorrectly or too quickly.

Anyway. I suppose because of how I've been taught by this specialist, that's why I get sort of OCD over what is addiction and what is dependence.

Rachel, I agree with you. When you are close to the subject it is important to use the right descriptive language and it makes all the difference in the world. But I think that the term addict and addiction were used for decades to describe both dependence and abuse. It has only been in the last decade or so that I noticed a trend to really separate the two. I wonder if it was not even understood to be two distinct issues a generation ago. I applaud a doctor that takes the time to try to explain things and help with a transition, even if his jargon is off. Too many just tell their patients they don't need the meds any more and cut them lose.

The main thing we need to focus on is that everyone will become dependent if they take narcotics long enough. Some will become addicted too, and exhibit addictive behaviors. Some won't. As a user, you just need to be very aware of the potential and be respectful of it. It happens faster than you than you would think possible. Anyone can wind up rationalizing to themselves about it.

When you get all worked up about ER doctors labeling you as drug seeking, it might be time for some introspection.

Jan