From a practical standpoint, it is harder to get legal drugs: You have to go to the doctor, she has to agree you need them and write you a prescription, the pharmacy has to fill it. Whereas you can get smack by just driving through the right area and having the cash to pay for it. So ease of access isn’t the crux of the problem. It’s precisely because legal narcotics are so highly regulated that illegal narcotics are easier (if riskier) to obtain. That doesn’t strike me as a glaring indictment of drug regulation but rather as an obvious by-product of drug regulation.
Yeah, well, they don’t. There are too many concerns about people drug shopping, writing false prescriptions, and exploitng doctors and pharmacies. It is not their job to mindlessly and smilingly fill untimely or suspicious prescriptions to enable addictive or drug-seeking behaviors.
And if you are in that much pain and are that incapacitated by your pain, it sounds like the pain control regimen you are on is not working. Again, I would suggest you talk to your doctor.
Really? Then I misinterpreted the following exchange? (Bolding mine)
Let’s all laugh at the stupid addicts, right? Maybe I’m a little sensitive about it, but that’s how it sounded to me.
Do you think addicts are proud of that behavior? I look back on myself, lying to my doctor to get prescriptions and I feel sad and ashamed. The drug was manipulating me into manipulating the system. Yes, I blamed the drug. If I hadn’t become addicted, I wouldn’t have exhibited such behavior.
No, addicts generally don’t want help until they’ve hit rock bottom, which I did. It’s sad, but it’s the truth. On behalf of all addicts, I’m truly sorry.
I don’t know what the solution is, but I hate that I had been part of the problem.
Yeah, it’s fucking hilarious to have people lie to your face constantly with the express purpose of tricking you into giving them highly dangerous addictive substances. A riot.
I’m sure all the junkies would enjoy it if the pharmacy just smiled and did what they were fucking told, but unfortunately for you, that’s not the way this whole thing works out. See, there are more then just you and your doctor that are responsible for your safety and medical care, and you can’t pick and choose when you’d like for us to look out for you: drug interactions, yeah sure, please step in. Possible overdose on hydrocodone, oh no no Mr. Pharmacist, please stop right there and mind your own fucking business, thank you very much.
So let me get this straight, in some instances we’re supposed to use professional judgement when releasing narcotics, except when it results in you being inconvenienced by only having one week of Lortab at home instead of 4 weeks. Ah, I understand now. Those pesky pharmacies, always sticking their nose where it does/doesn’t belong at the same time!
For the most part, I’d say you have no authority to speak on the matter of what “most people” are doing, as both an admitted opiate addict and pain clinic frequenter. My apologies if I take your outrage with only half a grain of salt. For the “most part” I see a lot of things every day regarding pain meds that you probably wouldn’t even hope to see. As Foxy40 has shown, these stories are not limited to just my pharmacy, it’s a pretty regular thing in our industry.
And as I said before, I’m glad we’ve made the scenario where a pharmacist has an obligation to step in clear as fucking mud. The only thing different between what I do and what the pharmacist in that situation would have done is the time it took to get him away from checking on prescriptions for legitimate patients to write the same thing on the script. The answers you hear from me haven’t just been made up on the spot, they’re regulations that we all follow so that there are no loopholes. Like when one person tells you that you can have it 5 days early, another tells you 4 days, and still a third tells you 3? Well, then we just have a pissed off person who keeps coming back every day to a “no” when the pharmacist finally lays down the law.
Honey, nobody ever said this was a joke. I know I never did, I’m pretty sure the only thing I’m laughing at is the continued justification of it by so many people. “Oh, maybe opiate addiction isn’t that bad, maybe we should just let them have their pills.”
Maybe not, maybe so, but until supporting an addiction becomes a legally approved usage of Oxycontin, expect to only get your meds 3 days before they’re due. It’s not like I’m making you swallow your last remaining pill in front of me before I fill it, you’ve still got 3 days worth at home. And I know the ones that use this rule to the best of their ability; when each script is 3 days early, after 10 months you have a full month’s supply at home, free to play and frolic with all the damned oxycodone ER you’d like!
You’re right, this is not a joke. And just as much as you don’t think it’s cute when I write “Too soon until 7/5” on your Norco, I don’t think it’s fucking cute when 200 people a day try to come up with some new way to insult my intelligence. I’m not doing this to be cute, darlin’, I really do have enough serious shit to do for the rest of the day than draw daisies on your Dilaudid.
Sorry for the triplicate post, but I just wanted to answer one quick thing in this post.
Proud? Hell yes I think they’re proud. Every single time somebody says something or does something that results in them “beating the system”, you’d better believe they’re proud. Think back to all the times when you were trying to get a fix. When you made up some new clever lie to trick the doctor and the pharmacy. The elation you must have felt that your hard work and quick thinking must have paid off.
Do I think they’re proud? Fuck yes they are. Maybe not after somebody digs them out of the hole and the mess they’ve made their life into, not after that, but when they step away from the counter and give that bottle a shake, just to get a feel for how full it is? You don’t even know the meaning of proud until you’ve seen that look.
Yes, we get it. Apparently it also “takes a village” to get a prescription filled.
At least any pill abusers reading this can now know conclusively that it isn’t just drug induced paranoia; the pharmacist really is giving them dirty looks, and really does hold them in utter contempt.
I’m grateful you went into pharmacy, ladyfoxfyre, rather than law enforcement— which would also seem to suit your personality, but where you might end up doing some serious damage with the level of anger and bitterness you’ve displayed here.
Blame the drug if you want, but unless one accepts responsibility for their addiction, chances of a lasting and meaningful recovery are slim.
And if a junkie’s recovery depends on all those fuckin’ normies we lied to and scammed endlessly understanding us poor little drug pigs, and not being pissed off at us or derisive of our pathetic behavior, then game over, man.
I am an addict, Nutty Bunny. I’m clean and sober now for 16 years & 362 days, but separated from pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization only by my daily decision to stay clean. And remembering the raw contempt that even the most enlightened normies can hold towards a practicing addict is one of the things that helps keep me clean.
And when I get together with my fellow recovering drunks and junkies, and we hear about the miserable things practicing addicts do to get their fix, we reflect on how low we stooped to get our drugs. And while we feel compassion for our fellows, we often laugh our asses off, too.
This is something I really don’t understand. Why didn’t he just go to a methadone clinic? The clinic closest to my house, which is pretty typical of the ones I’ve been to, charges $200 a month for their highest tier of treatment (over 100mg a day), and they’re very considerate about upping the patients’ doses if they aren’t working for them (which evidently happens a lot around here, especially for people working outdoors, because of the extraordinary heat in the summer; some people are on over 150mg/day).
True, you do have to talk to a counselor once a month, and take a urine test once every few months, but that seems a small price to pay for a thirty-fold reduction in price and a guarantee that the dosage is accurate and contains no adulterants. And as long as you behave and stay off other drugs, you can get to the point where you only need to go in once a month (federal regulations have now been tightened to only allow a two-week take-home supply, I believe, but existing patients who were on the once-a-month regimen were grandfathered in).
Because he’s an active addict who’s dinking around with half-measures rather than committing either to recovery or something less harmful (methadone maintenance) than active use. IMHO.
Yeah, but I just don’t understand why, if you’re addicted to methadone, you wouldn’t just go to a clinic. I know several people I’ve spoken to who don’t even consider themselves “in recovery”; they just went to the methadone clinic because it was a much cheaper, more reliable, and less dangerous source of opiates than cheating doctors.
The only thing I can think of is that doing so would require them to publically admit (even if only to the nurses and counselors there) that they are, in fact, addicts, something they might not be willing to do. Especially if they don’t want to admit it to themselves.
I think the OP should at least consider the possibility that his addiction has messed up his judgment and that he’s fooling himself about what happened.
I’m not a pharmacist, but just using common sense I would guess that a lot of the people who complain about not having their opiate prescriptions refilled early have drug problems.
The other thing is that you never really get rid of an addiction. So if the original poster used to be an opiate addict, chances are he’s got a problem now.
He started taking it illegally, could not justify getting to the clinic by 7am regularly without me finding out. The clinics are very regimented about how/when they dispense. His drug dealer was far more flexible. He thought, in his drug induced phase that he could control it/stop it before I ever found out. At the time, he was unemployed, I was pregnant and working 46+ hours a week to keep my health insurance and was pretty much asleep when I wasn’t at work. He handled the money because I was “working so hard” and it would “ease my stress” but it actually allowed him to hide it for much longer.
Until pretty recently, it was unheard of for people to get hooked on Methadone without doing heroin first. He never did heroin, or cocaine and never mixed it with other stuff to enhance it. None of the rehab places we called believed him, but the only thing he tested positive for was the methadone. Yes, my husband was dumb enough to get hooked, not on the drug, but on the drug they give you to get you off the drugs. Fucking Moron.
Thank you Quadop, Ladyfoxfyre and everyone out there trying to make it a cleaner place.
I work in an environment that has a lot of money and not a lot of sense and a tremendous amount of drugs. I’m glad that whatever allows someone to go down that path either I lack, or I haven’t found yet. It’s a dirty, hateful path.
And Quadop. Keep up the good work. You have a lot to be proud of.
Addiction isn’t like a pregnancy test. You can take drugs and not be an addict. You can drink and not be an alcoholic. Never underestimate a persons ability to deny, deny, deny in the face of everything.
I’ll never forget sitting at my kitchen table and saying the words “Why do you think I don’t know you?” and finding out how little I knew. Hell, he doesn’t even know the man he became. But hey, the good news is, he’s been clean for over 18 months, our daughter is 21 months old and his buddy he borrowed a bunch of money from called today to call in a favor, for money we don’t have, but can’t say no to. We are still trying to repair the damage, financial, emotional, marital, physical, psychological. The worst after effect is trying to get him to relate to others unselfishly. He focused so much on himself and his addiction, it is hard for him to see others anymore. He fakes it, but doesn’t quite make it. Not yet anyway.
If it is any consolation, I have very libertarian leanings. I do believe that if he wants to do drugs he is absolutely free to do so, some where else. Not to me, not to my home, not to my daughter. Drive drunk, but don’t take me with you, and don’t drive where others are. Personal liberty is a very frightening thing. With great power comes great responsibility. If my husband had made the choice to be a drug addict and came to me, I could have made a decision based on that. That isn’t how it works. That isn’t how I’ve ever heard it working. The lies, the betrayal, the theft, the lies, the lies, the lies. And then the heart break and more lies and more lies.
I wonder how many people reading this thread, bashing the pharmacists would feel the same way about free distribution of drugs had they been in my house, with a 4lb 9 oz premature baby, a wife physically unable to work, not a dime to her name, owing everyone and having a shaking, sweating, detoxing hulk crying at her feet. Frantically calling and being rejected by every rehab center in 3 counties, being berated by family members for not knowing sooner, having to take the last money to Amscot to pay off a fucking drug loan…
I appreciate you were just being a snarky little twat there, but frankly I’d say you should be grateful. She’s doing a job with strict laws and regulations, put in place by your government. You’d rather she just played fast and loose with the rules? You’re a fucking idiot.
You don’t like the rules, go join a campaign or pressure group to change them. Blaming LFF for applying these rules is equivalent to blaming the policeman who pulls you over for doing 100.
That sounds like a “laugh at the idiot addict” attitude to me.
What part of this…
…makes you think I was proud? Unless “sad and ashamed” is now a synonym for “proud”.
And what I felt at the pharmacy was fear that I was there too early and then relief that I wasn’t going to be in withdrawls within a few hours, if I already wasn’t. There was no pride there at all.
I’m sorry you have to deal with people like me on a daily basis, but you’re a world class bitch!
I was prescribed drugs for legitimate pain and became addicted. It was a while before I realized I didn’t need the drugs anymore and by then it was too late. I do blame the drug for my initial mindset, but I accept responsibility for my actions, as stated here…
I totally agree with you about feeling demoralized by my actions. I tried to get clean so many times (rationing my pills and trying to keep to a schedule, out-patient therapy, NA), but it was very difficult. Yeah the drugs put me there and kept me there, but I was finally able to manage to get out of it.
And your last sentence is interesting. For you, it helps to stay clean by remembering how you felt and in some ways, it helps me too. But the best thing I did for my recovery was quit NA. I couldn’t stand constantly talking about drugs and it kept the act of using in my mind and I had a few relapses. As soon as I quit going, I finally felt free of the drugs.
Wouldn’t you agree, though, that it’s much harder for an addict to remain functional if he’s constantly in danger of having his supply cut off and withdrawal foisted upon him? Or if he has to pay the huge mark-up that the black market entails? Or if he’s in danger of being arrested on a daily basis? Etc.
Also, would you agree that a functional opiate addict isn’t necessarily causing any appreciable harm to himself or others?
In the first case, he’s in just as much danger if he has open access to his drug, as he may well overdose. Not necessarily to the point of death, but to the point of not being really functional. Firing on 3 cylinders instead of 6 at work. You want your kid’s teacher to be in this state? Your family doc? The bus driver? The guy from the gas company, checking on whether you’ve got a gas leak?
Same for the ‘functional’ addict. They exist, but ‘functional’ usually cones down to a pretty narrow definition. Halsted was functional at work, and outwardly led a productive life, but his behavior towards colleagues and family was often abysmal, and Sir William Osler, another of the Founding Four of Johns Hopkins wrote in his memoires that if he’d known that Halsted had started back on drugs again, he’d have spared himself and many others all the aggravation, by never hiring Halsted for the surgical job in the first place.
While Halsted did die of complications of gall bladder surgery, it’s no secret that his gallbladder disease and his recovery from surgery both were made worse by his years of morphine use.
There’s a reason nearly all societies frown upon and marginalize the opiate addict, and it’s not only because of the old Puritan Ethic. Opiate addicts as a whole tend to make lousy citizens over time.
And unlike alcohol, there aren’t a lot of folks who just shoot up heroin socially. :eek:
Aaah, that explains it, in his case. Not wanting anybody else to find out, particularly his wife. That certainly explains why he couldn’t go to a clinic., especially if one was far away.
Very sorry that you had to go through that. I imagine that had to be one of the worst things you could go through: finding out that not only was your spouse lying to you and addicted to drugs, he had bankrupted you for it. I hope your life has gotten much, much better since then, which it sounds like it has from what I can tell from your posts.
I hope your life has gotten much, much better since then, which it sounds like it has from what I can tell from your posts.