18
WE ALL HAVE REASONS
TRAVIS N. RIEDER
IN MY OWN LIFE, I’VE DISCOVERED two very powerful reasons to take drugs. My drug of choice happened to be legal and prescribed, but that’s rather by accident. After my foot was crushed in a motorcycle accident, I never wanted anything so bad in my life as I wanted morphine. Bones had splintered into tiny shards that ripped through soft tissue, tearing a large hole in the bottom of my foot, and the pain was unlike anything I had ever experienced. As those first hours, post-accident, turned into days and then weeks of surgery and constant retraumatizing of my flesh, I wanted—needed—ever more, ever-stronger drugs. Intravenous morphine was traded in for the more potent hydromorphone and fentanyl; the oxycodone pills I was transitioned onto before I left the hospital only just took the edge off. For months, I watched the clock and dutifully popped pills every four hours. Until I was told to stop. Too much time had passed, I was told. You shouldn’t be on so much pain medicine, I was told. So I tried to quit. And then came the second very good reason to take drugs: avoiding withdrawal. The early stages of withdrawal were akin to the worst flu imaginable—nausea, sweats, chills— combined with screaming pain from my now undermedicated foot. As it progressed, I developed tremors, which kept me from sleeping or getting any kind of meaningful rest. The flu-like symptoms tortured me around the clock, and time slowed to a crawl. The worst symptom, however, was the depression. As my misery continued and worsened
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for days, and then weeks, I began to believe that I would never recover. My body and brain were broken beyond repair, and I would never find my way out. As the darkness closed in, I found myself thinking more and more about the drugs: pop a pill (two would be even better), and the world would right itself. Go back on those meds, and I could put an end to the suffering. But I never did. Despite the withdrawal, I continued my awful, fumbling taper, and withdrew for twenty-nine days. Because I knew that if I ever went back on the pills I’d be on them forever; I simply wouldn’t be able to make myself do this again. And so I writhed and cried and spent entire nights on the bathroom floor; but, eventually, I made it out. When I tell this story—especially in such an abbreviated form—I come off sounding good. People tell me, in an awed voice, that I must be profoundly strong to cold-turkey my way off these powerful drugs. Thank God for my strength. If only. I wasn’t strong; I was pathetic. I was carried across the finish line, sobbing and desperate the whole time, by my incredible partner, and the hope I was given by my toddler. I desperately wanted to be a functioning father and husband again.
Above: Chemist, knitted artwork by Susie Freeman and Dr. Liz Lee © www.pharmacopoeia-art.net.