This is my 3rd draft at writing this blog entry. It's been a very difficult topic for me to delve into - no doubt due to it being so fresh. Today I'm going to talk to you about opiates. Specifically, I'm going to speak about codeine.
Now, I've blogged before about codeine and cocodamol (paracetamol/codeine) and I've told you about waking up practically yellow but still going to school because I had to. It was always binges back then. I'd have one night where I would take 16 cocodamol tablets (500mg paracetamol/8mg codeine) giving myself a lovely dose of 128mg codeine and 8000mg of paracetamol. The pills cost 95p for a box of 32 and I was a student - what were my other options? Anyway, I'd do this once and then take no cocodamol or codeine for weeks. It was only when I felt very depressed and wanted to feel better at the expense of my liver or if I felt anxious and needed anything to make it stop that I would use. I got chastised by A&E doctors for being so "stupid" and I got numerous warnings from GPs, mental health nurses and psychiatrists that I was destroying my liver. On the times I didn't care, I actually enjoyed the idea of dying from liver disease. I viewed it as a slow suicide.
These past few months things have elevated to new heights. No longer cocodamol (unless there's an emergency), I've been using 200mg ibuprofen/12.8mg codeine pills. These seem to offer the highest dose of codeine I can get over the counter (12.8 vs 8 really adds up). At most I took 25 pills a night, every night. That's 320mg of codeine compared to 128mg. Cost-wise, a pack of 32 cost £7.29 and I was spending over £40 a week on my addiction. An addiction I didn't even get a kick off after a while; it just became the "new normal" to knock back 320mg of codeine a night. Oh, with vodka too. The vodka also became a habit with it.
So why did I start doing this? I had dabbled with the 200/12.8 pills before but never made such a habit of it. The main problem for me started in the middle of September. One day I had the most extreme pain in the lower right area of my tummy. I knew it was too low down to be appendicitis and the pain, despite feeling like I was being stabbed from the inside out, wasn't persistent. It seemed to be when I would sit down or bend my body. I put up with the pain for 3 days or so before seeing a GP who sent me packing to A&E. She wanted to rule out appendicitis anyway and to get a scan and see if I had anything obvious causing pain. I spent over 5 hours up in A&E whilst a doctor examined part of my stomach that wasn't even sore (probably just ruling out appendicitis for certain) and they did blood tests. After waiting in pain, not being given anything during this time for the pain and expected to sit which made the pain worse (I was barely sitting in the chair - my body was straight and I was too scared to bend it), I was discharged. I was given a small packet of 16 paracetamol that had "Take 2 every 4 hours" on the side of the box. With my history, I saw this and instantly thought, "I could take a pack of 16 cocodamol instead and it would have codeine in it." I came home no smarter about what was wrong with me and very upset. So I went and I found 16 cocodamol and took them all at once.
After continuing pain and chasing it up with the health service, I found out I had a 5x7cm cyst on my right ovary which was no doubt the cause of the pain. The only course of action was to get it checked again and again to see if it shrinks or grows. No pain relief: that was something that was left to me. So I sorted that out. The pain was so much that I started overdosing on cocodamol each day before upgrading myself to the higher dose of ibuprofen/codeine. Of course, since I took the pills at night, they didn't do much for pains I got during the day. After a while I think I knew this. I knew it was no longer just for the painkilling properties. I had become psychologically addicted to them. There was this pervasive thought of: "This amount isn't enough. It won't work. I need to take more!" and the number I took each day grew and grew.
So why did I stop? Well, first I'll go through some of the codeine's side effects. Keep in mind some of these were new to me; I had never used this much before. There was itching. I scratched myself until I became covered in little red spots and bruises all over my stomach and thighs. On one occasion, I sustained a wound I still have a scar of - it looked like a burn but it could very well be a graze from literally scraping my own flesh off with my nails. I don't even remember. I don't remember how it got there.
That was another thing: I would do things to myself and not remember in the morning. Scratching myself raw was the prime example. I would wake up and there'd be the aforementioned marks on my stomach/thighs but I would also scratch my face or other body parts which would end up being covered in scabs and dried in blood from the evening before.
My mental health, which used to be boosted by overdosing (it's like it gave me some breathing time when I was having difficulty with feelings), was now being adversely affected. I became moody during the day and this resulted in fights or outbursts - saying things I didn't really mean. The times when I was high, I wasn't thinking how calm I was. I didn't have that feeling from the codeine any more. Instead, I was hurled back into a world where I would look at myself as useless. I would see everything around me and think it would make no difference whether I was here or not. I'd sit in the bath sawing at my arm with a craft knife to try and get as deep a cut as I could - something I would never do otherwise. My self harm has always been swift and frantic. I would never sit for an hour trying to go as deep through the skin as possible. During these times I'd also think seriously about suicide. I would think seriously about the best way to inflict lethal blood loss. Any time I travelled past bodies of water (rivers, the sea, etc.), the thoughts of drowning myself came to the forefront. I thought I had successfully suppressed these thoughts but they came back.
I knew I had to stop. I knew I could do it because I had done it before, but before I was on less than half the amount of codeine I was using this time. I guess I didn't take that into consideration. I knew the best way was for me to taper slowly but also I was reluctant to buy any more codeine and risk having some spare sitting around to feed a relapse. The price tag made it worse because obviously I didn't want to spend nearly 8 quid just to throw out half the packet (call me cheap, I don't care.)
So I began tapering. 25, 21, 18, 16, 12, 6, 0. That's quite a big drop near the end there isn't it? It certainly was. Too big. On the 10th of December, I took 0 codeine for the first time in months. I did the same on the 11th. I thought I was home and dry. The worst was yet to come.
Here's a post from my Facebook on the evening of the 12th of December:
I am an opiate addict.The past 48 hours, after tapering down (perhaps too quickly), I've been free of the stuff.It's been slowly building but holy shit now I feel like I'm in hell.My body isn't working how I want it to, I'm crying and I can't stop, all I can think is how if I use I'll feel better.It'll make it all better.So I'll use.Why can't I be stronger?I can't even talk about it because no-one can relate.No-one knows what it's like.I've been waiting weeks for an appointment to see an addiction counsellor.Here's a song about heroin addiction (not what I'm on, I don't have those kinds of contacts.)But it has the same idea.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bVJFgvUZHg
That was over a week ago. Thankfully, the more severe withdrawal symptoms have passed but some are still lingering: anxiety, crying, mood swings, difficulty getting to sleep, difficulty staying asleep, falling asleep during the day without warning, and many more.
This time is very different to any other time I've been using codeine. Before when I quit I became irritable, anxious, had some difficulty sleeping but I always managed okay. I felt the need to have some lying around "for emergencies" like when my mood dipped. These withdrawals passed quickly and I felt "normal". My body became healthy. I took up running to help with the urges. I stayed clean of the stuff for a good 6 months at least.
This time I genuinely spent a week wanting to die. I couldn't even tell anyone. How do you explain it to people unless they've felt it themselves? I broke down on the 12th and I searched the house up and down for codeine, eventually finding 11 cocodamol which I dissolved in 3 glasses of water and downed one after the other.
Since then I've had nothing. I think my digestion has returned to normal. I'm still getting headaches. I still cry thinking about codeine and how I "need" it. I would do anything for some. I have to distract myself and I can't give in - but I also can't fight it as well as I thought I could.
When I told my mental health nurse a couple of months ago about the situation, she referred me to the community addictions team. I saw them before when I was stopping and was given the option of medication that would help with the cravings and fight against a possible relapse. "No," I thought. "I don't need to go on pills to make me stop taking pills!" But I was wrong. Like with my depression, it's reached a point where I need to hand over control and say "I can't do this on my own. I'll take anything and do everything I can to make this feeling stop."
I'm still waiting on an appointment.
I'm still clean.
I'm still craving it.