Drug Addiction

[substitute]

1. Yesterday I ran out of milk. This is a "can't happen" in my household because I put milk in my coffee. Without milk there is no coffee, and a day without coffee is like night. When I staggered into the kitchen I realized how screwed I was. I knew I had some chocolate covered espresso beans in the fridge, but that wouldn't be a complete solution. From experience, I knew that nothing but liquid coffee would do.
   
   In the carafe was yesterday's leftover coffee. It was tepid and slightly burnt from going the whole two hours before the heat element switched off. There was about a pint of it. I poured it into a pint beer glass, chugged it (blrughggl), and chased it with two of the beans so that the chocolate would sweeten the acrid taste of room temperature slightly burnt coffee.
   
   Then I realized it. This was the morning that so many alcoholics had described. Bad liquor with no ice, chased with something else, because without the hair of the dog the DTs would start. With the bitter rancid taste of dead coffee on my lips I started to laugh at myself.
   
   
2. I'm taking Vicodin right now for torticollis and focal dystonia of shoulder muscles. I don't take painkillers, haven't since I was 14. I'm always interested in risk, so I read up on the stuff. Obviously one shouldn't take more than what's prescribed, and it's not a long-term solution to anything. And it's well known that mixing the stuff with alcohol is dangerous.
   
   Of course this stuff is widely abused because doctors and dentists give it out freely and people share and trade and sell it. And the abuse is sometimes just taking many at once, and sometimes washing it down with alcohol. This is clearly risky behavior because of the synergistic effects and the possible coma/breathing problems/brain damage/death.
   
   But there's something else about Vicodin. It's what used to be called "Tylenol #3," and it's a blend of codeine and acetaminophen (Tylenol). It's recently been noted that Tylenol is a liver toxin in large amounts. For example, people do a suicide gesture with a bottle of the stuff and later feel fine, and then drop dead a week later because their liver has been killed.
   
   And as you can imagine, Tylenol and alcohol is a very bad mix. Because drunks get a lot of headaches, they sometimes eat handfuls of Tylenol or painkillers that contain it, worsening their liver damage tremendously.
   
   Since the last 20 years has seen a huge rise in abuse of drugs like Vicodin, particularly mixed with alcohol, one has to wonder: what kind of liver disease wave are we going to see starting in about ten years? Do any of these people know that they're not only rolling the dice with coma, but destroying their livers so fast that it's not so much dice as just suicide?

Comments

[brianenigma.livejournal.com]

(1) I have a stash of powdered milk in the pantry, intended for use as an ingredient in cooking certain thing (mainly breads), but it is somewhat tolerable in coffee when we're out of milk.

(2) Just two nights ago, I was discussing my one afternoon of Vicodin and liter-of-Guinness from Nappa Valley on the Diedrich patio. How did I not know that the two aren't the best combination???

T ENIGMA

[substitute.livejournal.com]

RTFM. HTH, HAND!

Re: T ENIGMA

[brianenigma.livejournal.com]

In retrospect, I think it was "ow ow ow dental pain ow ow ow ow" that clouded my judgment and/or RTFM-ability.

HTH? HAND?

Re: T ENIGMA

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Mild geek chiding: http://foldoc.org/index.cgi?HAND

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I missed that day but I hear you were very confessional.

[rum-holiday.livejournal.com]

(1) I have a stash of powdered milk in the pantry, intended for use as an ingredient in cooking certain thing (mainly breads), but it is somewhat tolerable in coffee when we're out of milk.

Me too! I'm always very dramatic about having to resort to it when my husband has finished the last of the real milk and forgotten to buy more, but in a pinch it works.

[gillen.livejournal.com]

Vicodin is alright. It's actually acetaminophen and hydrocodone, not codeine, so it's somewhat different than Tylenol 3. For me the effect differs in that on codeine I don't tend to clot well so if it's a bleeding injury and I get a painkiller with codeine I'll sit there and painlessly bleed for hours on end. Doesn't happen to me on Vicodin. That extra hydrogen molecule seems to do the trick.

I prefer Percocet though, acetaminophen and oxycodone. Yum.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Ah! I stand corrected on hydrocodone versus codeine.

The real problem stands, though: acetaminophen + alcohol = doom. I do wonder what the impact is going to be.

Bleeding for hours: BAD. I used to take a lot of aspirin and sometimes I still do. I know I've had too much when I taste blood from my gums.

Me Wants Percs!

[snowsim.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the clarification. I was slightly confused, as I do use Tylenol 3s, but had never heard them referred to as Vicodin. However, the T3s just aren't doing the trick. Is the clotting effect unique to you? Because I'm on warfarin (aka rat poison) blood thinner, too.

After reading about it from other Fibromyalgia patients, I asked my doc to let me try Ultram (Tramadol). He prescribed Tramacet (tramadol hydrochloride & acetaminophen). The pharmacist wouldn't let me have it until he talked with me for half an hour because of the possible adverse reactions with my SSRI, including, ultimately, coma. Gak!

[sooz.livejournal.com]

so i have allergies to both codeine and vicodin, but i'm not allergic to morphine. i have to be in a *LOT* of pain to take any sort of drugs and it's one of the most horrible things ever when you take something to be less miserable and have an allergic reaction that makes you even more miserable :P

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Yeah, trinnit has had a lot of medical "fun" and is allergic to opiates, so he gets to be high as a kite and all swolled up like a bright red tomato at the same time.

I'm happy to have no known medical allergies. I'll be even happier when I'm not stuck with the choices of "ow" or "woozy from drug."

Hello sooz

[(Anonymous)]

This is Elaine Moore and I am deaf hard of hearing. I want tell yu something about drugs bad your health because drug is hard for your life can't use drug then please try resist away from drug that why you had lot pain away from drug and how you feel . Do you have plan your future. I never haven't use drug and alcohol all my life because drug and alcohol waste time mess up my body. Yu better carefully killed from drug.

Re: Hello sooz

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Yu better carefully killed from drug.

I'll try!

[autodidactic.livejournal.com]

I worry about all the Ibuprofen I would take by the fistful back when I weighed 215 lbs. My body's still fucked up from that, let alone all the rest of the crap I've done.

But I'm no junkie, no sir! I only take the state-approved shit, sir!

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what ibuprofen does in quantity. What did it do to you?

Hit me with another soma, oppressiontender!

[bethesaurusrex.livejournal.com]

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2003/103_pain.html
FDA says woo for aspirin and Ibuprofen having the potential for gastrointestinal bleeding.

http://www.drugs.com/advil.html
Symptoms of an Advil overdose may include nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, drowsiness, black or bloody stools, coughing up blood, shallow breathing, fainting, or coma.


Learn something new everyday, I always just assumed it screwed up your liver like acetiminophen does.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Also! Your icon makes me laugh and I thought I would share this pic with you, that I shot yesterday on the campus at UCI:

[autodidactic.livejournal.com]

I love it! Thanks...

[jpeace.livejournal.com]

#1 is my biggest nightmare as an adult. The milk must flow, and if it don't, I'm hoofing it to the quiktrip in my boxers.

[scromp.livejournal.com]

I'm on vicodin for the first time ever right now because of ow (gross) and thanks to your repeated warnings I have been very careful to treat my liver as well as possible.

So, uh, thanks.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I NEED A LIVER THAT WON'T DRIVE ME CRAZY

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

THREE GOLD COMEDY STARS

I am flying to L.A. to kick my former dentist's ASS

[mcpino.livejournal.com]

...Vicodin, particularly mixed with alcohol, one has to wonder: what kind of liver disease wave are we going to see starting in about ten years? Do any of these people know that they're not only rolling the dice with coma...

Whut whut?

NOW I find this out?

Shitr.

[basbleugrrl.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh, good ol' hydrocodone, hillbilly heroin. I was on it so long for my back that not only did it stop working, I developed a sensitivity to it that caused me to wake up one night with my hands covered in blood from scratching my legs so hard. Yeehaw.

[eris-devotee.livejournal.com]

real junkies know that tylenol isn't soluble in water, but hydrocodone is. so you crush up a tab and dissolve it in a little bit of water. drink (or filter and shoot) the water and leave the sediment (the tylenol) behind.

[wrecking--ball.livejournal.com]

I often wonder about things like this too. In high school, I was given something called soma compound for headaches, which had the capacity to get me quite, quite loaded at school. I went through a phase with that just long enough to freak me out, so now I stick to advil. But I wonder. Is 600 miligrams of advil almost daily turning my liver into an old stinky kitchen songe? And why won't docs just help me cure the head aches instead of rocketing me back and forth between narcotics and unhelpful OTCs? Medical establishment,ack, thppppt.

[kasheri.livejournal.com]

Freshman year in high school: a molar slowly rotting out of my mouth leads the dentist prescribe codeine while I waited to get in to see the oral surgeon. I spent more than a week thinking everything everyone said was just soooo funny. lastscorpion told me she had people asking her what the hell was the matter with me, and if I'd become a "loadie." Codeine is nice stuff if you're not allergic to it and you walk everywhere you go.