She might have advised Prince to reconsider the high-heeled high-jumps
that led to the pain that led to the pills that led to the addiction that led
to his untimely death. Since he “had
an unflinching reputation (New York Times) among those close to him for
leading an assiduously clean lifestyle” he probably never dreamt his “Purple Reign”
would come to an end at 57.
Hint: Legal does not mean
“risk-free.” “Risky” does not mean unnecessary. Surgery can be necessary. Using
a scalpel to cut on myself, isn’t. Alas, for some folks, cutting might feel necessary. Slick has many faces.
Two faces aren’t enough for this consummate liar.
To minimize the risk of using prescription painkillers, typically "opioids” (related
to heroin), do not try to drive your
pain to “zero.” The prescriber should ask you, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad
is your pain?” If you answer “9,” they should ask, “On that scale, how much pain
could you tolerate?” If you say “6,” then you should take enough to drop the
pain to “6” and no further.
When you use drugs to alleviate physical or emotional pain, your brain
doesn’t eliminate the cause of the pain, just your awareness of pain. The brain
discovers that the messages informing you “Houston, we have a problem!” have
been blocked, so it "shouts" them louder. Like a kid in a grocery
store trying get his mother’s attention as she chats with a friend. She automatically
tunes him out, he shouts louder. By the time he punches through, he can be
heard by people in the parking lot.
This is the mechanism that drives “tolerance” to drugs. This is why we
need to stop at “6.” This is also why we can’t use the meds to “play with
pain,” even if they allow us to keep the pain at a tolerable “6.” Pain is our friend! Pain says, “Knock
that off! You are damaging our body! Stop it! You hear me? No? Well, let’s amp
it up a little more!” The more we use, the more we need to use to drown out our brain’s pleas for stronger and
stronger relief, until finally the “therapeutic dose” is dangerously close to
the “lethal dose.”
Eventually, this bastard “child” *** is screaming so loud that the pain
messages are still coming through despite the opioid’s attempts to block them. Quitting
the drug “cold turkey” allows those amplified messages to come pouring in all at once. This is known as
withdrawal. Now the person is confronted by a choice of two “evils,” and their
brain is in no condition to make an
accurate assessment to determine which is “the lesser.”
In the case of opioids, the withdrawal feels like death is imminent, although
alcohol withdrawal is more likely to kill a person. A person attempting to
abstain or even cut back, after having already burned through most of their
month’s prescription, goes into that extremely painful withdrawal and
desperation sets in. If they “score” the drug via “doctor shopping,” a friend,
a dealer or someone’s medicine cabinet, they are especially liable to overdose.
Like the time you were totally dehydrated, nearing heat stroke and given ice
water. “I better sip this slowly…glug, glug, glug."
Prince was supposed to meet with a doctor
specializing in addiction treatment the day after he died ... to deal with a
"grave medical condition." (TMZ)
Another dangerous situation occurs once Slick becomes aware that serious
plans are afoot
to deprive him of his sustenance. Slick does not communicate via language. He
has much more powerful means at hand. Emotional messages. Emotions screaming
from our Survival Circuits: “We’re going to die if we don’t get our drug!”
Wrong again, Slimeball! We’re going to die if we don’t stop getting our drug. The same Survival Circuit that goes after
that water like it was the last H2O molecule on earth tears into the
new supply with the same ferocity. Down the hatch! Into the vein! Relief! So,
so, sweet. So, so, so deadly. (Cue The Final Last Hurrah).
Have you ever noticed that we don't have to wake up every minute all
night long and remind ourselves to breathe? That's because Slick is just a
hijacker in our Survival Circuit, which is our autopilot for breathing and
sending reminders to eat or drink water. The key to breathing is that our
autopilot never goes to sleep.
Opioids and alcohol put your brain to sleep in levels, judgment famously being
the first to go. The last level is our autopilot. A sleeping autopilot steers
us quickly into “The Big Sleep.”
If you have never experienced withdrawal, but would like to get a sense
of its power over people, give me less than two minutes of your time and I will
put you there: Sit in a chair with arms. Take three deep, slow, breaths. Hold
the last one as long as you can, without fainting. Few people will have to
worry about that anyway. Our Survival Circuit will scream loudly enough to let
you know the experiment succeeded. You have just gone into withdrawal from
oxygen.
*From the obituary of a rural woman who just died at 101:
While a student at
Doland High School in 1929,
Ethel’s…project studied the “harmful
effects on our bodies from wearing high heeled shoes…”
For a look into a now-quaint
lifestyle, but a useful and well-lived life, see the rest of her obituary here.
**From NIDA heroin search results”
“Heroin can be injected, inhaled by snorting or sniffing, or
smoked. All three routes of administration deliver the drug to the brain very
rapidly, which contributes to its health risks and to its high risk for
addiction, which is a chronic relapsing disease caused by changes in the brain and characterized by uncontrollable
drug-seeking no matter the consequences.” (my
emphasis)
“Changes in the brain” emphasized because it matters not what
your brain thought and, more importantly, felt,
before you used a drug. If your brain changes, you change. You change your feelings, thoughts, behaviors and
attitudes. Slick changes you for the worse a lot easier than you are going to
be able to change back. Only sure fire means of prevention: Don’t sample or you
might wind up being the specimen. More on this in another post.
***My brother says, “There are no illegitimate children.
Just illegitimate parents.”
