The Monster called Addiction

She lay in her bed and looked up at the ceiling. The ceiling tiles looked like they were about to crumble. The edges were stained a light shade of brown with only the center still showing the original white color. Susan knew that the ceiling tiles had been there for far too many years, just as she had.
It had been another night of tossing and turning. She remembered kicking her husband at least three times to stop him from snoring. He had grunted and gone back to sleep. Within minutes, he was snoring again.
Susan would turn away and quietly curse. She wanted to sleep so bad, but it only seemed to come in small spurts, teasing her to the point of insanity. She had tried sleeping pills but they didn't do any good. Her husband said that she thought too much. That she kept her mind far to active and full of unnecessary worries and anxieties.
This only made her mad. Of course, she had worries and anxieties. She blamed her husband for a lot of them. If only he would be more understanding of her problems and needs. She had just gotten over her tenth surgery and next week she would be going for her eleventh.
Susan looked at the bottles of pills on her nightstand. She had three different kinds of pain pills, a pill for depression, a pill for stomach cramps and a pill to help her sleep. She had gotten to the point that she took three pills from each bottle. Her husband complained that she looked stoned all the time.
"Of course I look stoned," she'd yell to her husband. "You'd be stoned as well if you had to take pain medication on a daily basis." What she did not tell her husband, was that she was taking three times the recommended dosage and that she was taking all three types of pain pills at once instead of just one.
It was not that she wanted to hurt herself. She only wanted to numb herself from the emotional pain and the physical pain, which just seemed to be getting worse every day.
She sat up in her bed, continuing to look at the bottles of pills. She quickly turned around to make sure her husband was still sleeping, and then she quietly opened each bottle taking three pills from each one. Once she had all her pills, she took the glass of water that also lay on the nightstand and swallowed all the pills at once. She remembered a time when it had been difficult to swallow even one pill.
She started to cry as a deep desperation suddenly came over her and she quickly took one more pill from each bottle and swallowed them before she could change her mind. Anger welled up inside of her as she looked blankly at the white walls of her bedroom. A few minutes later the anger left and was replaced by an emptiness, as though every nerve had been turned off.
Susan got out of bed and limped to the living room. She pulled up the shades and looked out at the dreary street below. She really hated this town. She hated everything about this place.
Quickly turning away, Susan headed to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was a mess. She hadn't combed it in four days. Her eyes looked glassy and her pupils were dilated from the effects of the medication. She felt a wave of nausea come over her. The nausea had started two days ago and it seemed to be getting progressively worse. She was also having trouble urinating.
A tear fell down her check as she exited the bathroom and went to the refrigerator to grab a piece of cake. She heard her husband stirring in the bedroom. She knew he would ignore her as usual. She did not care. She did not care much about anything, anymore. As long as she had her supply of pills, she was all right. It was getting more difficult to get prescriptions filled. The doctors were beginning to question her motives.
Another wave of nausea suddenly came over her and she had the sudden need to vomit. She made it to the bathroom just in time. She had made sure to close the bathroom door so her husband would not see her like this. He complained enough about her taking medication. She didn't want another lecture on the dangers. She also did not want him finding out just how many pills she was actually taking.
Once she had wiped her mouth, she tried to go to the bathroom because she felt the need to go, but was unable too. Her bladder was beginning to hurt. Something wasn't right. Susan suddenly became a little frightened. She pushed the fear away when her husband knocked on the door.
"Can I come in?" He said in a neutral voice. "I'll be right out." Susan said. She put her pants back on and flushed the toilet. She opened the bathroom door and looked at her husband. He walked right by her without saying a word.
Again, anger filled her. Why couldn't he give her the courtesy of saying good morning? She hated it when he got in these quite moods. She always felt so alone. She couldn't stand the loneliness. Why did she have to be lonely when she had someone who supposedly loved her living in the same house?
Susan slowly walked back to the bedroom as she tried to push the feeling of anger and loneliness away. After getting dressed, she went back to the kitchen and sat down next to her husband.
"Are you still going to visit your mother in the hospital today?" She asked. She had planned to sneak to the emergency room and get herself checked.
"Unless you have something else planned, yes, I want to spend some time with my mother."
"Good, I have a doctor's appointment in the hospital," She lied, "so I'm coming along."
"Okay." Her husband said as he got up from the table. Susan watched him walk into the bedroom as another tear fell down her cheek. He had still not said good morning to her. She quickly wiped the tear away. She didn't want her husband to see her crying.
An hour later they arrived at the hospital. Susan followed her husband to his mother's room. After saying hello, she left to go to the emergency room. Her bladder felt like it was ready to burst but she was still unable go to the bathroom. Susan also had a rapid pulse and she suddenly felt very dizzy. She had an urge to throw-up again but there was nothing left to throw up.
Susan stopped in a bathroom, on the way, to try to throw up but she only dry heaved. When she got to the emergency room, Susan walked straight up to the nurse sitting behind the counter.
"May I help you?" The nurse asked as she looked up from her work.
"I'm not feeling very good. I am unable to urinate and I feel so sick to my stomach." She looked at the nurse, trying hard to concentrate. She felt like collapsing.
"Do you know what brought this on?" The nurse asked kindly.
For a moment, Susan wasn't sure what to say. She felt embarrassed that she had been taking so many pills for so long but at the same time, something inside of her said to tell the nurse the truth. Susan looked at the nurse crying now.
"I don't know how much longer I can stand." Susan said with a shaky voice. It was hard to speak. She was concentrating so hard just to stay standing. She told the nurse what she had been doing.
Within minutes, she found herself lying on a stretcher with EKG wires on her chest and an IV in her arm. The phlebotomist came to draw her blood. As the phlebotomist was finishing, the nurse arrived with a Foley to help her urinate. It was extremely painful getting the Foley put in but Susan felt the instant relief as the urine flowed into the bag.
Just then, her husband appeared looking very worried, also a little angry. Susan burst into tears when she saw him. All her pain, tension, and hurt that had been building up for months finally exploded out of her. Her husband took her in his arms and let her cry. She apologized for all her stupidity.
Her husband looked at her and apologized for not being there and not seeing the signs. He had been so busy being angry that he didn't realize that his anger was killing his wife.
The doctor came in looking very worried. Susan's liver function panel was extremely elevated.
"What does that mean?" Susan asked with tear filled eyes. She had already calmed down a little.
"It means that your liver has been poisoned to the point that it cannot handle that poison anymore. I just hope you do not have permanent liver damage. That is a horrible way to die.
Susan could not believe that taking all those pills could do that much damage. It wasn't fair. There were people who did hard core drugs everyday and they weren't in the hospital with liver damage. She also had not been taking the pills for more than four or five months. Her husband saw the confusion in her face and asked what was wrong.
"It's not fair." Susan said. "Why is my liver damaged? I never did any hard core drugs." Her husband looked at her with serious eyes. "Maybe it is God's way of telling you to stop."
Susan looked at her husband in disbelief. She thought about what her husband had said for a moment. Then she became angry. "Why didn't he listen to me when I asked him to help me with my depression, my pain, and my loneliness?" She looked at her husband defiantly now.
"Maybe you were too numb from all that medication to hear him. Maybe this is his way of opening your eyes and ears so you can hear him and finally listen to his answer."
Susan burst into tears when she realized her husband was right. She had called but hadn't listened for an answer. It suddenly became very clear that the medication had made her depression seem beyond help. It was the medication that had made her feel so lonely because it numbed her to the point that she couldn't hear anyone. She only heard her own mind. A mind warped by drugs. She had been making her own personal hell. Why hadn't she seen that all along? She had to hit the bottom before she finally saw the light that led to a new hope and a better life.
Susan looked at her husband and smiled. "I guess this was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I'm glad that God warned me before it was to late."
At that, they both hugged. The monster called addiction had been destroyed.
Susan was lucky because her liver returned to normal the next day, which was a miracle as far as the doctors were concerned. She got a second chance on life. So many other people never receive that second chance or miss the light, even when it is shined straight into their eyes.
The point I am trying to make is that prescription drugs and over the counter drugs are just as deadly as the hard core street drugs when used the wrong way. It was the acetaminophen in the pain medication, when taken in large dosages that caused Susan's liver, to go haywire. Taken in recommended dosages, acetaminophen works fine and causes no problems, but when overdosed, it becomes a deadly toxin. This is true for most over the counter drugs and prescription drugs.
If you feel the need to take more medication than your supposed to, seek help before it's to late, because it won't take long for you to become so numb that you don't care anymore. It's a vicious cycle. Once the monster called addiction grabs a hold of you, it doesn't easily want to let go.