DOSE:

repeated

oral

Hydrocodone

(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

I am a twenty-one year old liar, user, and addict. I have been on lortabs for almost four years. I started out the same way everyone else did so, I will skip over all the unimportant details of 'how I only took one and that is what got me'. To be honest I have loved it from the start. I use it for school and maintain a 4.0 g.p.a., I use it at work and work harder and faster than those around me, it has become what has made me not just plain but an exceptional person with higher standards than the next worker/student/child.

On the flip-side...

Now, I wake up every morning and HAVE to take at least one. Usually I am awakened by not only my alarm but piercing stomach pains and diarrhea that never seems to stop. That is until after I have had my dose. I constantly sweat and my body temperature goes in and out between extremely hot and completely freezing. I start getting ready for work every morning feeling like I just got ran over until my pills kick in, like the worst alcohol hangover times ten. Sometimes I wonder if I have always been in this much pain, but if I have been to messed up to know. After my pills have kicked in most days glide by and I sit there and think I could feel like this for the rest of my life. I could be fucked up and nobody would know and I could feel great and happy and everything will be wonderful.

I try to keep myself in control, but sometimes I can't remember how many I have taken because I have lost count. I keep an ongoing secret from most friends, my family and my boyfriend of four years. Everyone thinks I am clean and I don't want to disappoint them and tell them I failed. This is my second round of addiction from lortabs. The first time I was clean for five days until I got that call that started it all back up. A friend told me she had some and I drove faster than a fucking ambulance to get them.

I try to pace myself on pills most days. I have scheduled times I allow myself to take them because I know my addiction is becoming out of hand. I don't feel normal without them, I don't feel like myself. Hell, I have been fucked up for three years. Do I even know who I am? While at work I strategize who I am going to get my pills from. Sometimes I wake up early and sneak out of bed with my boyfriend still asleep and go get them, other times I just make something up and go. It goes back and forth between being too easy and walking the fine line of getting caught. What makes it worse is I started taking them with a good friend. When pills got scarce I told her my girl was out. Now, she thinks I am clean. She still calls when she can get some and I have to buy some just so she won't think anything is up for the insanely high price she gets them for. Payback is a bitch, right?

I play everyone. My best friend, my boyfriend, my parents, everyone. On the outside I am your perfect 4.0, straight A student and on the inside I am a little girl who wants to scream for her mom to make it all go away. I hate who I am, but I love how I feel and I swear I just can't stop. I pay dearly for it. Nearly 3/4 of my paycheck goes to support my addiction and the other 1/4 goes to bills. I never have extra money and I constantly feel sick. Some days are alright and I feel ok. Other days I swear my body is shutting down and I just keep taking more pills until I feel better.

Surprisingly nobody really notices that I am popping them right in front of them. This is my cocky side. I will casually break the pill with my hands still in my purse than gradually put the pill between my fingers and itch my face somewhere that makes it to where I am covering my mouth. If there are too many people around I will just take my purse to the bathroom.

At 5 bucks a pop my addiction doesn't come cheap. They started out three a piece, but damn inflation! If I ran out of money I sold pills too high and made a few bucks or ran to mommy and daddy to bail me out. I told them every story, I need food, shoes, underwear, anything that would get me at least forty to sixty bucks to get me through. It's almost been four years and I swear I live inside my own mind. They say the only two ways you will go at the end of an addiction is either death or insane. I wonder which one I am closer too.

I'm not completely dense, I want to stop. So, I called a doctor. I am going through detox this month. The first appointment is 350 dollars up front cash only. After that appointments are 65 each, this does not include the prescription. Ha, it's almost cheaper to stay fucked up. I am scared as hell b/c I don't know who I am without pills, but I want to be clean so bad I can taste it. I don't know how to act, feel, care or anything. I have been so dependent on pills to make me who I want to be that I have forgotten how to become that person without pills. I want to cry because before pills I was a good person. I was an honest person. I hate myself and hate everyone else for not being an addict too.

'You do anything long enough to escape the habit of living
until the escape becomes the habit.” -David Ryan

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 55115
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 21
Published: Feb 12, 2009	Views: 46,749
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Hydrocodone (111) : Not Applicable (38), Hangover / Days After (46), Addiction & Habituation (10)