Written by Chad is a 47-year-old professional who’s held the same job for nearly a decade in an advertising agency. “Nobody knows about my problem at work except for a few close friends but I fear one has gone to my boss over it, how do I get off these pills Mike?”
This question is far from a new one as at one point I had my own 2-decade pharmaceutical addiction to face and beat – and it took much more than smoking some weed to get that in control. “I’m worried my wife will leave, it’s a point of contention in our home as I’ve had 4 recent occurrences of forgetting what I’ve done or said and my marriage is in trouble. I need help and I can’t get the information from my doctor or my dispensary.” Chad went on for the last hour about his issues – and then gave me the green light to share it all with you.
He woke up this morning to the news that the overdose rate soared in the Pandemic Year of 2020 by a whopping 30% in one year and that led him to call his doctor and ask about reducing the dose of Hydrocodone he takes daily – which is 4 10mg tablets. “I was told I’d need to contact the pain management doctor who’s been doing telemedicine for the past year so I called and got an answering machine. I want to reduce my dose right now and need instructions. What should I do?” He’s boldly seeking help and what’s happening to Chad is all too familiar. He knows he’s addicted, he knows the drugs he’s taking are killing well over 200 people daily to overdoses and many of these are accidental. He wants to quit but has no support – not even from the very doctor that referred him to pain management or the ‘specialist’ themselves.
Chad had in his possession some extracts from hemp that cause our body to metabolize drugs a lot faster than we normally would so that was the first instruction he got from me. “So I use the hemp extracts and these pills won’t last as long in my system, how does that help me,” he asked very eager to get onto the road of recovery. I explained to him that by ingesting and inhaling certain cannabinoids our body will naturally reduce its cravings for drugs like the Hydrocodone he’s addicted to and at the same time give relief to the pain it once treated.
“I got hit while parking my Motorcycle in front of a Hardware store in the summer of 2011” he shared “It took 21 pins and a steel rod in my leg to put it back together and my back has never been the same. I thought I needed these pills for life but after today I see where they’re going to take my life eventually and if not that it will be my family, my wife. I can’t have that.”
Most like this middle-aged professional have the same thing to say about their drug of choice – even when it’s pharmaceutical. “It hasn’t worked for the past year or so – I take it so I don’t get sick or too moody. If I stop the drug my life falls apart and I’m in so much pain I don’t know what to do but most of the time when I use these drugs it’s not for pain, it’s for sleep or to calm down.”
And this is exactly what has led us down a road of addiction in the first place. Chad’s awakening is based on today’s news and the reports from the Centers for Disease Control that confirm that the United States Opioid Crisis is alive and kicking taking more and more lives by the day. Many didn’t pay heed to the warnings that Narcan would be needed to mitigate these drugs in the event of accidental overdose – and an estimated 7,500 of the 92,000 overdose deaths to Opioids last year in the United States were accidental. It was someone who got a prescription and simply took too much without caution to what these drugs will do.
As a nonphysician cannabinoid medicine consultant, I can never pass judgment on anyone in Chad’s spot – especially since I’m a recovering pharma addict with less than 2.5 years of Opioid Free-living under my belt. What I can say is that all too many won’t open their eyes like he did today and reach out.
I’m typing this article after posting on social media that I would help people who are addicted dial in their cannabis protocol if they ask for help. An addict will stay one until they want to be done – and if they don’t truly want to be done they’re not reaching out to anyone in a humble or real fashion to try and stop.
“I’m done with these things. It’s been 9 years now since I first took Oxycodone and that stuff made me feel so good for a while. That didn’t last long though, I remember smoking cannabis with it to try to make it work better but eventually, I started drinking and passing out because of the pain pills. I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do but they didn’t work after such a short period of time.”
Chad went on, “I’ve smoked marijuana since I was 17 so that’s 30 years, the whole time I’ve been stuck on stupid with these damn pills there’s always been part of me searching for an out. I’ve wanted to quit since 2015, but after reading the news today I’m doing it now. I can’t leave my wife like this or have her this upset with me, I have grown kids watching me make a fool of myself. I can’t control my moods and when I get mad things hurt worse.”
We went over all of the diagnostics and medications he’s taken over the last decade and what worked and didn’t. Nothing on the pharmaceutical realm ever had any lasting effect that was positive for him and even THC had caused issues in the past but in looking at how he used it and when quickly it was determined that it was aiding the opioids in his depressive mood swings that occurred quite often after he would smoke and run out.
The fact that he wasn’t ingesting and was also only using THC weighed heavily against him when he tried to alter the addictive cycle and quit on his own, “I couldn’t do it at all with smoking, I even tried some of the RSO oil and I woke up with a blurry vision and couldn’t work. I was really depressed but when I tried CBD tincture it did change things” he shared this with me.
This helped determine how we’d create a protocol that would do 3 things: 1.) Help him reduce use and quit 2.) Manage the withdrawal and post-acute withdrawal syndrome (PAWS) 3.) The last is the most important – induce endorphin production so his body could fight pain again utilizing cannabinoid medicine and not the synthetic opioids he’s very addicted to.
“I’m excited to be starting on a regimen of multiple hemp extracts to go along with the cannabis I smoke” He shared. He was going to quit cold turkey but after talking to him today we decided that decision was based on media and that can’t be what controls our mind. The decision to quit pharmaceutical or illicit opioid/drug use must be one made by the addict who truly wants to quit – otherwise, it’s a futile and pointless job that never ends in trying to convince someone of why they need to live. A person must want to survive, they’ve got to want to thrive and know that these drugs are stopping that from happening. Couple that knowledge with what cannabinoid medicine can do there’s suddenly a sense of empowerment that only nature can give.
Chad and I agreed that today news is far from anything natural and definitely a sign that people are not waking up to the fact that these pills kill. We both shared with each other our losses of the past year as both he and I had a little brother overdose in 2020. Chad had an awakening that I wouldn’t wish on anyone as it’s unimaginable to think that these drugs could still have a chokehold on my life as well. I thanked him for being so willing to share with everyone in this article.
Thank you for reading the Cannabinoid Advice Blog – please make contact today. I look forward to helping you out someday – use our Contact page if you have a question or would like information on consultation services.
–Mike Robinson, Founder – Global Cannabinoid Research Center
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