I was 61 years old when I turned over the reins of my family business to my kids and officially retired. The last thing I expected when I just started my retirement and life of leisure was an unplanned detour into a bad prescription drug problem.
I cannot help but feel like I could have avoided the mess that consumed a year of my life, had I just been honest with myself from the get-go. Because I did not “look that part” or have any kind of addiction history to suggest that I might abuse prescriptions, nobody noticed that I had a Vicodin problem until it was almost too late.
One minute, I was on the golf course enjoying one of the best games of my life, and the next I was literally lying on the golf course writhing in excruciating pain from injuring my back. My guess is that I must have come too far back on my swing and wrenched my back. Even though I had suffered with mild back problems for years, I never felt anything like the razor sharp shooting pain I felt at that moment. In the past I could just take a couple of aspirins and always get relieve from the pain. However, this time I literally could not get off the ground so they took me to the hospital. My regular doctor was in Europe on vacation and this doctor comes in who I had never seen before and tells me to stay off my feet for a few days and take some of these painkillers.
The prescription he wrote for me was for Vicodin and it was amazing. The pain seemed to melt away whenever I took them. So, I started eating these pills like they were popcorn. I was never somebody who could handle a lot of pain, and I reassured myself that a doctor prescribed them to me so he must think that they are safe. However, this doctor never once mentioned anything about the possibility of addiction either. It did not take me long to become a Vicodin addict. Of course, I did not admit it to myself at the time, but I definitely was. When I ran used up all my Vidodin I went to see my actual doctor to get some more Vicodin. He told me that I should not need them anymore and would not write me another prescription for them. So, I just went somewhere else, in fact I eventually went to eight other places. I continued my doctor shopping routine for almost a year.
I let it slip one day during a doctor’s visit that I went to another place to fill my prescription, and found out that the place I’d gone to was busted in a state raid for writing phony prescriptions. My doctor than insisted I seek professional treatment and told me I should consider of the luxury drug rehab centers because I could afford it. He told me these places offered the best treatment money could buy.
It was not until I finally could not get any more prescriptions for Vicodin and everything started to fall apart pretty quickly right after that. Now I was in even more pain than ever before, and did not want to be around anybody, not even my wife or my children.
I finally decided it was time for me to take my doctors’ advice and try one of the luxury drug rehab centers he had recommended. I choose a place in Palm Beach and it turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. The staff there made me feel very comfortable and gave me the support and inner strength I needed to overcome my addiction. I also became am a more humble person from going through the whole recovery process. My family all seem to be much happier being around me. I have also gotten much closer to my wife once again after I successfully finished my their treatment program. I am starting to enjoy my retirement once again.
