A Pharmacists Assumption

A friend of mine has a chronic disease. This requires various medications and frequent filling prescriptions.

Today she went to the pharmacy to get her prescription for arthritis medication and the pharmacist denied to fill prescription and asked her if she was selling drugs. Due to the frequency of her medication buying the pharmacist jumped to conclusions. My friend told the pharmacist that she did not sell drugs but had to call her doctor so they could tell the pharmacist that my friend does not sell drugs but has a chronic disease.

To top off this uncomfortable and a tad discriminatory situation my friend also has a history of drug addiction and has been about 5 years sober. Of course the pharmacist doesn’t know this but it’s one of those, “if only you knew…” moments.

At least they didn’t call the police. I have heard stories of the police just showing up without an explanation from the buyer!

She went home empty handed because she needs to wait for everyone to get their shit together. She is running out of the medication (hence going to get a new prescription) but needs to wait for everyone to sort stuff out….

My friend says she’s over it and I’m glad that she won’t let this experience get her down. I, however, am not pleased at the assumption made but I do understand that people are filling out large prescriptions and selling drugs, which is illegal and dangerous.

Substance Use Part 1: Drugs (!TW)

Talk of drugs and drug use

I have never talked about my drug and alcohol use in-depth on this blog. This seems especially strange because they played a fairly decent size role in my life.

I’ll break it down so this doesn’t become super lengthy.

Part 1: Drugs

Part 2: Cigarettes

Part 3: Alcohol

I remember thinking that people who did drugs were gross. In gr. 5 I attended Racing Against Drugs (http://www.racingagainstdrugsdurham.ca/) held by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to promote drug and alcohol awareness. I still have the t-shirt they gave me. It’s covered in hair dye and I wear it to bed.

I went through the D.A.R.E program (http://www.dare.com/home/International/StoryPage64e3.asp?N=International) when I was in gr. 6 and “pledged” to never do drugs. My class sang a song about in front of our parents as they proudly looked on, dreaming of the drug free children they would now have because of the program.

When I was in gr. 8 and some “friends” blew pot smoke in my face I was horrified that they would touch something so horrible and so illegal!

Little did I know that upon entering high school I would become not just someone who tried pot but someone who smoked it quite a bit.

My best friend was a year older than me. She was smoking pot. When we were hanging out with her friends I didn’t want to be the little girl, I wanted to be cool so I decided to smoke pot.

I soon after became involved with a “gang” and my pot smoking increased since that was all they did.

I was high almost every day. I didn’t even like it.

I became quiet when I was high. I felt so overwhelmed by the feeling that I just sat there wishing it would go away.

I have “greened out” 4 times. The first time I greened out was the highest I have ever been in my life. We had hotboxed my friend’s bathroom and had to crawl out. We listened to the Cypress Hill song below which tripped me out so much that I just fell in and out of sleep for what felt like hours. I decided eventually that I had to go. I walked the short distance home (I don’t know how I made it) and laid on my couch. I felt the urge to throw up so I slowly made my way to the bathroom. I saw these small green dots appear in front of my eyes. They flashed and got bigger and bigger until my vision was completely black. I collapsed, falling into a quilt stand. Luckily no one was in the house to hear me fall. I didn’t throw up but instead headed to my bedroom. Eventually my Mom came into my room, questioned me and took my money. I felt sick for 5 days after (called a “stoneover”). Rumor was that someone had put cocaine in the pot. Who knows.

The second time I greened out I bruised my arm because it got stuck on the side mirror of a car. The third and fourth time were together. I was in a forest with my ex-boyfriend who didn’t care and began walking away while I lay in the snow trying to plan how I’d walk home.

Also in gr. 9 I was introduced to prescription medication. Just random pills that the girl who brought them called “pain pills and happy pills.” I had no clue what exactly there were but they made me feel great. A group of us would split them in study hall (which is where you went when they couldn’t find a supply for your class) and take them during school.

Extacy pills

After a bit of that I started taking “focusers” aka Ritalin. My then boyfriend didn’t like them so he let me have them. I felt fantastic! I was very talkative, adventurous but I couldn’t sleep. If I got 3 hours I was lucky.

Once I entered gr.11 I had basically given up pot, had stopped taking Ritalin and other pills when the supplier disappeared. I hated it. It had cause me to experience horrible things and horrible people.

I would take other prescription medications as a form of self harm. Technically overdosing even if nothing physically would happen to me. If the bottle said “Do not exceed 8 pills in a day” I would take 10. This is why I try to only take medication when I HAVE too.

I did extacy (also known as E, X, MDMA) for the first (but not the last) time in gr. 11. I was with my on again off again, full of complications,  boyfriend. I enjoyed E. At this point I had been diagnosed with dythymia and was on psych meds. Prozac never made me feel as fantastic as E had. I felt “normal”.

I got the feeling that the only reason this boy got E for us was to make a move on me. It’s said that sex on E is fantastic but when I did it then and the odd time I do it currently I actually don’t want anyone touching me.

My theory with E was that since my serotonin levels were already low (causing my depression) E essentially brought them up to a more functional level.  I also do not “crash” the same way many other people who take E do. A cash can be a very depressing experience since your body has pumped out mass amounts of serotonin because of the drug. By the end you’re left with a depleted amount of serotonin in your brain. I never experienced this depression. I believe I had just gone back to my “normal” which was low already.

Like I just said I will occasionally still do E. I’m talking maybe once a year. Even when I do it I find I’m fighting the high. I like to feel in control of my body. The fact that these drugs make me feel things and sometimes see things differently bothers me a lot.

Overall drugs are out of my life. I’m not anti-drug, just for myself. I do believe that some drugs, like pot, should be legalized. I believe that extacy has potential as an anti-depressant and that has been looked at by researchers, especially for PTSD.

E is the only drug that I will ever do and this video describes why. Once a year use is not enough to damage my brain or do anything horrible.

I would never encourage anyone to do drugs if they do not want to. If you ever want to try a certain drug I would advise you to learn about it, get the drug off someone you trust and then take it in a safe space with friends.

Terms

Greened Out: passing out from smoking too much pot.

Hotbox: smoking pot in a small space in order to get high off the smoke that stays in the room.

Tripping out: Experiencing sensations caused by the drug that can be good or bad.

Crash: When you come down off a drug and your body tries to return it’s normal level of functioning. This can be a very horrible time.

I Wanted To Share This :)

While looking for material to update The Madvocates twitter I came across RxISK. It is a new website (still in the Beta phase) that allows you to research side effects, side effect statistics, warnings and drug interactions on any prescription medication found in Canada and the USA (there will be overlap in other countries as well). It was inspired after the suicide of the creator’s son while on a stimulant prescribed by his doctor. At on point the website will allow you to report your side effects which can then be turned into a report to take to your healthcare provider!

I’m so happy this website exists because many side effects for psychiatric medication is ignored by doctors (at least in my experience) and many seem to want to believe that these drugs are doing nothing to our bodies, short term or long term, other than what they claim to do. Hopefully this website helps a lot of people!

www.rxisk.org