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i have been takin zapain since my daughter was 3 weeks old she is now nearly 3 i am addicted to them but i can go a couple of without any and sometimes i only take 3or 4 and sometimes i can take up to 12 is this addiction as if i go out for the day i dont take them oi usually take them if i am at home all day
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tim52832 Guest
Posted
I've been reading all these horror stories that so many decent people have to tell about codeine addiction and it's an unfortunate fact of life that many of the people who have expresssed such a strong desire to kick the codeine habit won't make it. I was a codeine addict for fifteen years and my doctor siad if I wasn't such a big man I'd have been dead by now. But of course my health has suffered and I was almost broke from buying nurofen plus tablets. My situation was well and truly brought home to me on a Monday morning I'll never forget. I went in to a local chemist which is usually staffed by two young girls and a wjat I would describe as a timid male chemist. I asked the nurofen plus and the chemish handed them to me and I got the distinct impresssion as I was 6' 4'' bearded and rough looking he was afraid to say no. I paid for the pils without the chemist speaking a word to me and |I dropped my change on the floor. As I was picking up the coins I heard a lady ask for some nurofen plus and she was refused point blank by the chemist. She tried to get him to sell her twemve but again he refused her pretty rudely. She waled out of the chemist and as I had retrieved my coins I could see she was a very respectable woman of about thirty five but she was obviously suffering severe withdrawl symtims. She had seen me buying the nurofen plus and ask me, in fact almost pleaded with me to sell her twelve. I did and the story she told me which I won't repeat here was heartbreaking. She had lost everything because of her codeine addiction and when I offered to buy her a cup of coffee she gratfully accepted and in a few swallows the twelve nurofen were gone. My world was turned upsidedown that morning and the thought that the chemist was afraid to say no to me when I asked for nurofen plus filled me with disgust, My God I thought just how low could I sink. And that poor young woman, showed me a photo of her and her husband taken three years earlier and you wouldn't know it was the same woman. Her clothes were obviously expensive but now they were clearly not even fit for a charity shop, her hair unwashed and it was I could see she was a very pretty young lady in her early thirties. My wife had stood by me through those awful years as she said the old me was still there somewhere. I showered, shaved and from that day I began to taper my consimption of nurofen plus and it was the worst experience of my life, no sleep for days, resrless legs driving me crazy and running to the bathroom when I hardly had the strength to get out of bed. I stayed in touch with the young lady and I tried evrything I could to try and convunce her to try and taper off her intake of these cursed pills. She couldn't get the pills in our town as she had long ago lost her job and her car so she would phone me and be me to get her some. I got the impression that I was the only friend she had left and I was terribly worried that she might do something silly, but my pleas to her to go to a free drug support group always fell on deaf years. I might get her twelve pills once a week and by this tsgae she had lost a lot of weight from an already thin body and when we would meet for cofee I wouldn't give her the twelve nurofen plus unless she had eaten something first. After wasting fifteen years of my life I succeeded in finally kicking those nurofen plus and my health both mentally and bodily improved beyond one hundred percent. As for my friend she found me one sunday night and asked if we could meet in the same place for coffee and her twelve tablets, well she never turned up and I have never seen or heard from her again. I reckon she was once her patents pride and joy,, and intelligent blond haired American girl with a bright future ahead if her. After six months I found a new leese of life but I often thing of what became of that poor girl These nurofen plus are as bad and addictive as heroin and yet you can buy then without prescroption, codeine should be classed as a class A drug as it has destroyed thousands of lives and blighted so many families. Maybe the day might not be far off when someone sues the government for allowing such a potent drug to be so freely available...........Good luck to you all.
jencs tim52832
Posted
Hi Tim, what a story and thank you so much for sharing. Well done for beating your addiction. I have been a codeine addict on and off for many years but am addressing it now. Luckily for me I am relatively low scale compared to some on here - true horror stories surrounding good, honest hard working people. I'm starting to see N+ as the working man's drug addiction. The use of the Internet isn't helping end these addictions either.
It sounds to me like as much as you were so helpful to this poor woman. You never could have helped her because she wasn't ready to help herself. Instead she used you to obtain more N+, forcing you to become an unwilling enabler. You did your best for her and that is all you could have done. The most important thing for you is that you saved your marriage and restored your family unit and become free of this horrible drug for good. Xxx
tim52832 jencs
Posted
You are right when you described me as an enabler and that's often how I saw myself. But I didn't see a drug addict I saw a young woman who could have easily been my daughter and to get twelve tablets for her less than once a week probably just gave her some relief for a while. I read recently where in England around five hundred people die each year from paracetimol poinioning, which is roughly five times the deth rate from nurofen plus addiction. Paracetimol is many times more damaging to the liver and kidneys that iburofen which is what nurofen plus contains. And perhaps I shouldn't post this but paractimol if taken in high enough quantities, which it is by some drugd addicts, can actually raise the body's temperature so much that a hazy high is obtained and this practice causes many needless deaths. In my own case which lasted for fifteens years, I had no pain but a severe dose of insomnia. Little was known about codeing addiction in those days, A friend suggested trying co codomol which condaines 30mg of codeine and I was soon sleeping like a baby.........When after fifteen years I went to a local doctor he just said taper off gradually as if it was that easy, I tried a second doctor, an older lady any she prescribed a course of diazepam as I tapered off the nurofen plus. She passed and still passes my house on her way home every evening and took the trouble to drop an envelope with a reducing dose of both codeine and diazepam in my letterbox. My God I thought if there were more doctors like this lady, she made me feel I was worth someething, worth caring about. Whem I was finally off all medication my wife and I brough her a little present to show ho grateful we were. She thanked us but she explained that fror the rest of my life the shadow of codeine addiction will always be close by me and the fifht against addiction is a lifelong one. Still today, I wont go into a pharmacy, one reason is of course I want to keep away from tentation, the isecond reason is what I might have said to some chemst who might have refused to sell me nurofen plus. I think your chances of kicking the habit are greatly increased if you can find a sympathic doctor. Not all doctors are sympathic, nor do they care for their patients as much as they should, But there are many good doctors out there who will do all they can to help you, keep looking and eventually you will find one of those doctors who know your addiction is not your fault, you, that you are a good person who is well worth saving, you are entitlrd to the help you need to return to a life of dignity, you lost through no fault of your own..............best of luck Tim