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Gina Snider |
As a young teen in a new town, Gina Snider gave into peer pressure and tried pot and acid in order to be accepted. After losing three friends to suicide, Gina used drugs to numb the pain and eventually ran away from home. She soon developed a full-blown meth addiction. For the next 10 years, she stole pills, forged checks, worked in meth labs, was in-and-out of jail and lost custody of her three children. Then one Mother's Day something happened and she realized she had to turn her life around.
Growing up in Minnesota
I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota in a single-parent family. My brother Donald was a lot older, so I felt like an only child. My mom became sober from an alcohol addiction when I was 10. She did the best she could, often working full-time at night and going to school during the day. But I didn't have a lot of supervision. While she was trying to get back on track, I was climbing out my window at age 12, going out all night until she got home from work in the morning.
I was a good kid for the most part. I was a high-school diver in seventh grade and a gymnast. I never thought I would use drugs, but I met some kids at school who were stealing money from their parents and doing drugs. Some of their parents were even doing drugs - it wasn't a good scene.
In the spring of seventh grade, my diving coach caught me smoking pot at school and I was suspended.
The Big Move
I grew up on welfare and my mom had gotten a rural development loan. We moved from St. Paul to Wyoming, Minnesota. I was 13, completely unsure of myself and I didn't have a friend in the world. I didn't get along with my mother and I felt so alone. I started riding my bike around to get a feel for my new town. Doing this, I met some kids.
My new friends smoked weed and took acid. I became who they wanted me to be - I lied to them and myself.
By the time I was in ninth grade, I was selling and taking acid on a regular basis. When I was 15, three of my friends committed suicide - one had lived across the street from my house. At this point, my whole world fell apart. I felt abandoned again, and didn't understand why bad things seemed to come my way. I continued to use drugs to numb the pain and to forget.
When I was going into tenth grade, my mom found a sheet of acid wrapped in tin foil in an Advil bottle in my purse. She told me to go to school in the morning, and come home right afterwards. I never came home that day - or ever.
My Life as an Addict
I hung out with older people, shooting coke and using a lot of meth, not to mention stealing to support my habit and sleeping with men who were twice my age. I was a runaway, and my mother had the cops looking for me. Scott Dexter, a Wyoming, MN. cop, found and arrested me. When he picked me up, I was strung out on cocaine - and I was only 15. I went to juvie, then treatment and was placed in a foster home for chemically-dependent girls. I was sober for about a year and a half, but once I got out, I starting living with a girlfriend and soon started drinking and using drugs again. I got a job at a pharmacy and I stole prescription pills. I never got caught, but I quit my job anyway because I was too messed up to work. This is also when I became pregnant with my daughter.
I had my baby when I was 19 - and I had smoked pot when I was pregnant with her. After she was born, I smoked crack and went to prison for forgery. Once I was released, the people I used to hang out with weren't smoking crack anymore - they were using meth. I was 21 at the time and fell right back into the old lifestyle.
For five months I hung out with a crew who cooked meth. My job was to write bad checks to get the ingredients to make it. This was my life. My house was a mess and I couldn't take care of anyone - including myself. I weighed 100 pounds and stayed up for weeks at a time because I never really ran out of drugs. If I did go to sleep, I made sure I had drugs next to me when I woke up. I also used to pick my eye for no reason, until it would get so swollen and red it would stay shut for days.
I had my first son when I was 26 and later gave up my second son for adoption because I was such a mess. Both of them were born positive for meth. I lost custody and my parental rights were terminated for my daughter and my oldest son. My mother had called social services and made sure that I was not allowed to take care of my children.
Meth was my life. I would get picked up by the cops - run for a while and then get picked up again. I always came out of prison and continued to use. I thought I was going to die a drug addict - I thought this was my destiny.
My Recovery
During one of my stints in jail I realized I had to make a change in my life. I called my mother on Mother's Day and she told me that the foster family who was taking care of my children didn't want them anymore, and the kids were sent to live with her. It was at that point I realized that God had a plan for me. My mom adopted my daughter and son - and I had to be there with them too.
In jail, I met a liaison for the Minnesota Teen Challenge. They told me about their 12-month program. The said it was a very intense program - and I knew that's what I needed. I spent a year at the Teen Challenge and came out a different person.
This program runs on faith-based treatment, so I learned to develop a relationship with God and Jesus. We were kept busy all day with chapel, Bible classes and anger-management training. We learned how to interact with people again and manage our emotions. We even took financial-management courses, and learned how to balance a checkbook, complete a resume and interview for a job. We had work study in the afternoon - cleaning, repairs and lawn work. They gave us every tool they possibly could so that we could change our lives around. It was very strict, but it's what I needed.
Reflections
Looking back, I know that I will use every experience in my life to better myself. I have an understanding for drug users and people in prison that others don't have. I am currently working for Minnesota Teen Challenge, developing a drug prevention program for high schools and look forward to teaching people everything that I've learned.
Today I am so much happier. I am able to see my children almost daily. My mom adopted them while I was in jail, and they live nearby. My son and I are struggling to bond but that is to be expected because I didn't see him from the time he was 8 months old until he was 3 ½ . My youngest son was adopted by a wonderful couple right when he was born. We have family outings about four times a year - and we get together on birthdays and Christmas. We have an open adoption and it is a blessing.
I want people to know that life is all about choices. It may not seem like the little choices to try alcohol or pot mean anything - but they can. My experimentation quickly escalated into addiction. It happens before you realize it - and sometimes it's too late. Meth seems like its fun for a minute, but then you're a slave to it. It's just not worth the consequences you'll have to live with later.
Russell's story
"It's great to see how Russell has turned his life around, and it's been great for officers at the police station to see how arrest referral and drug treatment schemes can work to break the cycle of drugs-crime-prison, reduce crime and make communities safer." Chief Superintendent Bob Baxter, Head of West Midlands Police
Name: Russell Rainbow
Sex: Male
Age: 24
Intervention: Arrest referral team
Location: Birmingham
Ethnic background: White
Date of case study: Unknown
Source: West Midlands police website: www.west-midlands.police.uk/cjip/success.htm
Background
At the height of his drug-taking, Russell was sleeping rough and weighed just seven stone. He was on heroin - and to a lesser extent crack cocaine - for six years, spending around £100 a day on his habit. During this time he went to prison nine times, usually for around six months at a time.
Intervention
Russell was approached by a drugs worker when he was in custody following another arrest. After his release, Russell contacted the drugs worker who referred him to Birmingham's Arrest Referral Treatment Team (BARTT). Russell admits that at this point he had to get help following the birth of his son. Through BARTT, he entered counselling and was also prescribed the opiate replacement and blocker, Subutex (buprenorphine). Russell attributes his success to his drugs worker, Jason, who he calls, "my saviour": "He gave me the determination to get off drugs - I realised people were willing to help and not looking down on me."
Results
At the time of this case study, Russell has been clean for 14 months and hasn't committed any crimes since his release from prison. He has a job as a leaflet distributor and is now living with his girlfriend and their two children. In his words: "I'm proud of what I have achieved .
Staying clean
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Can you kick it?
Perhaps. While some experts talk of an addictive personality and others argue addiction is a myth, Caroline, Naomi and Giles tell us of their struggle to beat the habit
Martin Bright
The Observer
Caroline opens her hands and pushes them towards me, palms up. They have a strange, orange glow. 'You know what I do now. Carrots. My hands have gone orange. Look.' She and a group of four fellow substance-abusers in recovery are sitting around a table discussing the nature of addiction. Caroline believes she has what the psychologists call an addictive personality. Since she has been in rehab she has been denied all access to her drugs of choice: heroin, crack, cocaine, prescription pills. Instead she turns to carrots whenever she feels low.
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She and her counsellors believe she has deeply ingrained patterns of behaviour into which she retreats when she gets unhappy. 'If I haven't got drugs, I can either get obsessed with a man or...' she breaks off and turns to Rachel, a heroin addict who has been watching Caroline's intake of carrots with concern: 'How many carrots do I eat a day?' 'Loads,' says Rachel, with a mixture of sympathy and irritation. 'About two big bags full,' says Caroline. 'I can't stop, and I never really ate carrots before.'
Caroline, a 35-year-old mother of two from east London, had been to five treatment centres before she checked in to Broadway Lodge in Weston-super-Mare last December. As one of the country's longest-established institutions for addicts, it has a regime of total abstinence, backed by medical treatment, counselling and a system of aftercare for former clients.
Unlike some other centres, which allow addicts to relapse from time to time, it does not believe that using drugs is an option. This is the hard core of drug treatment: any broken rule can lead to immediate expulsion. It is difficult to measure its success rate because people who return to drugs do not advertise themselves and addicts are difficult to track once they start using again. But Broadway Lodge believes around 60 per cent of those who clean up at the centre stay off drugs for good.
First, though, they have to address their addictive behaviour, and that includes carrots or whatever else they choose to obsess about. Residents of the sprawling gothic house on a hill just outside the Victorian seaside town all describe experiencing these patterns of excessive behaviour while they try to recover: three spoonfuls of coffee per cup or bingeing on chocolate are the favourite diversions in this drug-free environment - anything to get some artificial kick. The job of rehab is to wean addicts not only off drugs, but off these patterns of addictive behaviour.
Like Caroline, 29-year-old Rachel, from Stockton-on-Tees in the north-east of England, believes she is addictive by nature. At Broadway Lodge she has been taught to see her behaviour as part of an illness. 'That's what it's all about: challenging each other on your behaviour. I thought I just took drugs because I liked them. But I understood when I got here that it was because I couldn't cope with any of my feelings.' Like others at Broadway Lodge, Rachel has to accept that her susceptibility to drugs is a disease over which she will have no control unless she stops using them altogether. 'My drugs were heroin, crack, cannabis, tranquillisers, anything. Drink. But I can see addictive behaviours in me long before the drugs came along. That was just a symptom. My addiction can come out in other ways: in food, in relationships.'
The idea is that addicts in treatment help each other through the process of detoxification and the cravings that still follow. Only addicts can understand how it feels to need something so badly; only addicts, so the logic goes, can read the signs when people start slipping back into addictive behaviour. Jason, 29, from Oxford and, like Caroline, a veteran of treatment, has progressed through cannabis to amphetamines, LSD and ecstasy, and eventually heroin and crack. 'It didn't matter what the substance was, I'd have a problem with it. But here we can't kid each other. We all know how to put one over on people. But all of us, being addicts, can see when people are acting out their old attitudes.'
The brochure for Broadway Lodge is clear about its position on drug dependency: 'We believe that addiction to alcohol and drugs is a chronic, progressive, primary and incurable disease, not a problem of morals or willpower.' The addicts I spoke to had no time for the simplistic, individualist notion that addiction was a question of self-pity winning out over self-respect. 'Addiction is real,' said Jason. 'We are the living proof.'
Addiction as an illness with drugs as a symptom: it's a philosophy borrowed from Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous and, though there is no hard medical evidence to prove it, it acts as an effective metaphor for what happens when people get addicted to hard drugs. And it's increasingly a model that the Home Office and the British criminal justice system is turning to.
Increasingly, the courts have been encouraged to turn to treatment and rehab as an alternative to custody for addicts in an attempt to cut the financial and social costs of drug abuse - or misuse as it is now called. Over 2,000 Drug Treatment and Testing Orders have been issued by the courts since they were introduced in April 2000. These replace a prison sentence for repeat offenders with obligatory treatment at a recognised centre such as Broadway Lodge and regular testing by medical staff to ensure the resident stays clean. Any breach in the order and the addict returns to the courts. Early results are inconclusive: only 47 per cent of DTTOs have been completed. But, say supporters of the new approach, that still means that 1,000 addicts have got through the programme. As each criminal addict is estimated to commit £4,000 worth of crime a year this works out as a substantial saving.
Broadway Lodge operates the '12-step' programme, developed originally by Alcoholics Anonymous. This means working through a series of quasi-religious stages towards drug-free enlightenment. A monastic lifestyle is demanded of residents, so that not only are drugs and alcohol banned, but also 'exclusive relationships' between recovering addicts. Through written work and therapy sessions, addicts are first made to recognise their powerlessness over drugs and to reveal how their values and principles have been undermined by substance abuse.
The most controversial parts of the treatment are steps two and three, where addicts are asked to believe in a power greater than themselves and hand their will and their life over to the care of God. Although the steps have adapted to the demands of an increasingly godless world, there remains an undeniably religious, some would say cultish, core to the 12-step programme.
At its heart is the 'Serenity Prayer', a bizarre mixture of homespun folk wisdom and new-age ideology, which all residents at Broadway Lodge are expected to memorise: 'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.'
The medical and scientific research on the nature of addiction is patchy and poorly funded. Meanwhile, the 12-step approach, developed over many years of working with addicts, has developed a solid reputation for helping people recover. The emphasis on the 'higher being' is, paradoxically, highly pragmatic. It's what seems to work best. Addicts appear to need - some would even say crave - a spiritual dimension to their lives, and many find themselves turning to Buddhism or Christianity when they leave.
Others develop their own non-religious ways of interpreting the 'higher power'. Naomi, a 27-year-old heroin addict and dealer from Bracknell, Berkshire, who was sent to Broadway Lodge by the courts on a DTTO, equates the 12-step God with the collective struggle of herself, her fellow addicts and the staff at the treatment centre.
'For me, my higher power is the guys in treatment around me,' she says. 'They have got me through this; not God or anyone else. It's the counsellors and everyone around me. It's not me on my own doing this, it's us together.' She takes a similarly practical approach to meditation. 'What I understand by meditation is just spirituality. What all of us have in common is low self-worth. You are taught to have a long, hard look at yourself, to start accepting yourself. You build a relationship with yourself and then you start to interact with people in the community better. You're not so defiant. You're not so angry with everyone.'
But there are other serious issues with Britain's treatment culture. For a start, it is driven by the market in addicts: rehabilitation is a lucrative business (a Drug Treatment and Testing Order costs £6,000) and treatment centres spring up to meet the need. Broadway Lodge is a registered charity, but many treatment centres are strictly commercial operations, often converted old people's homes that have ceased to be financially viable. In Weston-super-Mare, the law of supply and demand has led to treatment centres and halfway houses springing up all over the town. At the last count there were 11 drug rehab centres, 10 per cent of the total for the whole country. Council leader Mike Roe says there is an obvious financial incentive when care homes can get £230-250 for an elderly person, but, by offering a modicum of counselling and support, anything from £500 for an addict or an alcoholic.
'It's self-perpetuating,' says Roe. 'Some people set up in the area and others saw it was lucrative. The local feeling is that it's causing problems in the town as the larger properties switch over.' The council has now commissioned the University of Bath to see if there is any truth in the belief that people are dropping out of rehab and staying in the area. Anecdotally, the evidence is already there. Caroline says the town has a serious problem: 'None of the users round here are from Weston. They are people who have come out of treatment centres and relapsed. It has made it into a drug town.' She quickly checks herself: 'Or a recovery town I suppose.'
After a while, the psychobabble of Broadway Lodge starts to pall and you begin to wonder if the residents are being taught anything more than a new vocabulary to help them buy further in to the programme. There is at times a sense that the reason the 12-step programme works so well for addicts is that it just replaces drug addiction with another form of obsessive behaviour.
Sceptics of 12-step such as Mike Jay, a lecturer in drug culture and the author of Emperors of Dreams, a history of drugs in the nineteenth century, believes that the disease model of addiction, especially concerning heroin, is a result of a 'power-grab' by the medical profession and psychiatry at the beginning of the twentieth century. 'Helpless and metabolic dependency is a convenient fiction around which doctors and addicts can meet. An awful lot of people take heroin and give it up, so it can't be the drug that does it.' In the early nineteenth century, says Jay, drug consumption was seen as a personal choice which resulted, occasionally, in some people turning into addicts. But as the use of opium as a legitimate, if somewhat sordid, leisure activity was phased out in favour of medically prescribed morphine or codeine, the doctors began to take control. 'The disease model of addiction is one of the few residues of this period. The 12-step model is really valuable for crisis management, but it doesn't mean it's true,' says Jay.
Pauline Bissett, the director of Broadway Lodge, has her own issues with the emphasis on the 'higher power'. All staff are expected to go on a short 12-step course and Pauline found the process difficult to accept. 'I was extremely resistant. I thought: nobody's going to ram religion down my throat. I flatly refused to say "God" at the beginning of the Serenity Prayer for most of my first week. Until it dawned on me that it sums it up for all of us really, even in a normal, well-balanced lifestyle, you can spend an awfully long time struggling to change something over which you have no control.'
But as someone who came to the treatment centre as a nurse, she says it is impossible to ignore the fact that the system has brought relief to thousands of addicts. 'What we ask our patients is to accept that they are not the most powerful being on this earth. Their higher power can be a tree in the garden, their therapy group or God if they want it to be.' Addicts, she explains, are 'deeply paradoxical beings, utterly in thrall to their addiction, but convinced of their omnipotence while they remain in denial.' Addiction makes them feel they are the centre of the universe, that they are the most powerful being on this earth and that they have control. In an addict's life, control becomes all-consuming. They think they can control everyone around them and they need to be taught to let go.'
One alternative to treatment and abstinence - also being considered by an increasingly desperate government - is to provide addicts with a free and ready supply of clean heroin from licensed GPs. This was the approach favoured in Britain until the mid-1960s when the authorities became concerned about the black market that had grown up around prescription heroin. Already, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, has extended the number of licences in Britain. Those convinced of the benefits of abstention, like Pauline Bissett at Broadway Lodge, are concerned by the apparent contradictions of the new approach, at once encouraging treatment and an increase in legal heroin prescription.
Some addicts are so fragile, it is hard to imagine how they had the strength to get themselves into recovery. When so many have turned to heroin precisely because it is the only thing which makes life bearable, then it seems almost perverse to ask them to end their love affair with the drug. Except that by the time most people end up in Broadway Lodge, their addiction is so extreme that the choice is between rehab and death.
Naomi discovered heroin through the clubbing scene. 'I started on pills, speed and acid and there was no addiction there, but I became addicted to the lifestyle. I loved clubbing so much, it was the first time I felt part of something. People accepted me and I felt like I was on the same wavelength.' She was 'working', selling drugs in Ibiza when she first came across heroin. She was caught dealing by the Spanish authorities and deported to Britain, where heroin became her new obsession. 'I did glamorise the scene and I was fascinated by the junkies because they have a look in their eye like there's nothing there, and that's what I wanted. I didn't want to feel anymore.'
For Naomi the low point came when she began to get into an uncontrollable fury after helping friends to inject themselves, because her own veins had collapsed and she had to return to smoking heroin, where the effect was less immediate. 'I'd be so angry and hate them and be jealous of them because I couldn't do it any more. I'd just want to beat the crap out of them.'
Giles, 32, has only just returned home to Bristol after years on the streets and, like Thomas De Quincey, he turned to heroin for one simple reason: it made him happier than anything else in the world. He traces his problems to the day he started secondary school at a state grammar in central Bristol, where he was picked on because he had free school meals. He started drinking because he liked the feeling it gave him and he thought it impressed people. He soon progressed to speed, LSD, pills and, a west country favourite, magic mushrooms. Yet nothing but heroin could kill the pain.
'I left home at 16 or 17 and started staying in squats,' he says. 'That's when I first came across heroin, and I fell in love with it. When I was doing all the other drugs, particularly the drink, I would act like a real arsehole. With the heroin, I thought I was in control. I thought I could feel good but still have a conversation with someone. I could still visit my mum and talk to her.'
Initially at least, heroin dealt with the terror that gripped Giles in dealing with everyday life. 'It took the fear away that's always in my chest and would always sink to my stomach. That adrenaline that's always there trying to come out of the back of your throat. That awkward feeling, never wanting to go into a shop in case something went wrong and you got embarrassed. It just gave me the confidence to really be me, although, of course, I wasn't me.'
Giles slipped rapidly into serious addiction. He started begging in Bristol and then moved to London, his only possessions a 'hungry and homeless' sign and two stray dogs, the classic companions of a street junkie. Over seven years his health deteriorated; his vulnerable, toothless smile, ripped earlobes and sunken eyes are a permanent testimony to those desperate times. He jacked up in an abandoned block on wasteground near Finsbury Park and slept by the bins at the back of shops and restaurants in Leicester Square and Covent Garden. On giro days Giles would spend all his money on heroin, take it all at once and was disappointed when he came round.
'I sat there begging in Tube stations with abscesses all over my legs, sleeping in doorways or behind the shops and getting woken up at five in the morning by the police, by the dustbin men or people coming to work. I had body lice continually. Once you got rid of them, someone else picked them up and you'd catch them straight away. And I found out I had hepatitis C.'
For some reason, at this desperately low point, something shifted in Giles and he decided to seek help. This is something the other addicts recognised - Giles describes it as his 'sense of mortality kicking in'. Others use similar phrases. 'I always thought I was HIV positive,' says Giles. 'I was waiting to die like that. But I knew hepatitis wouldn't kill me so maybe something in me said, perhaps you can get out of this.'
The reality appears to be that some people are more prone to addiction than others. The scientific basis of addiction may still be a mystery, but the reality of the gnawing cycle of pleasure-seeking, craving and the terrible fear of withdrawal has long been reflected in the literature of addiction.
Among these accounts, Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater, published in 1822, remains the most candid. Written before narcotic abuse was pathologised by the medical and psychiatric professions, its language has a freshness unpolluted by the clichés of therapy. De Quincey is a fatalist; he believes that his nature - what would now be called his addictive personality - renders him incapable of rehabilitation. In a section entitled 'Introduction to the Pains of Opium' he writes: 'I postulate that at the time I began to take opium daily, I could not have done otherwise. Whether, indeed, afterwards I might not have succeeded in breaking off the habit, even when it seemed that all efforts would be unavailing.' In other words, de Quincey believes that addicts, like him, are the very last people capable of rehabilitation. But such pessimism is not acceptable to a twenty-first-century morality that wants so much to believe that everyone is redeemable. Treatment centres and DTTOs are a testament to this faith.
The latest genetic research is double-edged in its consequences for addicts. Early research suggests there may be a genetic element to addiction. The hope for scientists working in the field is that once they have understood more how that craving works, they will be able to develop drugs to block it in people who are genetically prone. They also believe they may be able to develop drugs for people who suffer more seriously from withdrawal due to genetic factors.
The latest research in the field has been reviewed in a recent paper by Dr David Collier, Reader in Molecular Genetics at London University's Institute of Psychiatry, to be published by the World Health Organisation later this year. Addiction, it appears, is the 'reward' an individual gets with the release of dopamine, a chemical messenger that transmits the sensation of pleasure into a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. This is the so-called rush that heroin users talk about.
One of the most fascinating studies concerns Vietnam veterans. A substantial number of troops serving in Vietnam took heroin but only a tiny proportion became addicted. The paper concludes that 'genetic factors substantially influence vulnerability to substance abuse, that the family environment is also important, but predominantly influences initiation, and that heavy use, abuse and dependence have a stronger genetic influence than occasional use.' Dr Collier's survey of recent research also tentatively draws the conclusion that there may be a genetic link between thrill-seekers, 'adrenaline junkies', and addictive personalities.
So is this the scientific equivalent of De Quincey's pessimistic fatalism, with some people condemned by their genes to a lifetime of addiction? Collier believes not. He says the new genetic research should be a source of hope to addicts. 'This should help them realise that it is not all their fault and relieve some of the feelings of guilt that plague recovering addicts.'
At the end of the interviews, Caroline sits at the table staring at her carotene-stained hands as if it is evidence of sin. She says she is determined that this will be her last treatment centre. But she shakes her head, knowing she's said that before and still gone back to drugs: 'It's bloody hard changing everything about yourself. Practically impossible.'
For Caroline and the other addicts at Broadway Lodge it may be science and not the 'higher power' that finally lets them off the hook.
Road to recovery - the 12 steps
1 We admitted we were powerless over narcotics and that our lives had become unmanageable.
2 We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3 We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand Him.
4 We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5 We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6 We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7 We humbly asked Him to remove these shortcomings.
8 We made a list of all the persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9 We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10 We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11 We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His will and the power to carry that out.
12 Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practise these principles in all our affairs
Many medical professionals do not know what they are doing!
Ernie's cold turkey diazepam withdrawal story
I thought when Saddam Hussein made a man pay for a bullet and then at gun point made him kill his own son, that was the nearest one could come to evil on this Earth. However with psychotropic drugs I am not so sure.
Several years ago, a consultant who performed a fenestration on a disc in 1997 requested an MRI scan. On examining it he said there was inflammation and said that it would settle down in time. I later discovered that inflammation meant arthritis.
I have had trouble with my back for many years. During 2003 I had a painful back for several weeks. During 2005 on rising from my bed in the morning I would be twisted and in pain but after about an hour I would be ok. During the summer of 2005 my wife Angela and I walked several miles along the North Yorkshire coastline and in and around Scarborough. I was not experiencing pain at that time.
During the autumn of 2005 the pain became more unpleasant and I visited my GP. She sent me to see a doctor. He suggested a steroid injection which normally helped about 60% of his patients. This did not work and he suggested I had a Radio Frequency Lesioning. I was taking codeine at the time and he suggested I had a BuTrans patch whilst I was awaiting the RFL. Before the procedure I was sat comfortably in a room at the Nuffield in Tunbridge Wells. The nurse asked about the pain level and I told her about 1 or 2 on the lower right leg . I must have also mentioned the left leg as this has been a long term problem. The surgeon appeared briefly and requested that I sign a piece of paper for him to go ahead with the procedure. At no time had he verbally explained what risks were involved in the procedure. My wife picked me up from the hospital on the same day and took me home. Very shortly afterwards, a couple of days, I was in great pain. I tried to contact the surgeon but he was ‘on leave’. A friend who is a nurse suggested that under the circumstances that I went to my GP. I saw my GP who prescribed Oromorph and Diazepam. Although each medication must have had a Patient Information Leaflet I was in so much pain that I took the medication as prescribed by my doctor. The pain continued to get worse. I went back to see him again and he prescribed zomorph to be taken twice daily. The pain continued to get worse and I was taken to A&E. There a Dr said that I was to take 2.5 ml of oromorph every half hour until the pain subsided. This I did. It took most of the day and a lot of oromorph for the pain to become bearable. I eventually returned to see the surgeon who gave me Celebrex and Duragesic patches. I followed the medical advice with the pain medicine but ended up stopping breathing and losing consciousness from an opiate overdose and was rushed to hospital. I was told to stop taking the morphine which I did at once. I may presume that I was ‘cold turkeyed’. This was about Jan 2006.
A few days later I became tearful for what appeared no apparent reason. At no time was I told that this was to be a short term drug. I started to shake violently and cried uncontrollably (I presume this was a reaction to being taken off the morphine too quickly).
I was taken into the local psychiatric hospital. I was still taking diazepam. No medical professional had seen fit to check how long I had been taking this drug and the dangers of me taking it over a prolonged time. Whilst in psychiatric hospital I was given a drug called Trazadone. I was not told what this was for: On the first night I took the tablet my whole body started to burn and I felt very unwell. I went to see the nurse, whose name I have forgotten and he said it would be ok. On the second and subsequent occasions I took the drug my body would burn during the night. This went on for some time. I was discharged and felt a bit better but not really ‘with it’, I was also irritable. I was continuing to take the Trazadone and the diazepam. The burning continued. At about Easter I became very ill with flu like symptoms and my GP diagnosed flu. I now believe this to be an incorrect diagnosis and I was in fact experiencing withdrawal symptoms from diazepam. I would take my nocte medication at about 10pm and awake at about 2 to 3 am with my body burning. Because this had first happened when I had taken the Trazadone I was of the opinion it was this drug which was causing the problem. I managed to get through to my out patient psychiatrist and told him of the problem. I had developed a rash on my face and was given the advice to stop taking the Trazadone. At that time I was taking 200mg. My GP gave the advice to cut down to 100 mg for three days and then to 50mg for three days and finally stop. From what I have subsequently learned this time schedule for stopping the trazadone was far too abrupt.
Sadly the nocturnal burning continued. My GP gave me the advice to continue taking the diazepam as normal and there would be times when I would just forget to take a tablet and so I would slowly come off this medication. It was in no way and at no time structured and monitored by my GP. I have since been told by my surgeon that this was not negligent but "bad practise". Also several groups involved with diazepam withdrawal have said that this was a bad withdrawal protocol.
Then came the 4am ‘seizures’. These turned out to be anxiety attacks. My whole body would shake violently and I experienced the most frightening muscle cramps and muscle tensioning. Prior to this I had never experienced anxiety at all with the exception of waiting for my wife to be ready on time when we were going out to a function and this was extremely mild, could call it annoyance really. The ‘attacks’ became more frequent and lasted longer. I was taken to hospital and given gas and air and sent home. Still the attacks continued. On one occasion I was taken to A&E and later transferred to the psychiatric hospital. The Doctors wanted to discharge me but my wife insisted that I stay so that they could observe the attacks and do something about them. They did observe, and I can only conclude they misdiagnosed me because I was told to go to my room and do my ‘relaxation’. It appeared to me that since I had not had these anxiety attacks before then something was causing them. I thought that it may be connected to the diazepam. The staff at psychiatric hospital appeared not to have made the connection. I was eventually discharged.
I began to feel very very strange and went to see a GP. He said I was depressed and prescribed escitalopram, 5mg. I was not told what type of drug this was, what effect it could have on me etc. Trusting the Doctor I duly took the medication. I was still taking the diazepam. My GP said that I should not drive whilst taking the drug so wanting to drive I requested to come off it. From the advice of the psychiatrist at the psychiatric hospital, I was told to cut from 10mg to 7.5mg for five days, then cut by another 2.5mg for five days and so on until I was finally off the drug. This I did and initially felt ok. I had been on the drug for 4 months. After about ten days or so ‘all hell let loose’, I had a most horrendous anxiety attack and tried to commit suicide. I was taken back to psychiatric hospital. My dose of citalopram was increased to 30mg and then 50mg. I continued to experience the most frightening anxiety attacks.
Whilst in hospital, at these times I was told to go to my room and ‘practise my relaxation’. Every time I tried to lie down my stomach muscles would cramp and my body would twist up. I was now extremely frightened and very worried. The staff in the hospital did not seem to care. They would say see the Doctor and they continued to give out medication. At some time I was given Olanzapine. I was informed that this would be for a short period only and that it was to improve my mood. I continued to take this drug for several weeks. The hospital psychiatrist said that I was to take zopiclone since sleep was important. I was not aware that zopiclone was a benzo like drug and addictive . This worked for about four or five days and then I would not sleep at all. The nurses said that I had slept and one said that he could tell so by listening to my breathing whilst he stood at the door! However I knew damn well I was not sleeping. I continued to take the zopiclone for about three weeks and since by now they were no longer effective, I stopped. Several days later I experienced terrifying anxiety attacks. I was sweating profusely during the night. I explained this to the staff who said it was because the weather was hot. It was not the case. During the day I would not sweat but during the night my bedclothes would become very wet. I could feel the water running off my head and chest! I was not sleeping and was told that if I was not sleeping I was to rise from my bed, walk to the office and tell the nurses. I thought that this was absurd! After about three or four nights of this one of the night nurses, Shane said that it had become a ‘battle of wills’. This was totally untrue and so after this I saw very little point in rising from my bed to go to the office. I would have no sleep at all and just watch the clock go round.
The psychiatrist said that I was not making progress and would try ECT. I was not happy about this and so he stopped the citalopram put me on 60 mg Duloxetine.
I was now in fear of my life and hated the place. My wife would bring me home during the day and I would return at night. There seemed little point in continuing in the manner and I was eventually discharged. I would just lay around as I had not energy or strength. At my discharge I was taking 3.75mg Olanzapine and had been taking that for about two months. It was stopped immediately.
I went to a local pub for a meal and could not stop shaking. I decided to try and get some information from the internet and from what I had learned and to whom I had spoken BAT (Battle Against Tranquillisers) and CITA (Council for Information on Tranquillisers and Antidepressants), I had been taken off the diazepam far too quickly, would have to go back on, stabilise and come off more slowly if I was to return to any sort of normality. I saw my GP who put me on 15 mg Diazepam. My GP dropped my dose of duloxetine from 60mg to 30mg in one go! I contacted CITA who suggested that I went on citalopram and my dose has been slowly dropped to 18mg. BAT has helped me get from 15mg to 12mg.
I am in a catch 22 situation. I need to get some relief from the pain in my back to help me get off the diazepam but the anxiety from the diazepam is making my pain worse.
My GP has told me to wait and get my pain sorted out before I try any further in coming off the diazepam. At present I am just in an existence. I am very depressed and can do very little. I do not want to spend the rest of my life like this.
I was in pain before I had the radio frequency procedure but the pain is now many times worse. I am fervently of the opinion that something did not go according to plan with the surgery and made my pain so much worse. Indeed my surgeon said the procedure is a bit ‘hit or miss’. I have read that I should have been awake whilst the procedure was taking place so that the surgeon could ‘get the right spot’. I was heavily sedated all the time and totally unaware of anything which was happening.
When I first met my psychiatrist I was trembling and shaking and I told him that I was of the opinion that the diazepam was causing it. He said that my manifestation of symptoms was not related to diazepam and that the symptoms were anxiety. I now find it incredulous that the psychiatrist did not recognise that the anxiety could have been related to the diazepam. I repeatedly said that my continued symptoms, shaking, anxiety, burning, depression were related to the diazepam. I was repeatedly told that it was not possible since I was now ‘off’ the drug. I find this incredulous since me as a lay person can find so much information about the drug to discover that the symptoms can continue for around a year after the patient is completely ‘off the drug.’ I am of the opinion that the psychiatrist and some of the staff at psychiatric hospital have made major mistakes in my diagnosis.
At about June 2006 I was still experiencing pain. My GP tried dihydrocodeine (DF118) to be taken 3 times a day. I was almost unconscious. This was stopped. I was tried on Ibuprofen. This did not work. I was given Oxycontin. This did not work and was duly taken off it. I was referred to St Thomas's hospital pain clinic who said that opiates would not work anyway and to stop them. I had returned to codiene phosphate x 3 to get an edge off the pain but stopped them on the advice of St Thomas’ (another cold turkey).
I can’t remember exactly when but I was in great pain and extremely anxious. I was shaking violently and decided to take an overdose. I did this one morning but decided to drive to the hospital in the evening. I had taken 250mg diazepam and god knows how many acupan pain killers. I was checked and sent home later that night. My days continued to be hell. A great deal of pain in my legs, and withdrawal symptoms. I could not function at all. I would walk around the house, not knowing what to do.
My Brother from Yorkshire came down to see me and suggested I go back with him for a few days to give my wife a break. I did and travelled in significant pain. Whilst up there I felt impotent and not able to function. I was still taking the diazepam and the citalopram. Again I had had enough and made another attempt at taking my life. My brother brought me back to Maidstone and I was admitted to the psychiatric hospital again.
I was given 3x 5mg of seroquel per day. All I could do was lay around on my bed.
I was discharged 10 days later with a repeat prescription. I continued taking the seroquel but could not function as I was out of my head. After several weeks I was informed that this drug was contra-indicated in diazepam withdrawal. I was stopped with immediate effect (another cold turkey). At home I developed more shaking and writhing of arms and legs. I became desperate and tried to jump out of the window.
The GP was called and he said he thought the symptoms were drug related. He immediately cut my citalopram from 30mg to 20mg. I have been experiencing extreme anxiety and severe pain ever since.
My life is now virtually over. I spend most of the day walking around aimlessly and if I attempt anything more than making a cup of tea or a sandwhich I get severe pain. Today like most days I have done virtually nothing except cry from the pain. The out patient psychiatrist said that he had a multi disciplinary meeting and was of the opinion my anxiety was increasing the pain and I should find something meaningful to do during the day!
My wife and family are really feeling the strain. I try so very hard to do things, to get dressed, to have a bath, to walk a bit, to try and get up from where I am and help my wife but it is so so difficult.
I am absolutely terrified for the quality of my life in the future. My only hope is to try and get off the 8mg diazepam and 20mg citalopram and pray the anxiety will leave me, the pain will decrease in intensity and that my ability to function will return. I am attending the pain clinic and although I know that they cannot help with the effects the drugs have had on me, I do hope that they can help me with the pain.
From being a man running a property company with £2.5million assets, a senior Freemason and involved with other charity work in December 2006 I now have no quality of life. One thing I have learned is that many medical professionals do not always know what they are doing and treat human beings as lumps of meat to experiment on.
With the exception of being exhausted by drugs and pain, I am of sound mind!
Please please God nothing happens to me but if it does this is my story (and I am sure I may have forgotten some things.) How could my GP have left me for 4 months on the diazepam? Why was I not told about the Trazadone causing me the burning? Why was I taken off both drugs so quickly? Why did the Psychiatrist not recognise my shaking and anxiety as withdrawal symptoms from a cold turkey of Diazepam. Why was I given bad advice and allow me to go back on the poison when reinstating after being off for a while doesn't often work? Why do so many Doctors, and Nurses in psychiatric hospitals know so very little about the drugs they administer? If I have written anything slanderous its because I feel the rest of my life has been taken away from me.
Ernie.