After I broke my arm and underwent surgery to rebuild it, I was given Vicodin for the pain, and it worked. It kept the pain at bay when I took it regularly.
Forty minutes after taking a pill, I felt the rush and it felt good.
But over time, as I healed, the pain subsided. I built up a tolerance to Vicodin, and the rush stopped coming.
Take more? No. That leads to addiction.
Instead, ease off the drugs, and switch to Tylenol.
And then, when I’m better, and my tolerance subsides…
I hope I didn’t sell off my stash.
Tag: drugs
Addict
When you’re an addict in Vegas, you need to be a little bit more specific about “going to see your dealer.”
Are you looking to score some coke or heroin, or do you have a table at the casino?
Maybe your dealer is your dealer, and you’re scoring drugs at the table.
This is a really dumb thing to do, because there’s the pit boss, watching over everything, and the cameras watching what they don’t spot.
It’s one thing to comp a customer free drinks, as long as the cash goes to the casino, and not into the dealer’s pocket.
One or Zero
The pain scale goes from zero to ten.
At zero, you feel no pain or discomfort.
At ten, that’s all you feel.
It’s not easy, coming up with an objective measure for a subjective experience like pain, but when you’re in pain, you’ll come up with a number pretty damn quick.
There were times in the hospital when I was rolling around in agony, calling for the nurse to bring me pain pills.
You don’t calmly say nine. You growl it, you whimper it, or you scream it.
Then, relief comes… slowly…
One and zero never felt so damned good.
MLK
In Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, he shares a lot of dreams he had about racial equality, equal opportunities, and freedom for everyone.
It’s an inspirational speech that still gives people hope in the struggle for civil rights across the globe.
However, if he’d have been taking Vicodin, like I am taking now for a busted elbow, he’d have had dreams of dinosaurs with laser guns fighting in volcanoes, because this crap really fucks up your brain.
I’m not sure that would have helped with civil rights, but it sure would have made for an awesome movie.
The Pills
Today, I broke my elbow.
I got careless on my bike and fell.
Tomorrow, I will have orthroscopic surgery to set the bone with pins.
Until then I am laying in this hospital bed, texting friends with my good hand and writing crap like this.
Sadly, the medication is not strong enough to make this story interesting.
All things considered, I’d rather none of this be interesting. I’d rather have had a twisted or sprained elbow and a taxi cab home.
Or no injury at all.
The nurses here with my pills I’ll ask for stronger stuff. (for your sake)
A Time
Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that there is a time for everything.
To die.
To weep.
To mourn.
Every time I look at the shelf I put your box of ashes on, these are the only three I can remember.
So, I put down the empty bottle of vodka, pick up a Bible, and read it to remind myself that there are other times.
To laugh.
To mend.
To heal.
And for a moment, I smile.
Then, a twenty-dollar bill falls out.
I put down the Bible, pick up the twenty, and think:
Oh good. I can get more vodka now.
100 Bottles
There are a hundred bottles of beer on the wall.
But I’m not going to take one down and pass it around.
Because I paid for all this beer, and instead of keeping it in the fridge or a cooler like I suggested, my stupid roommates lined the bottles up on the wall.
A few bottles have already fallen off the wall and shattered. Who will clean up this mess?
I pick up a bottle, open it, drink the beer, and break it on the counter.
Waving it around, I shout: “STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY BEER, YOU IDIOTS!”
Melt Away
The moment Joe stepped into the shower, he felt like all his troubles were melting away.
And from the puddle of bloody goo the police found clogging the drain of Joe’s tub, it appeared that Joe melted along with them.
How this happened, the coroner never quite figured out.
They looked over everything… the half-empty bottle of tequila, his prescriptions…
“It says DO NOT TAKE WITH ALCOHOL,” said the coroner. “But that just causes liver damage, not this.”
The Army was interested for a while and did some experiments on prisoners, but all it did was get them really drunk.
Song Fight
During the American Revolution, to symbolize the casting off of British rule, the lyrics were stripped from the song “God Save The King” and changed to “My Country Tis Of Thee.”
Canadians, being a part of the British Commonwealth, still sing the original version.
This makes for some interesting situations at karaoke bars on the border.
Put enough drinks in the crowd, fire up the tune, and you’ll get both sides trying to shout each other down.
Sometimes, a fight breaks out. People get hurt, glasses and chairs and tables get broken.
And the Mexican laborers sweep up the damage.
Drugs Tomorrow
The more we learn about how the brain works, the better the drugs we’re making.
I’m not talking about curing mental illness or anxiety or brain tumors. I’m talking about the fun stuff.
Acid trips that never go bad.
Highs higher than the highest high.
Maybe it’ll be with pills. Or needles.
I’m betting on the direct route, using magnetic spin.
Quantum-level manipulation with room-temperature superconductors.
Put your head in the scanner, put your head in the cloud.
No more growing.
No more chemistry labs.
No more dealers.
No more gang wars.
Just make sure the outlet’s grounded this time.