Episode 471: Breaking Free: How Cannabis Helped Him Escape Opioid Addiction

Welcome to Cannabis Health Radio, where we share powerful real life stories from people around the world who are using cannabis as medicine. The goal of this podcast is to raise awareness of the healing potential of cannabis and is not intended as medical advice. And now, here's your host, Ian Jessup.

Foreign.

Welcome to the Cannabis Health Radio podcast. I'm Ian Jessup. Now, before we start, I want to say here are some frightening statistics. According to the national center for Drug abuse statistics, over 100,000 people in the US die each year from drug overdoses. Opioids are a factor in 75% of those deaths. And, and here's the frightening statistic. Since 1999, one and a quarter million people in the US have died from drug overdoses. Today, we'll hear how one man broke free from opioid addiction and reclaimed his life, not through more pharmaceuticals, but through the healing power of cannabis. And joining us from Indiana to tell us his remarkable story is Rod Sorrell. Rod, it's good of you to do this. Greatly appreciate it. How do you feel today compared to when you were hooked on opioids?

Night and day, Completely night and day. It was, it's. It's just a whole nother world. I have hope. I have a house, I have a family. Back then, I didn't have anything.

You know, one of the.

No hope.

No hope. Right. One of the things that I found fascinating in those statistics is that in the two world wars, the US Lost over half a million people. And within a couple of years, the opioid problem in the United States, they will lose three times that many. And that's frightening as hell. Yeah. Now, can you start by telling us a bit about yourself? What was life like before opioids entered the picture?

Life was pretty good. You know, simple life. You know, I worked hard. Working, I believe. You know, I have three kids. You know, they do pretty good. You know, they're. We lived in New Jersey, moved back to Indiana. You know, a little culture shock for them. But, you know, it, it was good. And they moved. You know, we live here in Indiana and it's a nice little life. 2015, I got sick with. I, I had a gallstone stuck in my pancreatic duct. And so they thought it was a, you know, gall, you know, gallbladder. So they took my gallbladder out. Within a month, I was as sick as I ever was before. And, you know, I didn't know what it was. So I went to the hospital and I had a, you know, a gallstone stuck in my pancreatic duct. I was in the hospital for the next seven months.

Wow.

Bed rest, 20, you know, every four hours, 24, 7, 3, 6, 5. I was either getting fentanyl, dilaudid or morphine, whatever they had, for seven months.

Every four hours.

Every four hours. Then when I got out of the hospital, those seven months, I basically had tubes. They were trying to drain the, like, inflammation around my pancreas. So they were trying to save the pancreas. Well, in, you know, between that time when I was at the hospital, before I went back into the hospital, that's when the, you know, they were handing out, you know, pills, you know, 250, 500 at a time. And if you run out, hey, come back and get some more. You know, there's plenty. There's no slow. So, you know, I felt great during that time frame because I wasn't missing out. I, you know, I was probably taking twice as many pills as I should have been taken, but I wasn't sick. But then I went back into the hospital for surgery in April 2015, I had surgery. I died on the table. They called the kids in, said, you know, he's not going to make it. Say your goodbyes. Well, I'm a tough old bird. I lived. But for the next seven months, I laid in that bed again. So out of that year, I spent 15 months. Out of two years, I spent 15 months in a hospital bed getting the drug in my vein every four hours. And then when I got out of the hospital first, you know, first time out of the hospital, you know, I felt great. You know, this is great. You know, I'm finally home. Well, it took about a month, and my body wasn't getting that stuff they wanted, and I got sick. Go back into the hospital, spend a month, get better, get out. About a month, I go back into the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was out of the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was out of the hospital. They had me on feeding tubes. I had one doctor ask me if I'm eating. I had another doctor ask me why I'm not eating. This went on for five years. Jesus, five years. I went through that. There wasn't ever a doctor that said, hey, you think maybe you're addicted to this stuff? You know, the, you know, the hair, you know, the drugs were giving you. No one ever asked that question. Never. I go in and say, well, you're sick. You know, I've had family members, you know, tell me, well, I thought you were sick. Well, I was sick. I was very sick, but I didn't know how sick I really was.

Did you know, Rod, that you were addicted to the opioids at that point? No.

No.

You just thought you were sick?

Yes. I had no idea. No idea even. You know, I had a friend come over. I had been sick for five and a half years. I had a girlfriend that was living with me and God bless her heart, I was so sick and she was devoted to me. You know, I would go to the hospital, she'd go to the hospital with me, she'd sleep in the window. I mean, that, that's the kind of dedication this person had to me. Her mother was sick, I was sick. I just think the relationship was too much. So she chose her mother and, you know, she went home. Well, that's where the miracle happened. When she left, one of my roommates said, you know, I think she was trying to kill you, because soon as she left, I went 360. I had a friend come over and, you know, she saw how sick I looked. You know, I was, I was gaunt, I was, you know, pale. I just, I, you know, I was down to £150. I'm a big guy. Okay. That's, you know, for me, that's, you know, I was like a rail, you know, she goes, we have to start smoking, you know, pot. And I said, I'm not going to smoke that. That's. No, no. Why would I, you know, why? That's, you know, we were always told when we were growing up, you know, this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs. You know, that's what they told us. When I was younger, I moved, I grew up in Indiana, but I moved out to New Jersey because I thought marijuana was a problem. I was smoking marijuana back when I was a kid, you know, and I, you know, in my mind I was also going to church and I'm not even going to go into that. It was a lot of, you know, hell raising and stuff going on and, you know, a lot of crazy things happened. But in my mind it was the marijuana that was causing the problems. So I moved from Indiana to New Jersey to clean myself up. I did not smoke marijuana for 35 years.

Years.

I was against it. It was, yeah, you know, it's, it's what, you know, I was told it.

Was for hippies, right?

Yeah, it was for hippies. It's for, you know, derelicts. You know, it's, it's not a medicine. It's something that's, you know, it's going to rot your brain. Yeah, okay. It's, it didn't rot my brain. It opened my eyes. It opened my eyes to what they were doing.

Do you remember after 30 years, the first time you smoked it when you were sick and how you felt?

Yes.

Tell us about that.

Yes, it was. It's not as much that I was sick. It's that the nausea went away. That was my problem. It was nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. So what would happen when I got to the hospital because I had vomited so much, and that's one of the opioid withdrawal is the vomiting. So I would get to the hospital and I would present pancreatitis, because that's what I had. So every time I'd go to the hospital, oh, you've got pancreatitis. Here, let's give you some more drugs. It was never, you're sick, you know. You know, I mean, that's all it was, is you were sick. So, you know, we're going to give you more drugs. It was never, you know, maybe there's a problem here. And as soon as I started smoking that marijuana, my life went. It was a 360. It changed. I no longer had the nausea. I no longer had the, you know, the vomiting, the. I had afib. My afib is gone. I was a smoker, you know, cigarettes. I stopped smoking cigarettes.

Wow, a drinker.

I haven't had a drink since 2014.

That's remarkable.

The only thing I do is marijuana, and it has saved my life.

Now, do you just smoke?

Yeah, well, I make gummies, I eat gummies. I do. I make my own edibles. So, you know, I, you know, I'm a connoisseur. You know, I don't, you know, I, I don't sell. I don't, you know, I, I, if, if I could do anything, I would get everybody a joint. Let's chill out. That's right. You know, just chill out. You know. You know, I've written a book, okay. And I'm not published yet, but that's not why I'm here. The reason I'm here is the truth of what marijuana can do. And people will not see that. They're afraid to see that because they've been taught, especially our generation has been taught, that marijuana is this terrible thing. Marijuana has never killed anybody in an overdose, but six shots an hour, you can overdose on alcohol.

Yep.

But we celebrate alcohol on every one of our football games, a baseball game. There's alcohol everywhere. Yeah, but they don't talk about that double standard.

One of the reasons you can't die from A cannabis overdose is because it doesn't bind to areas of the brain that deal with vital functions like breathing. Yes, but alcohol does.

Yes.

And other drugs do. Yes, but, you know, it's just so frustrating over the years of doing this that the medical authorities and particularly the politicians don't seem to have any interest in a natural medication that does not kill people, but makes them well. And we all know why. Because the pharmaceutical industry makes a lot of money on people being sick. They donate a lot of money to the politicians. They do, and it's just a vicious circle. And people like yourself are caught in it.

Yes, yes. It's a medicine that they can't control. That's the problem. They can't control it. They can't have their finger. I mean, hey, if Eli Lilly, they wants to grow marijuana, hey, grow marijuana, who cares? Go ahead. Hell, they feel there's a place here in Greenfield, Indiana that, you know, they've got, you know, 500 acres, a thousand acres. They could plant all the marijuana they wanted in there. And I'm sure they could have a decent crop, you know. You know, not even talking about hemp. You know, our forefathers. Okay, come on. You know, our forefathers were smoking, you know, tobacco. You think they weren't smoking hemp, too?

Yeah.

Thomas Jefferson didn't smoke a little hemp. Maybe he didn't inhale, but, you know.

Come on, Rod, what, what was the, the lowest point for you in your opioid?

The lowest point? I. I was suicidal. I was suicidal. I was ready to. In fact, I was in. They, they took me to the hospital because I was suicidal. I had a 2 year old. My 2 year old granddaughter at the time I was sitting on my couch, she was, you know, they were living with us, but she just came up and she sat in my lap just out of nowhere and she just sat there and fell asleep in my lap. I cried and I cried and I cried. How could I leave this child to pick up my pieces? That's what I thought. And it was there, right after that is when the marijuana was introduced to me. That's when it happened. It was, it, was it a miracle that, you know, that it came into my life? I don't know. But I hadn't smoked in 35 years. I had friends that did, but I never did because, you know, I, I was in the retail industry, so I couldn't really smoke. So I didn't for that reason, but I wasn't against it. I just didn't do it.

You know, your granddaughter Sitting in your lap was really telling you something.

Yep.

And that is a powerful, powerful story. Yeah, yeah. Because I know I've got a two year old granddaughter. And you know, when you have grandchildren, it's not like having your own child. It's your own child having developed into this fabulous human being that has produced someone from you and you watch both of them grow over the years and it's extremely heartwarming. One of the things, good things about grandchildren is that you can give them back to the parents and you don't have to deal with them every day.

Most definitely.

Right. Rod, what was the hardest part for you in your transition from opioids to cannabis? Or was there a hard part?

There wasn't any. It was like overnight it changed everything. I mean, I have not been back in the hospital since I started smoking and I was in the hospital constantly. You know, maybe some of it was the granddaughter. You know, it really changed my perspective. But in the same respect, if it wasn't for the marijuana, where would I be? You know, and that's another thing I ask is, you know, there's so many people that don't have that. So if they get, you know, sick, I mean, I have my brother in law that just recently passed. Now he had a lot of back problems and he had a lot of problems internally. Okay. He had been on regular painkillers for years and years. You know, I don't know his story. I wasn't there to, you know, to see it, but you know, it just, it got the best of him. My best friend's son, back in 2015, when I first got sick, he died of. It wasn't fentanyl, it was heroin. He died of a heroin overdose. And that was in 2015. My. I have a nephew that are not a nephew, a cousin, lived out in Drums, Pennsylvania. In a long story short, Christmas morning a couple of years ago, he had gotten, you know, something he thought was, you know, gets an eight ball, you know, cocaine or whatever it was fentanyl. His mother found him, he was laying on the floor dead on Christmas. I've got two 30 year old nieces that are so strung out on this crap. You know, they're on the methadone. You know, whether the methadone or they're doing the heroin, I don't know what they're doing. But if I could get to them and give them the marijuana that they could use. But you can't because if you're, if you test positive for marijuana when you're on the methadone, or on the Suboxone, they take it away from you.

Wow.

The sad part is the withdrawal from that methadone is no better than the withdrawal from the heroin itself. It can kill you. The withdrawal from alcohol can kill you. The withdrawal from marijuana. I'm going to be pissed off for a couple of days. I'm probably going to be real edgy, but I'm not gonna, you know, go off the handle. I'm not gonna die. You can die from that other stuff. Marijuana will not kill you. It was a saving, saving grace for me. It saved my life.

I suspect you wouldn't be around today if it wasn't for marijuana.

No, because I would have went to the street. I would have had to go to the streets to get it, and God only. And that was when, you know, that was probably 20, 19. Right before COVID Yeah, right before COVID is when I, you know, is when I got better, you know, and if I had been in the hospital, sick, you know, still on that stuff during COVID I probably wouldn't have been here. I would have succumbed to it. Do you been in hospital?

Yeah. I would think that you consider yourself pretty damn lucky.

Yes.

Yeah. You've survived what, you know, thousands and thousands of people have not survived.

Yeah. Because of the plant.

Because of the plant. Yeah. What do you say to those people who say that cannabis is a gateway drug?

You're damn right it is.

Gateway to better.

Damn right it is.

To better health.

Yes, it was my gateway off what they were trying, what they were giving me, it was my gateway. So, yes, it is a gateway drug, but it's a. It can also be a gateway to better health. It's just not a gateway to hell, you know, like they told us, you know. Oh, you know, it's. It's devil's weed, you know, it's going to Devil's lettuce. Okay, you know what? I'm here to tell you, it's not. It's not that. I mean, I. You know, I'll be honest. I smoked before we talked about. Could you tell I'm stoned?

No, not at all.

No. But if I. But if I was sitting here drinking or if I was sitting there on heroin, you think you'd be able to tell the difference?

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I, you know, I talk about it in my book, you know, Cheech and Chong and, you know, Snoop Dogg. You know, these people were very famous for doing what they were doing. What were they doing? They were out there smoking token, and they weren't famous because they smoked it, but in spite of it because they weren't out there, you know, doing the hard drugs, you know, doing the, you know, the heroin or, you know, whatever it is. You know, some of these rock stars, you know, they're lucky to be alive. All the stuff they did back in the day, but, you know, well, look.

At Michael Phelps, the American swimmer who's won more medals than any other person in the history of the Olympics.

Yes.

He smokes. You saying Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world. He smokes.

Yes.

And if it was bad, then would they be able to have achieved what they achieved in life?

No. Yes.

No. I mean, they couldn't do it. Having a. Having a 26 or of vodka before an event.

No, absolutely not. And, you know, you know, what's funny is every, you know, every one of my doctor, I mean, I've got a lot of doctors, every one of my doctors, I told that I smoked. And, you know, not one of them have ever told me not to smoke. They've all told me not to drink.

Yeah, interesting.

They've, you know, I've had one. Well, you know it's illegal, don't you? So I go, no, sorry, yeah, you know, yes, we know it's illegal, but, you know, that's, you know, but they never. Not a. One of them said, you know, you shouldn't smoke none. And that says something, I think in.

The back of their mind, they feel that there is some benefit to cannabis.

Yes.

But because of the profession they're in.

They'Re not allowed to.

They're not allowed to mention its benefits. Yes. Because they may lose their license.

Yes. And, you know, every Indian, you know, they all saw me at my worst. They saw me. You know, there's not a doctor that, you know, that I have now that didn't see me when I was, you know, that guy that was ready to commit suicide. They all saw me there, and those same doctors see me now.

Did they ever get rid of the stone in your pancreatic duct?

Yeah, well, the surgery, when they opened me up, they took three quarters of my pancreas, my spleen, my gallbladder, part of my colon, part of my small intestine and part of my stomach. I had an ostomy bag for two and a half years. So, yeah, they. They got that stone and then some. That's the reason I was in the hospital for that long from, you know, the recovery. That. And I've got pictures of that. I could send you as well. At one point, they even Nicked a vein and I was bleeding internally. I threw up a big puddle of just blood. So they rushed me back to the hospital and had to have another surgery. And it, you know, it just at one point was one surgery after another after another after another. And, you know, I mean, it's no wonder why I was addicted to the drugs. You know, I was, you know, I was in a hospital. It was, it was constant, constant. So, you know, I, I'm not surprised that it happened, but, you know, I'm surprised that I didn't know that it happened, you know. You know, like I said, you know, my story's different from others because I didn't go to the streets to find it, you know, and, you know, so, you know, I think that makes me the lucky one there as well.

Mm.

Because the fighter had to go to the streets, you know, speak to the streets. I'm not going to condone this, but this is something in my book as well that I talk about. A couple of months ago, the lady that introduced me to marijuana, one of her best friends lives in Indianapolis, she had a 15 year old son. Okay, Alex, I'm not going to condone this, but he was going to sell some marijuana, okay. So he goes, you know, to where he usually sells that he meets some kid that, you know, he's probably seen 100 times. Somebody's brother, somebody's cousin. Well, the kid's only 15. So his, his, you know, he asked his sister to drive. So she drives him and they get there and instead of it going smoothly, well, the guy reaches through the window and decides to rob him. Well, the kid's freaked out, you know, and he, you know, puts it on the gas and he hears a, he looks over, his sister's been shot.

Wow.

Dead from a little, you know, an ounce of marijuana.

Jesus.

I don't condone a 15 year old selling it. But you know what? You can't get it here in Indiana anywhere. I mean, you can, you can get it from the streets, but with the streets comes danger. That's another thing too. You know, I, I, you know, I, I don't buy my marijuana here in Indiana. I go, I have, every state around me sells, you know, marijuana. I could go to any state and get it. Indiana is so backwards, you know, it took us 75 years to get alcohol on Sunday. I get that. Are we going to be the last one to ever have marijuana available here? I hope not. You know, I don't care if marijuana is legalized. I don't give two tarts about that. Decriminalize it. Take it so we can have it as a medication. Yeah, it is a medication.

You know those statistics that I quoted at the beginning of the podcast on the opioid deaths on a per capita basis, in terms of states, Indiana ranks 10th in opioid deaths.

Yeah. And we're one of the smallest states.

Yeah. What, 6.9 million people? Just under 7 million people.

Yep.

And you're number 10 in opioid deaths per capita. And I think, Jesus, that's, you know, the politicians have got to look at those statistics and say, what are we doing wrong?

Yes.

Where is this not working for the population? But I suspect they're not doing that well.

I have actually sent letters. I sent a letter to the governor of Indiana. I had a friend of mine that handed it to him directly, so I know he has a copy of a letter that I sent. I also sent two letters to the President of the United States. I'm waiting back for a response from him. I hope I get something. You know, he has talked about, you know, decriminalizing, you know, and, you know, it's. It's, you know, one of the biggest things disproportionately, you know, the black community. Okay. You know, because, you know, there's, you know, that's where they go a lot of the times for the crime, you know, marijuana. Okay. You know, what if we take marijuana off the books, maybe that'll take some of the pressure off, you know, the inner cities. You know, you're not always chasing down the, you know, the guy with pot. I mean, come on, he's got a joint. Give me a break.

Yeah.

You know.

You know, Rod, looking back, what's the most important lesson that you've learned through this journey that you've been on?

The. Marijuana is not the bad guy. It's not the bad guy. There's. There's too many double standards out there. You know, I'm not going to pick on marijuana, but there's so many double standards of marijuana or not marijuana, crap. Alcohol.

Alcohol, yeah.

You know, it's, you know, it's everywhere. You know, and, you know, not to harp on it, but, you know, my father was an alcoholic. You know, I've got a lot of, you know, family members that are alcoholics and, you know, that wrecks. Wrecks lives. You know, my father wasn't a kind man. He just wasn't. And a lot of the times, because he was drunk, you know, whether he could help it or not, I don't know. But, you know, it is what it is now.

Yeah. I mean, I don't care where you go, but you see people who consume cannabis, they're happy, they're friendly, they're enjoying life. And then you see people who have taken too much alcohol, they want to get into a fight, they're pissed off with someone, they're angry. It brings out the negativity in a person, whereas cannabis seems to bring out the, the joy and the fulfillment of life in a person.

Yes.

Because I, you know, I don't know whether I should say this publicly, but my wife and I, we kind of have a psychedelic Saturday where, where we take a small amount of cannabis.

Okay.

And we just chat and laugh and we have, have fun.

Right.

And so we call it psychedelic Saturday. There you go. It's, it's a good time. But you know, if you take too much alcohol, I mean, God, you feel sick, you feel horrible the next day.

Yeah.

You don't have that with cannabis. The only thing with cannabis is if you take too much, you get thirsty.

Yes.

You might sleep a lot.

Yes.

God forbid if we sleep a lot. Yes. What that can do for you.

Yes. And you know what, you know, what I find is that, you know, I, I look back and wonder why alcohol does what it does and why marijuana does what it does. I remember as a child, you know, or child younger, first time, you know, you get sick from drinking too much. I mean, we've all done it, we've all thrown up, you know, we've all met the porcelain God, you know, from, you know, having too much alcohol. That's alcohol poisoning, by the way. Our body's trying to get it out. Okay. But we go back and do it again. Yeah, but with marijuana, they say, oh, well, I didn't like it the first time. Well, the reason you didn't like it the first time because you weren't hooked. Alcohol hooks you from day one. Oh, I'd like that. I want to do it again. Marijuana doesn't do that. It doesn't give you, it doesn't make you want to come shake it. Hey, you know what I mean?

Have you ever given, given cannabis to your dog?

You know, bad story. I had a. Hey, it's okay. Sorry. I had a. She was about a two year old box or mix. And I had three edibles that, you know, my, I was going to eat.

Yeah.

And you know, two other people that were there, so they were, you know, one edible was, you know, enough for a human. Well, I set them beside me because they were in the freezer. Well, I look Over. And the next thing I know, this dog had eaten all three of them. I'm thinking, oh, crap. Well, number one, they're chocolate. So she shouldn't have had chocolate. But, you know, there wasn't. There was more marijuana than there was chocolate. Okay, so one of those was enough to get a, you know, 200 pound person feeling pretty good. She was about 40 pounds. I knew it wasn't gonna kill her. But that dog, I'm telling you, she slept well. You know, he would wake up and she would just like jump and she'd look around, she'd just put her head back down. Next morning she woke up, she was hungry. She had a great day. That damn dog.

Yeah. Rod, you've got a great story and thank you for sharing it and welcome. I'm glad you switched to cannabis and I'm so glad that your granddaughter sat in your lap and.

Yes.

Helped you out. Yes, she is.

She is the light of my life. She lives with me now. She lives with me part time on the weekends. She's a little older now. She's about eight years old now. So.

Yeah.

But, you know, know, special. So special. I just, I get, you know.

Yeah.

Love. So much love.

That's great. Thanks for doing this. I greatly appreciate it.

Yes, thank you, Ian. Appreciate it.

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Sam.