You're in OPIATE ADDICTION recovery, but you need SURGERY?!?! (Live Interview)

Hey, welcome to Put the Shuttle Down. This is our Facebook Live.

It's about having to take pain medication while in recovery.

If you're new to us, I am Amber Hollingsworth, master addiction counselor and founder of Hope for Family Recovery Center.

And I am David McNeese. I'm founder of Greenville Transitions, which is a men's sober living here in Greenville, South Carolina.

And today your expertise, though, comes from something else.

Yes.

So you have to give your qualifications to speak on the subject.

Okay. So I am a person in recovery seven years. And recently I had to have a surgery. I had my tonsils removed, my adenoids, my deviated septum fixed, and they also did a thing called a turbinate reduction. So they pretty much just like cleared all.

They overhauled it all out in there.

They did it all at one time, which that's how I wanted it. I didn't want to go back for multiple procedures.

Let me ask you this, though. What were you addicted to?

That's a tough question. A lot of people would say I was a garbage can. That's what they called me. It was like whatever would alter my state of mind. I would take it.

Whatever you could get a hold of.

Whatever I could get a hold of. If I had alcohol that night, it was alcohol. If I had opiates, was probably like, my number one love was opiates and pain pills.

I think that's important here. Yeah, I think it would be. Not that it would be okay, but it'd be one thing if you're, like, alcoholic and then to take the pain meds, but for that to have been the drug. Yeah, that's like, even extra. Extra.

Yeah, that was definitely my number one.

Okay.

But yeah, like I said, I would take. If it were mushrooms would get me out of my head. I would. Psychedelics, whatever.

Anything. Anything you could get.

Yeah.

So you're in recovery seven years. Let me just completely tell you in case you not seen David's story on our YouTube channel. Like, I know you don't believe it, looking at him, but he was like a real drug addict. Like, for real. I mean it. Not like you're looking at him thinking, oh, whatever. No, for real. Watch his story if you don't believe me.

Pretty bad.

Legit.

Yeah.

Okay. So then you had to have this surgery and you getting entire overhaul.

Yes. And it was extremely painful. But let me back up and tell you how I started this process. So I started it four years ago by having a sleep study done and the doctors telling me, you have to have work done. But I was terrified. I was like, man, they're gonna try to give me pain medications. I don't know how I'll do with that. So it took me four years of, like, warming up to the idea of surgery and how I would deal with it. And then I started looking for doctors, and I started asking friends, family, friends, people that they knew.

You were doctor shopping.

Yeah, doctor shopping, but a different way.

Okay.

Told on yourself now for the good doctor.

Of course, for the good doctor.

But I ended up finding one. But I knew he understood addiction, and he even had a son that was in recovery, so.

So you were actually shopping for. I'm gonna tease you, but you were shopping for someone that you knew understood recovery. Because one of the questions I asked David when we were getting ready for this, I was like, david, did you tell your doctor. I'm assuming you told your doctor in recovery? And he said, yeah. And then you were saying. And he also understood recovery, which I think is a good point, because I have seen countless people, clients, like, tell the doctor, like, oh, yeah, like, don't give me anything because I'm recovering. And then, like, literally five minutes later, the doctor's like, well, take this done out so I don't have to come down. Like, I've literally sat here with client before and, like, called the doctor who she'd already told and said, like, no, this means you can't return this.

Like, yeah. And I went into this, like, saying, I want to try to do this without any opiates. Maybe we could just try the Tylenol and ibuprofen.

You're gonna cowboy it up.

Yeah. And he told me, he said, you're gonna be absolutely miserable. Like, that's gonna be hard. So we can try it, see how it goes. Like, I'm willing to do that, but I will be on call if you need me to call something.

You change your arm.

Yeah. Which.

Cuz I've heard, like, you were telling me that, and my husband had had that surgery like, the year before, and it was bad. And Bri, I think who works here was saying it was bad, so I was kind of worried about you because I knew it was going to be bad.

Yeah.

If you've had that surgery or you know someone's had that surgery, tell us in the comments. Give us an emoji that tells us just how bad I was. If you get smile faces, then you're gonna look bad.

I will not get smiley faces. I know that for a bad. And with everything else that was. It was the tonsils that were so bad. Like everything else, nothing bothered me.

Okay.

I didn't even feel any of the other pain because there was just so much pain right here in my throat where the tonsils were.

Is it just because it's, like, a sense of area? What do you think that is? Why that surgery? Because I've literally heard, like, that is, like, when you're an adult and you get it, it's, like, bad.

Yeah, I guess so. Sensitive area. And, like, everything has to pass there. Any food, drink, hot, cold. It's going right past it, right over. The incisions are.

Yep. That makes sense. Okay. Yeah.

Looked around for a while, made. Made sure I had a doctor that understood my situation. We were going to try it without pain medication for opiates, narcotics, and that lasted for all of 12 hours.

You were a tough cowboy for 12 hours.

12 hours I made it. But after that, and luckily, I stayed in a hospital overnight because my case was kind of serious, and they were like, we just want to see how you do the rest of the night. So I stayed there, hooked up to IVs on fluids, and I told the nurse, you know, all of the nurses knew. It was in my notes. Now at this point that he's in.

Recovery, he's, like, trying to do scarlet egg.

Yeah.

On your file. Like, drug.

Yeah. It's like when you go to the bar and they put the big red X on your hand.

I got that.

Big red X.

Yeah.

But so all the nurses knew. About 12, 11, 12 hours into it, I started asking. I was like, hey, I need something. This isn't cutting it for me. And of course, they were just like, oh, well, here's an extra, like, Tylenol. I'll just try this. They were trying everything but pain medication. And it got to a point for me where I told him. I was like, I'm about to pull this IV out of my arm, and I'm going to a pain clinic to get help, because this is. I can't deal with this.

So think about it. Like, you've had this person who, you know, think about, if you're not David, you're like the staff, the nurse, or whatever David has told you. Like, I'm a drug addict. Don't give me another drug. Like, whatever I say. And then all of a sudden, like, you're threatening. Like, now you look super med seeking.

Yeah. But I think going into it, my doctor knew that was going to happen. Yeah, I think he knew I was going to.

They probably had bets in the back. How long you think it's Going to be.

Yeah.

They probably were betting on me.

But once I said that, like, I finally got some medication, but they just put in my.

Threatened to throw a fit.

Yes. Once I threatened to just walk out of there in my gown, they finally gave me some medication. And that was a pretty scary, scary moment for me because I believe it was Dilaudid that they put my iv.

Now tell it to them like you told me in the kitchen. Yeah, I got scared when you told me in the kitchen five minutes ago.

So the reason I say it was scary is because I got some of those, like, warm, fuzzy feelings that I had when I was last using opiates.

That's not the way you tell it to me.

I'm getting there. So what I. Hell, I told Amber, I was like. You know when you, like, cuddle up in a blanket and you feel all comfortable and warm? It's like that, but for your insides. Like, this warmth just surrounded my stomach.

There's the look there. Now you're seeing it.

The glow.

It's like this Amber.

But it was. And my mom said I just, like, looked over at her and giggled.

She's probably scared.

Scared to death, I'm sure.

Yeah.

But that was a scary moment, just having, you know, that little flashback of. I mean, it wasn't like I got full on high. I was in so much pain. And I think that's often, you know, people just think that, like, oh, you take it. You get high. But when you're in that much pain.

It just does its job.

It does its job. It just takes the edge off.

Right.

So I didn't get, like, this full effect, but I did get this tiny flashback. And in my head, I was like, oh, shit. That's kind of scary.

Okay.

I like that. I know.

I like that. I'm kind of scared. I like that. Okay.

And then from that moment on, they started giving me, like, these lidocaine.

Like the lollipop thing.

The lollipops, yeah. Which didn't help me too much.

Okay.

And then they sent me home with, like, liquid oxycodone to take. Yeah. That I started taking in the hospital. And they sent me out with that. And I. I want to say I think the most important thing I did going into this process was develop a plan.

Okay.

I mean, I did my work around a doctor that understood my situation. I wasn't in early recovery. You know, I waited.

That's a really good point.

I was already, what, three years clean before I even started investigating my issues. And then I waited four more years.

Right.

I had some decent time under my belt.

I think that's important because I was telling everybody, if you're in early recovery and you need to have a surgery, unless if you really, really need to have it, then obviously you. You have to have it. But, like, if it's something that can wait, I really think that is a pretty key factor because that could have super easily been a different outcome. You know, like on Caleb, his story, when he talks about it online, he was like, literally been so over 20 days, and then appendix erupted.

Yeah, he took it like a champ. He thought he just had a sore stomach or something, if I remember correctly.

Well, he didn't take the pain as, like, a champ.

Yeah, that's true.

Did not turn out well.

Yeah.

So if you can wait, definitely put it off. Not indefinitely, but until you feel solid. Because one of the things you were saying was, like, you felt solid when you went into it, like, recovery wise.

Yeah. And I'd also like, you know, this is something I talked to my recovery community about. All of my support network, you know, I had them coming by and checking on me once I got out of the hospital, just to see how I'm doing, bringing me milkshakes over. It was awesome. I had a bunch of milkshakes, and then I had people to manage the medications to where I didn't even have to see them. I would have my mom, like, dose that out, and I could have the oxycode on every 5 hours is when I could have it. But when I say, like, you're not getting high, you're in so much pain, it would literally take the edge off enough to where I could sleep for two or three hours. And then I'm in pain waiting for that fifth hour to come around so I could, you know, get some more sleep.

Does it feel like you're just, like, watching the clock?

Yes, I'm in the beginning for sure.

Do you think, like, your family and friends or your mom who was holding your medicine, do you think they were, like, they could tell? Like, I bet they could feel you watching the clock. Were you like. Yeah, I'm like, oh, my God. I mean, I guess you didn't yell because you couldn't yell, but rang your bell or whatever you could get? Yeah.

Oh, I would get irritated. I would get very irritated if, like, my medication wasn't because I was in so much pain.

Yeah, I know other people get irritated when I hear their med sometimes.

Yeah. It was different in this case, I promise. But I was definitely that way in the past. But, yeah, So I had people manage that. I had support network coming to check on me. Just I feel like a good plan around the whole thing. And then the last. One of the last biggest things was, when do you stop? When's the time?

And now wait for a second, though, because with the tonsils. Because I remember telling you, because this happened to my husband. But it gets better, and then it gets worse.

Yeah.

Like, there's so many days in. And I knew. I heard that from my husband. I heard that from other people. Like, you think you're better? And I remember he had to call the doctor and get more payments. Did you have to get more payments?

I did, yeah. Okay.

What were you, like, how did you feel about making that phone call? Were you like, he's gonna think I'm drug seeking? Were you worried about that?

I really, like, I was in so much pain. I just didn't care.

You didn't care?

I just wanted my medication.

And that's not like you, because you're always like, want to do the right thing?

Yeah.

You're always so polite.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

But I already don't do well with pain. Like, I get the common cold, and I'm freaking out. But this was, like, a serious thing, but it was very painful. And the reason that happens is you get better for a little while, and then it gets worse as scabs form, and then they fall off and then everything. Yeah. Then the food, the what drink. Everything's hitting it fresh again. Where it goes back to that initial, like, first day of pain.

Oh, man.

For me, it was around, like, the eight or nine day.

Seven to nine day.

Yeah. So, yeah. Back in so much pain, I didn't really care what the doctor thought, what the nurses thought. It was like, call in a prescription. Exactly.

Yeah.

But then, like, even with. When I got the second round of medication, it's like, I was strong enough in my recovery. I. I know. I knew that I didn't want that around the house. I didn't want to keep it around. So it was about finding a time where I thought I could manage the pain that I was in with just Tylenol, Ibuprofen, like, swapping them back and forth. Like, you have to alternate those two.

But that's got to be a little bit hard because, I mean, obviously if you're in pain and even if you feel a little bit better, you got to be thinking, like, but that could come back, like, tomorrow I could feel worse again. And it's like, how do you know? Like, it's hard. I Think when you're recovering, it's like, how do you know? Is that your disease talking to you? Is that. That's gotta be tough?

And I remember having that thought. Okay.

I mean, I think that's a normal thought.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember thinking that. Well, like, but what if it's worse when I wake up in the morning?

Yeah. Because it had already been better and then gotten worse.

Yeah. And sometimes, like, when you wake up from sleep and the drainage, it would be more painful. But you know me, I just, like. I guess have the discipline to just be like, oh, well, if it hurts, like, I've got to tough it out. It's just the last stretch, maybe five more days.

So you got in the second. Was it still, like, the liquid stuff or whatever? Second round of meds? And how much did you have at this point? You know?

Okay, like, how much did I take?

Yeah. How much did you have left or whatever at this point?

Oh, probably a quarter of a bottle.

Okay. Yeah, gotcha.

But I just knew, like I said in stone in the beginning, the minute I could manage this or I could sleep, it really boiled down to my sleep. If I could sleep for five or six hours without taking anything.

Right.

I considered myself okay.

Okay.

Or just off of Tylenol instead of serious pain medication.

Okay.

That's kind of how I weighed out the scenario. And the minute I got there, I just knew in my head, like, this isn't something I can keep around the house. It's gotta go. So we dumped it down the train the minute I got to that point. And even though I was thinking, what if it's worse in the morning? It was like, oh, well, was it hard?

Was it easy? Was. It was like a bell in your hand? Anything?

Not really. I mean, it was pretty easy to do for me. Yeah.

Did you feel vulnerable? Like, do you feel like if you wouldn't have dumped it, like, if it had just been there in the medicine cabinet, whatever. I don't know, you know, Like.

Yeah.

Do you feel like that would have.

Been a bad idea for sure? Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's why I wanted it.

Gone, is because I saw the look in your argument. He said, I don't feel. So when he said for sure, but licked him, it's like, right here.

Yeah, you could see it.

I saw it right there.

Yeah.

You're like, definitely. Oh, yeah.

But, you know, that's just. I don't want stuff like that hanging around the house. Like, who knows? Like, if I had a really bad day or, you know, any excuse Back in the. When I was using, I would take anything. A good day, a bad day, a breakup to use as an excuse.

A Wednesday.

So it's like, what could that look like? You know, I just didn't even want the temptation, right. Sitting around.

So you got. Then that's like, all you had left. You're just like, get rid of it.

Yeah. Other than, like, Tylenol pm, right. To help me sleep, but okay. Yeah, that was the last of it.

And then how did you feel after the fact? Were you, like, were you just fine? You moved on? Did you have second thoughts? Were you, like, did you have. Did you have any, like. Like, I call them monster mom, like.

I shouldn't have dumped that.

Yeah. Or like, did you have any, like, regrets? Like.

Like, no, I really didn't.

Or any. Like, I could probably call the guy. We might get one more. Yeah. Did you have any thoughts like that?

No. No, not at all. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I feel like I did pretty good around that.

If you have had thoughts like that, do you think the people around you, like, what do you think they would have done? Would they have known the difference? Would they have not, like, your support, your family, friends, everybody?

I mean, I had too many people holding me accountable that were around me too much.

You don't think you could have played them for another week or two?

Possibly. I don't know. It's hard to say. Yeah, it's hard to, like, guess what could have been done. I guess if, like, I mean, if I think back to the old David, the manipulative, like, when I was on tears, like, yeah, I could have done that. I would have found a way to do it. But, like, who I am today is a completely different. I like to think it's a completely different person, you know, seven years in this recovery than the person and a half years ago?

Definitely.

Yeah, it was dishonest, deceitful.

What questions do you guys have? If anybody's watching and you have questions and even if you're not watching while we're on, live here and catch it after the fact, we'll go back, we'll look at the comments. David will go on there. If you have a question for him, he'll answer it.

Yeah. And I've had a lot of people that are in recovery come up to me after that knew I had the surgery. They're like, man, how did it go? I need to have this surgery done. And I just want to say that, like, this was my experience. You know, everyone's different, and I can't say that, you know, your surgery would be harder or better than mine. But this was just, like, these were my struggles and what I didn't struggle with, and. But, like, I feel like I had a very solid foundation with my recovery, had a solid support network around me, people managing my medications. I had a good doctor who understood my situation. Like, there were a lot of pieces that I put in place to make this go well. And I think. I guess what I'm trying to say is, like, I can't say whether you would have a more difficult time than I did taking pain medication.

This is like. This is like, this is not crossing my experience was, what's happening right here? He's not cross talking either.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I didn't want, you know, it to be out there, like, oh, well, I'll just go do mine, too. But look at all that was put in place to have a successful recovery.

From surgery, and your recovery really was solid. And that doesn't mean, oh, your recovery solid. Like, you can't be taken down. I mean, you obviously knew you were solid. You knew you had the vulnerability that you got rid of that medicine really quick. Right? So.

And I guess that that always has to be in my mind is like, anything can happen at any time. Like, I always have to, you know, be on alert.

So to not, like, not get to the point where you think I got this or whatever. It's gone.

Yeah.

Okay. Are you glad you did it?

100.

Are you?

Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm a.

Tell them what you told me about the straws. That was kind of funny.

Yeah, I said that. Looking back, it, like, my whole life, it felt like now that I can experience something different. I felt like I was breathing through, like, coffee straws in my nose. And I told Amber, I was like, now it's like the big McDonald's. Like, McFlurry straws. Like, I've got an airway now. Sucking it in.

Brain's probably working better.

You remember Kirby? I feel like Kirby the pink video game guy.

I know Kirby, but why do you feel like him?

Like, I know his superpowers. He would, like, suck in so much.

Oh, yeah, that's right. I've seen him on the Mario, like, fight each other thing.

Yeah. Super smash brothers.

Super smash brothers. Yeah. Okay. I got you.

I can finally breathe. And my whole life, I just thought I had really bad allergies. Like, and I would take allergy medication, and it still wouldn't really fix the problem.

It's the same. It was the same thing as my other he had almost the exact same. Same thing as you have.

I'm sleeping better, I have more energy. I wake up faster in the mornings. It's just, I'm really glad I did it.

So what you're saying is in your experience. In my experience, it can be done, but you do need to really think the situation through. And it's not just what surgery are you having, what supports do you have, what doctor do you have? And I think probably most importantly, it's like, how strong do you feel in your recovery? And I've had a lot of friends in recovery that will do certain things, even if it's like, put themselves in higher situations. You know, they might go to, you know, the family reunion where there's going to be drinking one year and feel totally fine with it, and the next year later, not because they. Maybe there's something going on in their life. So I think a lot. You really have to, you know, I think recovery requires a lot of self honesty. And so you got to really check in with yourself. Like, can I can handle it. But one of the things you were saying is like, you had no reservations.

Yes. Going into it.

And reservation is kind of a recovery word. So say what that means in case someone's like, what do you mean reservations? Like, had no, like, dinner reservations. What does that mean?

No. So, like reservations to use or drink. I had no thoughts of, like, oh, well, I could use this surgery as a way to like, maybe get high one time and just see. I mean, you hear about that a lot and relapses is that, you know, they had this reservation that, like, oh.

I'm gonna, like this certain circumstance in their mind. It'd be okay, like, if this one thing ever happened.

Yeah.

Like, I've heard a lot of clients say, like, man, if I make it to 80, you know, like, you know, I've heard different things.

Or if I make it to new New Year's in 2022, like, I'm gonna drink them.

If I lost my husband, you know, it's like this thing in the back of their head is like, if this one thing happened, then it'd be on.

I hear the, if I win the lottery, one a lot is it.

I hear the, like, I would win a lot.

I don't have anything to worry about. And I'm going on a tear.

Okay. Their money be going so fast.

Yeah, I know.

Be over.

Yep.

Okay.

But yeah, so that's basically a reservation. And I can honestly say that I didn't have any of those going into this. It Was like, I wanted to fix my problems that were going on. I wanted to sleep better.

Now, you may not know the answer to this, but I was kind of thinking when you were talking, like. Cause you know, we have so many families and stuff that watch. Like, let's say you're the caretaker. You're like the loved one, the family member who's trying to like, take care of someone. Is there any way at all to know the difference in drug seeking behavior and like, like, seriously, I'm in pain behavior. Like, cuz I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't know.

Yeah, I don't think there would be. Cuz I can't tell you how many times I manipulated my parents into thinking that.

Like, even if it were me, I'm like a trained addiction counselor. I really wouldn't know.

Yeah, you could tell.

Trick me if you want to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think I could have tricked anyone that I wanted to. Yeah.

Okay.

That be a tough thing to.

Because I mean, it's like with the, with the real life excuse, like, sir, it's like gonna look at you and be like, you're lying when you know he just had his tonsils ripped out. Yeah, it's tough.

Maybe we should buy a lie detector test.

You think? Maybe, Maybe. Yeah. Those are called urine screens. We have anything, any advice that you would have for family members, support people, anybody like that to do, to not do, to think about anything like that?

Yeah, pretty much just what I've touched on to make sure your plan is in place and that it's a solid plan. Also, wait until you're comfortable in your recovery.

Like family recovery.

Oh, for the support. Yeah, for the support. Yeah, I guess just, you know, question, like, come from a place of concern and make sure your loved one has a solid plan and. And now you have like a checklist, some things that I told you that I did to kind of go by and make sure that they have in place. But from there it's kind of. They've got to be honest with themselves. It's kind of out of your hands. Like, it was out of my mom's hands.

Did anyone ever like, question you or, you know, like, look at you with doubtful eyes? Like, did you perceive that no sketch ever made?

Not at all. I can remember, like, having buddies come over and like, I would just joke with him about it and be like, hey, Zach, I know some of my oxycodone's missing. What'd you do? Like, and he'd freak out, like, what are you talking about? I didn't touch it.

So you mess with them?

I would mess with them, but, no, I don't think I ever had anyone, like, think that I was.

You know, you can feel when someone's kind of, like, giving you the, like.

Yeah. And I didn't feel that at all.

Okay, well, thanks for hanging out with us. If you know someone who might benefit with this video, please share it out. Our goal with our videos is always to help you understand the psychology of addiction. Because even though addiction is a disease and we talk a lot about the biology, the biology part is not really that hard to beat. Honestly, you can get off any drug you want to in five days. Like, we take you off anything in five days. It's the psychology. I think that's a lot of what we've done focus on in here is, like, what's going on in the mind of the person, this problem. Because if you can understand it, that's the one good thing about addiction is it's super predictable. And if you can understand what you're dealing with, you can know what's coming next and you can stay ahead of it. And that's for whether you're in recovery like you were staying ahead of it by knowing, I could have this thought or this could happen, and I'm gonna stay five steps ahead, and the family can, too. So if you know someone who needs this, share it out. And other than that, we'll see you next time.

Thanks for having me.

Bye, guys.