Insecure and Addicted to Pain Killers

As I slowly watched my friend's life crash around her, I felt helpless and alone in my fight to help her. The power of addiction had taken over her entire body and soul and I knew I was no longer dealing with the rational, energetic person I had grown to love as family several years ago.

I thought back over the last 20 years that I've known Sara to try and figure out where life went wrong for her. As a young, ambitious, 20-year-old when we met, Sara was the picture of perfection in everything she did. Sara had big dreams of owning her first home with her newlywed husband and she was obsessed with earning the down payment money. Sara wanted her home so bad, she began working two jobs. The extra money earned from her second job became the "house fund". Sara was the nicest, most giving person I knew and she just could not say no to anyone who asked her for help. Sara's husband worked a full-time job but once he came home from work for the day, he did nothing to help Sara around the apartment. I tried to warn Sara that she was overdoing it and told her she could not keep up the pace she was working at. She would just smile and assure me that she wouldn't have to work this hard forever and she said she knew what she was doing. Sara wasn't convincing to me though because I could see in her eyes she wasn't okay. Sara's eyes were puffy, hollow slits from being overworked and only going on a few hours sleep each night. How she continued to push her exhausted body was beyond me. But Sara was a determined, ambitious woman and the only thing she could see was reaching her goal at any cost.

I tried talking to Sara's husband, Steve, but he acted as though Sara's health wasn't important to him. Steve didn't want a wife, he wanted a mother. He wanted someone who would wait on him and he couldn't be bothered with cooking, laundry and housework. I never knew what Sara saw in him. She was always too happy and too motivated for someone like Steve.

Over the next several months, I saw Sara change into just a shell of the vibrant person she once was. It appeared that Sara's mental state was deteriorating along with the physical. The more she worked, the more she became obsessed with every little detail around her apartment. Sara was always a neat freak but she became obsessed with the cleanliness and order of everything in their apartment. The few hours she was home were spent vacuuming, dusting, washing - every single day. Sara didn't' know how to turn it off even though she was exhausted and I didn't know how to stop her.

Months passed and Sara announced one day over lunch she had earned enough money to make a down payment on a house they had been looking at. When I saw Sara, she looked strung out and her words were slurred as she talked. Sara had been seeing her physician for migraines and back pain. With all the hours she was working, she had ruptured some discs in her lower back and the migraines were due to stress. Sara said her physician had prescribed her Valium and Tylenol with codeine for the intense pain. She admitted to me that she was taking around 100 Valium per week. Why was her physician continuing to renew prescriptions when Sara was using at this rate? Sara admitted to me that she had also been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. She had been off of work now for the past few weeks due to a total physical breakdown.

Sara and Steve purchased their dream home and even though Sara had quit her second job,s he was still having trouble bouncing back from her health issues. Sara continued using large quantities of prescription pain killers to get her through each day. The pain from the Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue was extremely hard on Sara. Her marriage was failing because Steve didn't know how to deal with her chronic health issues and he blamed her for letting herself deteriorate physically and emotionally.

Sara's family was growing very concerned, as they had seen the effects all of the painkillers were causing. Sara was not happy and she didn't know how to stop her life from spiraling downward. She told me one night in tears that she worked so hard to reach her goal, but now that she had what she worked so hard for, she was miserable.

Two weeks later, I was visiting Sara in the hospital. She had taken too many pain pills and she was suffering from exhaustion. Sara was also being seen by a psychiatrist while in the hospital. She admitted she had a lot of work ahead of her but she was hopeful. Sara's recovery was slow but successful. Sara began to open up to me, her therapist and family about her insecurities and her downward spiral.

Sara always felt inadequate and insecure even as a child. As an adult, Sara tried to deal with her insecurities by becoming a workaholic. Sara was good at her job and she received a lot of praise and attention from her bosses. Sara finally felt worthy and adequate through her work. Her marriage was falling apart and Sara dealt with the problems by burying herself in her work. Sara was a control freak. Because she couldn't control her husband's lack of caring and support, she began to control her surroundings. This is what led to her obsessive compulsive behavior at home. Once Sara started taking the prescription pain medication, she found that the pills numbed her insecurities.

Over time, Sara learned to accept herself and to love herself as she is. She divorced Steve and found a man who treated her like a princess. Sara knows that she can never take a pain pill again, but she is strong and she will survive.