My brother had a big well HUGE Oxycotin addiction 20 years ago, he was a snorter, is there like an equation to calculate what percentage is he at risk to reuse? He has gone so far as telling his doctor, dentist, psychologist, He has to make an appointment for the hospital to put down his past opioid addiction so he will never get treated with it. He has gotten in his head that if he ever gets knocked out or in a car crash or whatever that he is going to wake up and find morphine being put into him and doesn’t want that. And his doctor has no relationship with the local hospital. He would rather deal with the pain and everything instead of going back to being an addict and doing it cold turkey again. That is the reason I am asking to put his mind at ease. Cause his appointment is not until 2 months down the road for Medical Records. So he is taking everything overboard at times. Or is there a better community to ask this?
I had a former partner that was a heroin addict.
When getting surgery they specifically asked to not receive opiate medication due to their former addiction.
This is what people wear medical alert bracelets for.
However a doctor will violate your “wishes” to save your life.
None of the things you mentioned would be considered going overboard for any addict in remission in order to protect themselves and the folks around them and prevent a relapse. He is doing the right things.
If he’s having issues or worried i would recommend he get a ‘sponsor’ in a program that he trusts to confide in. A sponsor is someone that has a lot of sobriety/clean time and experience.
I recommend any addict get a sponsor and follow some kind of program at least intrapersonally because there is no reason to do it the hard way with no guidance from experienced peers and professional drug counsellers. Going it alone increases relapse chance greatly.
I have heard that only 5% of the people in recovery stay clean. But it is not impossible.
[off topic?]
Does he go to NA/AA meetings?
I used to work in public health, and a lot of recovered addicts worry about these issues.
If he has a support group of people who understand his situation it might be easier.
Put it this way he went long enough where they started to having to mail out for chips to give him lol. I think he quit going after 15 years because it got into a brag fest and went to others with the same thing. Nothing but the young and old alike talking about incidences they were in and how, without saying it, were worse off than other but came back.
Since Covid there are a lot of Zoom meetings. He can always shop around and look for a place where he feels comfortable. It’s not like he has to drive all over town.
That’s a long time, most opioid addicts relapse within 1 year, according to this report.
The rate is actually so high(91%) I can’t seem to find years after the first year.
major props to your brother.
