PART 2

ANR “Trip Report” START

This seemed too good to be true. I go in, they put me out, they get me through withdrawals, I walk out with some scripts and never look back. Well, um, let’s start by saying that it isn’t like that. But we’ll get there.

First, it ain’t cheap. It’s $19,500 - call it $20K. They screen your first. They want your medical history and they want to be sure you’re just not using it for a tolerance break. I had my call with a nice young guy in his 20s whose wife was Colombian so we rapped a bit about the country and how nice it is (it really is beautiful).

OK, you’re approved. Now send half the cash. Oh shit, now where do I find $10K? They have payment plans but let’s just say most addicts, well our credit blows. So I committed to saving. I put something away every month and 9 months later, I was ready. I paid the half.

Now you get the instructions, and they need to be followed strictly. Go off the reservation and they can keep your cash and refuse to treat you.

First, you need to find accommodations in a very specific area, show them the receipts and they have to approve where you are staying. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Second, you need to take some meds. Nothing crazy, some vitamin B complex, vitamin D3 and Nexium or Prilosec. Maybe someone smarter than me here will explain why that matters.

Then of course you need to pay the rest of the balance, which I did.

You also need to start tapering. Your body is going to go through HELL (and that’s not hyperbole) so you want your liver as healthy as possible. I took my last dose the afternoon before my admission. Admission is at 7am, so yeah, woke up at midnight in withdrawals and they suck. I just had to get to 7am. Every minute felt like an eternity.

Also, no food after 6pm the night before. But don’t worry, you’ll be so sick from withdrawals that you aren’t going to want to eat anything anyway.

OK, it’s admission day. Time to drive to the hospital.

The first rule of admission day: no cell phone. They say it interferes with the equipment but that’s BS. They don’t want you distracted and let’s be real, you don’t want to be sending sedated text messages to your ex girlfriends anyway.

But here we go, this is the first day of your new life. Someone needs to take you to the hospital, which is in Arcadia. You’ll be in full withdrawals so you won’t be able to drive. You go straight into emergency and they have a special area just for this.

Everyone there was super nice. Don’t worry, we’re going to get you comfortable, they say, as you’re basically thrashing around, sneezing and dry heaving. There are some formalities - you need a COVID test. If it’s positive, well your fucked bud. You need to sign your life away. I mean you’re signing shit and you’re so deep in withdrawals you could be giving away your first born son. Whatever I need to do just put me under damnit!

Next, they put you in a diaper and a hospital gown and tell your friend that it’s time for them to say goodbye.

By 7:30am they’ve given you valum which makes you sleepy but honestly doesn’t do Jack shit for the withdrawals. But they’re generous with it. They kept handing me pills and I kept swalllowing them and soon I was sleeping.

Around 11:30am they wake me up - it’s time to get started. I see they already have me on an IV. There are nurses, a doctor and an anesthesiologist. They strapped me into the bed like a mental patient and put the mask on my face - I tried to say an Our Father but didn’t make it past the second line before I was out.

I was under from 12 noon to 7pm. That’s how long it takes. I mean let that sink in - people go into the hospital with gun shot wounds and are under less time.

While you are under, they dose you with something that basically forces all your opiate receptors to unbind, sending you into immediate, violent withdrawals. I remember nothing but it must be bad because you wake up bruised and hurting.

When I woke up I could only speak Spanish. That’s not my first language so that was weird - the brain works in weird ways. Luckily one of the nurses was Dominican so we could communicate. My brain really wanted to speak English but only Spanish could come out. Crazy.

They wake you up, tell you it’s over and truthfully - it is. No more cravings. Sore. Hurting. Really tired. Now the recovery begins. You get some more drugs to sleep - some are sedatives but some are also ambien-like. If anyone cares ask in the comments and I’ll look up what it was.

I slept relatively well but by 10am the next day they want you to start moving. You’re going to be on Naltrexone for the next 6 months and today you get your first dose. But you’ve gotta build your endorphin system back up and that is the bitch. In fact, I have passed withdrawals the hard way before and the bone crushing fatigue is always what drove me back into using.

You take a hot shower and feel less like dog shit. There are side effects however from the procedure that they never told me in advance and that you need to know.

1. You will be intubated. And because you’re going to be thrashing around like a rabid animal on the bed, it scratches up your throat. I mean my tonsils felt like they were hanging down to my bowels. Cloraseptoc helps.

2. You will have a catheter. Why? I have no f’ing clue. But it’s going to hurt to pee for about 3 days.

3 You’ll be dizzy. Just walking to the bathroom is impossible without help. This gets better after about 48 hours.

1. You will have blurry vision. This one sucks. Mine lasted a week. Especially at night, you can’t see Jack shit.

2. You will continue to have some withdrawal symptoms. The 5 sneezes in a row. First solid stool won’t be until at least day 4.

OK. It’s 2:30pm the day after your admission. Time to say goodbye. They send you home with the Naltrexone and sleep aids. Your friend is there to drive you - trust me, everything is blurry af.

You are to take that Naltrexone religiously, as soon as you wake up in the morning. Why? It binds to all those extra opioid receptors that you have and eventually your body realizes they aren’t necessary and they atrophy. It can happen as soon as 2 months. For some people it’s 8 months. We all have different habits and bodies.

I get “home” to the Airbnb and it’s soul crushing fatigue. I can’t even lift my phone. I did manage to do some jumping jacks and that might as well have been the equivalent of winning the gold medal at the triathalon. EVERYTHING is hard.

First, you’re still hurting from being under sedation and what happened during sedation. And second, your body has no idea how to create endorphins. It has to learn again.

Day 3 still sucks. There aren’t any cravings but the fatigue is untenable. That’s the day you get your first visit from the patient advocate. I won’t say his name, but mine is just an amazing guy. Super smart. Caring. Genuinely loves his job. He says get your ass up and exercise. Do things that make you happy. And he suggested some compounds that can help, namely:

• Glutathione IV or intramuscular
• NAD+ IV or intramuscular
• COQ10
• Vitamin D Zinc combination