Apology for Light Blogging Period

Tuesday, I had some very major dental surgery. It was, like most dental procedures, brutal and bloody. My dentist is a compassionate man who is very good at what he does. He also knows about and respects the fact that I have 15 years clean and sober. Sometimes he respects that a little too much. He sent me home with a prescription for Motrin for the pain. Motrin didn't cut it last night. Today, since in many ways, I live in a place with a small town attitude and ethic, the dentist came over to my house and brought a new supply of pain medication.

Being in recovery, and dealing with pain medication is a whole delicate subject. After all, my body doesn't distinguish a bit between pain medication I take for legitimate conditions, and the stuff I used to do for recreation. The body doesn't know or care.

Here are some of the things I do to make sure that I keep my sobriety when I'm dealing with pain issues.

First and foremost, every physician is totally aware that they are not only dealing with somebody in recovery, they know that my main abuse was with heroin.

I also make sure that my condition is absolutely and completely legitimate. There isn't any of this "it hurts around my C4 doc. . ." bullshit. Nope, the pain that I am in right now is real. The only reason I jumped up to the major analgesics was on account of I also know that untreated severe pain can easily become more dangerous to my sobriety than the pain meds.

Here's the other thing I know. There are times when I can be following every single rule, dotting every "i" and crossing every "t" and, even though I am truly remaining as somebody clean and sober in recovery, I am under the influence of narcotics right now.

I can go to an AA meeting, and I will be going to one tomorrow. Thing is, because I will be under the influence of narcotics, I will shut the fuck up. I'll still be clean and sober, but I will, out of respect to the program that showed me how to establish this beautiful life, remain silent.

It should also apply to most blogging. Any thoughts or profound observations will easily wait until I am not swallowing opiates.

Until then, I have a stack of netflix, the basketball playoffs, and a nice collection of "mas tardes" pills. I call them that because I don't believe that there is any such thing as a pain killer. These are pain postponers. Sooner, or later, I'm going to feel all of this shit.

3B's