G.I. Aspirin Part 1

It's all fun and games until someone loses a career.

***This is the first in a series about my long history with opiate addiction. A battle that has lasted for decades and will never truly be over. But I am happy to report that it’s a war I’ve been winning for the last 9 years.***

I joined the Air Force out of High School because I wasn’t ready to take college seriously yet, if ever. And my parents had zero interest in my “plan” to live at home, play in a band, and take Music Appreciation or Shoelace Retipping at the local CC until I figured shit out. Then as luck would have it, I tested well enough on the military placement exam to become an E.E.G. technician in the medical field. Not a bad gig though it did require two years of school, of course. 

Working in the hospital, it was pretty easy to get medical appointments for whatever, whenever you wanted them. I was first prescribed Percocet for migraine pain early in my career. It was given out a lot back then. At one point, I remember hearing it referred to as “G.I. Aspirin.” It took years for my addiction to develop. Like most of my friends and co-workers, we just enjoyed the occasional refill when we got it.

But I worked shoulder-to-shoulder with a lot of doctors. I eventually learned that I could prescribe myself whatever I wanted via the hospital computer system if they didn’t log out before they left their desks. That’s when the real problem started. And over the course of the next year, I developed a very serious addiction to opiates. Then I was finally caught, arrested, and placed in a solitary confinement jail cell for a few days, where I proceeded to go through severe withdrawals.

From what I can recall, I believe the rationale for not offering medical treatment was that I had prescribed myself so much Percocet over the last six months that they thought I was selling it as opposed to consuming it. And as I would learn during my subsequent trial, the blood tests they ran at the time of my arrest screened for marijuana as opposed to opiates. At least I tested negative for marijuana.

As the worst of the initial symptoms began to wane, every pulled muscle, bruise, ache, or injury I had acquired over the last however long began screaming at me all at once. I hadn’t gone more than a night’s sleep without painkillers in my system for about half a year. And it wasn’t long before all that pain became undead.

Addiction was viewed very differently in the military 20-plus years ago. It was seen as more of a problem with self-discipline and personal accountability, as opposed to an actual addiction. I had always been a good Airman and was well-liked by my supervisors and co-workers. So, in order to give me a chance at redemption while awaiting trial, they put me in charge of the medical dorms. They thought they were doing the best thing they could for me, but in actuality, giving an opiate addict the keys to a dorm full of kids that also had medicine cabinets and sock drawers full of prescription painkillers was a recipe for disaster. 

The next 6 months were spent raiding dorm rooms for feel-goods and forging paper prescriptions at civilian pharmacies around town. I would get caught, arrested, thrown in a cell, suffer withdrawals, be released, and go out and do it all over again like clockwork. It was hell, and they couldn’t understand why I was doing that to myself. Why I couldn’t just straighten up and fly right. A lot of friends began walking away from me at this point. That was the bottom. It was that time, anyway.

My trial was quick. At my lawyer’s recommendation, I accepted full responsibility for my actions and never mentioned the word “addiction” for fear that the judge would come down even harder for trying to place the blame elsewhere. I was convicted of a handful of felonies, sentenced to a year in prison with a punitive discharge, stripped of any and all benefits, and forced to repay my 20k re-enlistment bonus. But I was, if you can imagine, elated. Because it was all over. When I was uncuffed and put in my cell, I felt a monumental sense of relief. A nearly nine-year military career was drawing to a close, but I was going to be clean.

I spent that time in prison working out, reading, and trying to gameplan for life after release - whatever that was going to look like. After a handful of months, I was transferred to Edwards Air Force Base, where my stay was unexpectedly brief. I was granted clemency, and my sentence was commuted. I was given this information one afternoon and released the next morning. This stunned all involved, including the prison officials, who claimed they had never seen that happen before. To this day, I don’t recall ever getting an explanation as to how or why. But if I had to wager, it may have had something to do with the dogged determination of my lawyer and some sloppy drug testing procedures upon my initial arrest.

Shortly thereafter, I moved into a small place in San Diego with both of my sisters, the youngest one’s fiancé, and my new baby nephew. This was, by the way, one of the most wonderful chapters of my life despite the fact that I was working numerous part-time, minimum-wage jobs simultaneously to make ends meet. Nonetheless, there was a goal in mind. Save up enough money to relocate to Colorado.