Bad Chronic
My relationship with marijuana and how it has changed to combat chronic pain and the mental hardships that come with it.
Story by Andrew McClain
Today is Tuesday, I think.
Probably.
My phone says it’s 3 p.m., but I’ve just woken up from the most restful night I’ve had in a month. I managed to get four hours of uninterrupted sleep. My brain feels fuzzy and I’m too tired to celebrate, but even if I wasn’t, the pain in my knees would be enough to subdue any victory dance I might attempt.
The pain isn’t new. It’s been my constant, unwelcome companion for more than a year, courtesy of a pair of medial meniscus tears, one in each knee. My doctors don’t know how they occurred, but the likely culprit is an old ankle injury that caused uneven wear on my tendons.
I’ve been to the emergency room three times in the last six months from tearing and re-tearing my ligaments. I’ve had multiple MRIs, X-rays and physical exams, both in the ER and at my orthopedic surgeon’s clinic.
Each time I ask the same question: what can I do for the pain?
Each time I get the same answer: a prescription for opiate-based painkillers.
Opiates make me feel itchy and nauseous. Worse, they dilate my perception of time. Seconds drag on like minutes, and minutes feel like hours. To top it off, the analgesic effect wasn’t strong enough to dull the pain whenever I moved my legs. It was a surefire recipe for misery.
Fortunately, I live in a state where recreational marijuana has been legal for most of a decade. Compared to prescription painkillers, where generic oxycontin can run as high as $84 every 20 days, marijuana is cheap. I can get 20 days of pain relief for about $50. Plus I don’t need a prescription, and it’s readily available statewide.
I was a recreational user before my injuries, but once the pain started, I began to lean on marijuana like a complementary third crutch to the other two I was dependent on.
According to Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a primary care physician and Harvard Medical School teacher who wrote a book about his personal struggle with addiction, medical marijuana use to combat pain is increasing. By his estimates, several million Americans are already using it for reasons similar to mine: it’s less addictive than opiates with less side effects, and it’s easier to access.
It wasn’t a perfect solution, and the pain never really went away, but it helped me forget each miserable pang almost as soon as it was over. It also eased the situational depression of being stuck in a computer chair, a bed or laid-up on a couch for months with my legs locked in knee-immobilizers.
Tasks as simple as going to the grocery store were now events I had to mentally prepare for. On days when I felt good enough to get stuff done, I crammed in as much productivity as possible before the pain made sobriety untenable. By the time I finished, I was exhausted with only one thought in my head.
When can I get high?
But I discovered that pain wasn’t the only thing I was forgetting. In fact, I was forgetting everything: birthdays, homework assignments, even casual conversations. I tried writing things down, but I’d forget where I had written them, or even forget what I was about to write down with the pen in my hand.
My grades, relationships and confidence all suffered, but between being high and chronic mind-numbing pain, I couldn’t muster the energy to care.
How could anything matter when everything hurt?
Eventually, I began to heal. Over time, and after multiple setbacks, the constant pain in my knees faded to occasional pain, then a dull throb and finally to the point where I’m mostly pain-free with rare bouts of discomfort. Less pain meant a significant reduction in marijuana use.
I found myself free not only from the pain, but from the yoke of my marijuana-induced stupor. I could think again. I could feel again. And I could see the damage I had done to my life.
It was like returning home after being evacuated for a hurricane. Pieces of my life were scattered everywhere in varying states of disrepair. My college graduation date had been pushed back by nearly a year. I’d gained between 20 to 25 pounds. The worst, though, was the stagnation I felt.
For over a year I’d accomplished nothing.
I’d spent most of the time too high to write anything, and when I hadn’t been high I’d been in too much pain to put my ideas on paper. I didn’t even do any pleasure reading. It felt like everywhere that I’d had the chance to make progress, I hadn’t. It felt like failure.
Naturally, I dealt with that like any emotionally mature adult: I threw myself a little pity party.
I was sad, angry, overwhelmed and pressured. The months I’d spent ignoring my obligations were piling on top of me. Putting my life back together was going to be a monumental task, and I was paralyzed by the scale of it.
However, as the fog in my brain lifted, I rediscovered my interest in life. Things that had held no appeal to me during my recovery started to look fun again. I wrote a short story. I read a book. I started exercising to rebuild the muscle I lost from being inactive.
It didn’t happen overnight, but the more I rediscovered, the more determined I became to get my life back. I found myself motivated to fix everything that had slipped into chaos. The long, slow rebuilding phase of my recovery started, and is on-going today.
I’m finally getting my education on track, and my relationship with marijuana has returned to a healthier place. I still smoke casually. There’s a good chance I’ll always smoke, but now I do it in moderation because I want to, not in excess because I need to.
I could probably even tell you what day today is.
Probably.