re: How many of you are addicted to opiates? YES Im watching 60 minutes

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How were you reconciling inventories or did you skim from the scrips? Mom and pop pharm?

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well, this was before hydrocodone went C2, which inventory counts have to be exact... inventories for C3-5 can be estimated, as many of them come in large volume (500ct or more) bottles... there were also many more formulations of hydrocodone pills, because it was before they mandated the max of 325mg of acetaminophen per pill only... so you had many options, all of which you could estimate their inventory levels... and i was a "floater" pharmacist for a large corporation, for a large portion of that time...

no, never stole from patients... never needed to, tbh...

an addiction like mine would be impossible to maintain nowadays, the way i did it back then... hydrocodone counts have to be exact, there are less options to skim from, and there are less prescriptions being written for them anyway, so you don't have to keep as much on hand as before....

Congrats on the sobriety.

I, too, beat a pain pill addiction. OxyContin for me...I'll have 7 years sober in November.

Oxy is was did me in but I was addicted to cocaine before that. Always booze and other shite involved. Got sober when I was 23 and never looked back. Was in rehab with quite a few pharmacists and nurses just like you. Glad to hear of you becoming a better husband, son, father etc. I got married last year and expecting our first child next month.

ETA: glad I got out when I did...heroin wasn't prevelant at that time. Opiates are a nasty fricker to quit

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I'll have 7 years sober in November.

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that's awesome bro...

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Glad to hear of you becoming a better husband, son, father etc.

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well, tbh, i got clean right around the time my little girl was 6 months old... so i wasn't really doing a lot of "fathering", i guess, anyway... but i wouldn't be able to be the dad i am today if i was still using...

the worst part of it all was being the only person that "knew"... sure my parents and wife had ideas that something wasn't quite right, but they never questioned me about it... but the day my wife found that quart size ziploc full of various pills, i knew the gig was up and i was scared and relieved at the same time... finally i would be able to reach out for help and be able to talk about what was going on...

keep in mind, my wife is also a pharmacist, so it wasn't as easy to just come out and say i have a problem with pills... it's such a taboo in our field that even discussing it comes with it's own set of problems...

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Yeah, that would have been a rough coming out party

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don't get me wrong, it wasn't fun, that's for sure... but i honestly felt like a weight had been lifted off my back... i'd finally be able to ask for help...

i had tried to get clean on my own multiple times, and i'd get about 2 weeks in, white knuckling it the whole time, but having only myself to rely on for "support", yeah, that shite never worked...

i was scared she would leave me, sure, but she didn't... she stuck with me, and helped me get the proper help, of course with stipulations to her staying... never went to rehab, did my own detox with my own knowledge of meds, but here i am 3 years later, clean.... but i did have to pass a piss test every single day for about a year and a half... but as i built trust, she tested less... hell, i can't remember the last time she tested me...

and at first, i needed that to keep me straight... just like i needed NA... i needed all of it, until i could get my legs underneath me again, so to speak... but now, i don't even think about it... it's not an issue, thankfully... and it's not the fear of the repercussion or anything, but i just honestly don't ever think about it... it never crosses my mind anymore, for whatever reason....

I snort 30's every day.

I have probably 40 sitting in my medicine cabinet never touched. They make my nose itch and Tylenol usually works just fine for me.

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They make my nose itch

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I hear coke will fix that

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it's such a taboo in our field that even discussing it comes with it's own set of problems...

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And VERY common unfortunately.

Just saw a piece on the news.

Guy was saying how his prescription of Oxy was recently cut in half. Now he was trying to cope with taking a pill every three hours. He didn't have a problem though.