Pill Head: The Secret Life of a Painkiller Addict by Joshua Lyon
Authors: Joshua Lyon
Tags: Autobiography
Ads: Link
sure it did. Right before I had quit Jane magazine and was planning on moving away, I was feeling a lot of heightened anxiety and depression, so I went to a doctor near our offices and asked for a therapist recommendation. I’d had to find a new doctor, instead of going to my normal guy, since our company’s insurance policy had changed.
“You’re depressed?” she asked. “I can take care of that.” She opened up a cabinet stacked with samples of a drug called Zyprexa. She actually told me not to look it up on the Internet. “There have been some really good studies about how this drug is actually great for depression. But there are a lot of whack jobs on the Internet saying it’s dangerous. But trust me.”
Of course I immediately went home and looked up the drug online. It turned out it was an antipsychotic medication for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, but there were some testimonies saying it was found to be good for “normal” depression as well. I stupidly gave it a shot. One week after I started on it, I found myself in front of my bedroom mirror with an X-Acto knife stolen from the magazine’s art department, hacking away at my arm and chest. I’d never had any cutting issues in my life, and I’m permanently scarred now from the experience. I stopped taking the pills the next day.
CHAPTER 6
“Remember Valley of the Dolls ?”
HERE’S A LITTLE-KNOWN SECRET about Washington, D.C. The DEA building has, hands down, the best museum in the entire city. Forget the Smithsonian—next time you’re in D.C., make sure to get over to the DEA Museum and Visitors Center. It contains a timeline of drug abuse in American history, starting with vintage bottles of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup. The label reads: “For children teething. Greatly facilitates the process of Teething, by softening the gums, reducing all inflammation; will allay all pain and spasmodic action, and is sure to regulate the bowels. Depend on it, Mothers, it will give rest to yourselves and relief and health to your infants.”
Each bottle was loaded with morphine. The product finally got pulled off the market around the turn of the century after babies kept mysteriously dying. I bet there were more than a few moms who were pretty bummed about the recall, because, let’s face it, if anything is going to effectively silence a screaming baby, it’s morphine. The museum covers all the basic stuff you learn in antidrug seminars in school, but what sets it apart is the amazing amount of paraphernalia on display—things like antique syringe kits found in the pages of the Sears & Roebuck catalog (some drugs with the worst reputations, like heroin and cocaine, were once entirely legal in the UnitedStates); a rabbit-and-fox fur coat worn by a former DEA agent to “blend in” with Cleveland drug traffickers in the 1980s; and an entire fake head shop storefront called Jimmy’s Joint, with its name lit up in blue neon letters.
The newest addition to the museum is an entire wing devoted specifically to the DEA’s efforts at diversion control. The exhibit is part of its Good Medicine, Bad Behavior campaign, and it’s pretty dramatic. The pharmaceutical wing leads with an enormous medicine cabinet, opened to reveal two-foot-high bottles filled with brightly colored pills the size of English muffins. They include the most common illegally diverted pharmaceuticals, including hydrocodone, OxyContin, and amphetamines. One side of the medicine cabinet is filled with giant fake prescriptions for each drug and a list of their intended uses. The other side lists each drug’s bad side effects. The weird thing is that the fake prescriptions that list the good qualities of the drug are all written out to “John Doe II,” as if already predicting the death of anyone taking these drugs, even for the right reasons. I’m being glib—there’s also a sobering slide show of young people who have died from overdoses of various forms of drug combinations
“You’re depressed?” she asked. “I can take care of that.” She opened up a cabinet stacked with samples of a drug called Zyprexa. She actually told me not to look it up on the Internet. “There have been some really good studies about how this drug is actually great for depression. But there are a lot of whack jobs on the Internet saying it’s dangerous. But trust me.”
Of course I immediately went home and looked up the drug online. It turned out it was an antipsychotic medication for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, but there were some testimonies saying it was found to be good for “normal” depression as well. I stupidly gave it a shot. One week after I started on it, I found myself in front of my bedroom mirror with an X-Acto knife stolen from the magazine’s art department, hacking away at my arm and chest. I’d never had any cutting issues in my life, and I’m permanently scarred now from the experience. I stopped taking the pills the next day.
CHAPTER 6
“Remember Valley of the Dolls ?”
HERE’S A LITTLE-KNOWN SECRET about Washington, D.C. The DEA building has, hands down, the best museum in the entire city. Forget the Smithsonian—next time you’re in D.C., make sure to get over to the DEA Museum and Visitors Center. It contains a timeline of drug abuse in American history, starting with vintage bottles of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup. The label reads: “For children teething. Greatly facilitates the process of Teething, by softening the gums, reducing all inflammation; will allay all pain and spasmodic action, and is sure to regulate the bowels. Depend on it, Mothers, it will give rest to yourselves and relief and health to your infants.”
Each bottle was loaded with morphine. The product finally got pulled off the market around the turn of the century after babies kept mysteriously dying. I bet there were more than a few moms who were pretty bummed about the recall, because, let’s face it, if anything is going to effectively silence a screaming baby, it’s morphine. The museum covers all the basic stuff you learn in antidrug seminars in school, but what sets it apart is the amazing amount of paraphernalia on display—things like antique syringe kits found in the pages of the Sears & Roebuck catalog (some drugs with the worst reputations, like heroin and cocaine, were once entirely legal in the UnitedStates); a rabbit-and-fox fur coat worn by a former DEA agent to “blend in” with Cleveland drug traffickers in the 1980s; and an entire fake head shop storefront called Jimmy’s Joint, with its name lit up in blue neon letters.
The newest addition to the museum is an entire wing devoted specifically to the DEA’s efforts at diversion control. The exhibit is part of its Good Medicine, Bad Behavior campaign, and it’s pretty dramatic. The pharmaceutical wing leads with an enormous medicine cabinet, opened to reveal two-foot-high bottles filled with brightly colored pills the size of English muffins. They include the most common illegally diverted pharmaceuticals, including hydrocodone, OxyContin, and amphetamines. One side of the medicine cabinet is filled with giant fake prescriptions for each drug and a list of their intended uses. The other side lists each drug’s bad side effects. The weird thing is that the fake prescriptions that list the good qualities of the drug are all written out to “John Doe II,” as if already predicting the death of anyone taking these drugs, even for the right reasons. I’m being glib—there’s also a sobering slide show of young people who have died from overdoses of various forms of drug combinations
Similar Books
