Before I begin this article I would like to thank those persons who have emailed me and expressed their concerns for my wellbeing, I’d like you to know I’m doing much better and thanks for your continuous support.

All individuals would like to acquire a job after studying and making a sacrifice to fully educate oneself and therefore should be considered for any suitable position regardless of the public positions that their father occupy.
Let me start by apologising in advance to any reader I might offend with the intensely personal nature of this article – my rationale in recounting what I’ve been through is the best way of communicating my thoughts on an issue that has wider public health ramifications.
I’ve written about this issue and – more importantly – the attendant dependence I’ve developed on the painkillers used for treatment about twice over the past two years. The first article, I wrote generally on the issue of pain management and the second one had more to do with my reaction to the rife and completely inaccurate speculation of my hospitalisation in 2011.
This time, I wish to write more directly on the issue, not just the larger picture, but bringing as well some of the unique perspectives that I possess. Dependency, addiction, in the larger connotation of it, has as almost many manifestations as there are things people can do.
Some people are addicted to gambling, others are addicted to sex. I remember reading one news story a few years back, one I showed to my son as a hint, in which a young man was so addicted to a videogame that he played it several days non-stop before collapsing and dying in front of his computer. Some people are addicted to shopping, although admittedly (and I expect some repercussions from my wife for saying this) it’s hard to tell if many women are actually addicted to shopping or if it’s just a regular weekend.
That said, chemical addictions, or substance dependency, constitute the most widespread and critical forms of addiction. According to a report by Dr. Sanjay Gupta that I saw on CNN, there are some 23 million Americans currently addicted to one substance or the other – alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, illegal drugs, prescription medication, even glue. The actual order of primacy of abuse, the top three addictive drugs are, in descending order, alcohol; marijuana; and prescription painkillers. The latter accounts for 1.9 million of those addicts.
I’ve had two major back surgeries in my life – intended to relieve the chronic back pain I experience – and each necessitated the use of very strong prescription painkillers for my recovery. And I, quite frankly, have struggled with a clear addiction to them. There is a serious and sad irony attached to the use of powerful painkillers: while they work well to relieve pain at the onset, very often, with the real pain gone, the body (or brain, rather) becomes so addicted to their effects that coming off them makes you feel much worse than the pain they helped to relieve in the first place. Coming off a strong prescription painkiller is a living, waking nightmare of craving for the drug, body chills, insomnia, anxiety attacks, depression – one minute you’re delirious, the other you’re irritable and no one can talk to you. All these are things I’ve experienced and it is no picnic for me.
The thing is; it isn’t a picnic for others either, as with any addiction, particularly chemical ones-the addict doesn’t suffer in isolation. The drugs alter your personality so subtly but so significantly at the same time that although you most likely won’t notice the difference, the worst of it – the alienation, the irritability, the lack of communication – is felt by those closest to you.
I’ve spent a long time thinking hard on how this thing has impacted upon my life and I can tell you, that time has been personally enlightening for me with regard to my perspective on substance dependency. For example, you see the typical drug addict, the typical junkie, walking on the street and your view of that person is somehow subhuman. To satisfy his or her addiction, the cocaine or marijuana addict’s life is one of great personal compromise – humiliating and arduous manual labour for little compensation; being treated with indignity and scorn by almost everyone they come across. I’ve been witness to one ‘junkie’ disparaging another – equally ragged, equally homeless – because the former would only smoke marijuana and drink rum, while the latter was a full blown cocaine addict.
At a fundamental level, prescription pain medication dependency is the same thing, the same sacrificing of personal standards, granted to a much lesser degree. This sort of medication is difficult to come by, and while I’ve personally never checked, I am sure that it is far easier to get a joint of marijuana or a gramme of cocaine than it is to procure, say, a couple Vicodin tablets, or a syringe of some other pain-relief drug.
If I’m to be honest with myself, at my worst point of dependency, I’d say I was nothing more than a sophisticated junkie and like any junkie, your addiction affects how you work. I’ve been short with staff, and I’ve had to cancel meetings, and the only thing that has spared me really is that my other addiction; work itself, served as a sort of therapy for me.
Potentially addictive painkillers, or potentially addictive regimens of painkiller treatment, should really be the last resort in the treatment of any pain-related condition or illness, and whenever the decision is taken, it should include comprehensive patient education about the pros and cons, in addition to extensive psychotherapy throughout the duration of the treatment. This would save the patient a great deal of pain in the long term, whether actual pain or the psychic trauma that comes with dependency and the attendant stigma attached to it.
Which brings me to this: in an upcoming article, I want to deal frontally with a serious related issue that pertains to patient confidentiality, particularly within the private health care industry in Guyana. While I am grateful to, and have tremendous respect for, the medical personnel that have attended to me at various times, I believe that there are gaps in the private health care system here which facilitate the leakage of an individual’s personal health information, the sort of gaps that would be prosecutable in other jurisdictions.
In closing, let me say that I am extremely grateful that I have the family that I have, and the staff that work close to me, people who’ve weathered the storm of my shift in moods, and stuck by and supported me throughout. I remember going to former President Bharrat Jagdeo and Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, both of whom I had to communicate directly with, as regards my professional responsibilities in various capacities, and being encouraged to take as much time as I want to deal with my medical problems adequately. I remember the President saying clearly, and sincerely, “We want you to get better.” I of course didn’t take their advice and went back to work as soon as I felt marginally better.
As for my anonymous detractors, particular those behind the letter- writing campaign – questioning my health, my capacity for job performance – that prompted the article I wrote a year ago.
Over the past couple of months a number of persons have requested verbally and through emails about the articles that were done on pain Management.
A number of persons have requested that we republish the series of articles that were done on dependence and addiction on pain killers.
To the various rehabilitation centres overseas that have invited me to speak I’ll like to use this opportunity to inform you that once I’m fully covered I will be visiting.
Written By Keith Burrowes