Michael Jackson + Addiction – Life at its Most Unfair (UPDATE)

 

I'm getting really pissed over the tenor of all this media coverage - and I'll tell you why.  It's the whole prescription meds angle.  Michael Jackson likely died due to an overdose of pain medication.  Christ!!  Every time some celebrity either dies or gets sent to rehab for using prescription pain meds as a route to getting high - my doctors get squirrely over treating my chronic pain.  I've a hard time getting them to treat the pain in the first place (why is it women are always told to just ignore severe pain?  As if that were possible!).  But as soon as the media gets in an uproar pontificating over all the supposed people lining up to abuse pain medication – doctors become loath to prescribe anything – no matter how badly needed.  And I need them.  Badly.

So I’m royally pissed.  The only people I ever hear of using pain meds to get high are indulged celebrities.  The rest of us barely get our pain treated at all.  And I am always in pain.  Always.  Every fucking minute of every fucking day (including the last few, which have been a nightmare).  The meds I am rationed only ease it enough so I can manage to walk across the room – they never really alleviate it.  And that under-prescribing is not about addiction, actually.  You don’t become addicted if the meds relieve real pain (or so my doctors keep telling me).  It’s the Puritanical belief that pain is something to be endured.  Just suck it up and move on.  Well the people who believe that have never lain writhing on the floor unable to breathe because they hurt so damn much.  Sleep?  Pffft.  Not likely – and when I do – I experience pain in my dreams.  So I never really escape.  My pain is always there.  It greets me in the morning and I shake hands with it every night. 

So now we have Michael fucking Jackson and his medicated trips in and out of Neverland.  Great.  Fucking great.  I’ll be needing my prescription renewed soon – and I anticipate trouble.  The last time Rush Limbaugh got caught with fake prescriptions – the pain clinic I was attending decided to cut patients meds in half.  You’ve no idea what it’s like to sit in a hospital waiting room listening to some poor sonofabitch cry himself silly because he can’t get any relief for his cancer pain.  Me?  I weep every day.  I weep every day 'cause I hurt every day; that's my life.  So yes, it’s terrible that Michael Jackson died.  Really.  I’m sorry for him, for his family and for his kids; but this talk of policing Anna Nicole-like over-prescribing will not have the effect people are looking for.  Wealthy celebrities will still be able to buy Oxycontin and Methadone any time they damn well please – while the rest of us (those who really need pain relief) – will have one hell of a time getting the occasional Vicodin.

But then I guess life is never fair.

Here's Michael in better days - when it was only about talent and ability.  I've noticed something, by the way - as I've watched the endless streaming videos: Michael Jackson was one angry fella.  Seriously.  There's lots of violence and destruction to be had in every one of his mini films.  I’d say Michael was mad at the entire world.  Maybe he had good reason to be – I don’t know.  Pity it got him in the end.  RIP, Michael.  It wasn’t your fault - not really.  No one was ever looking out for you, I guess. 

Well - the FDA just pulled Vicodin and Percocet off the market because they contain Tylenol, and Tylenol causes liver damage.  I'm sure this is a knee-jerk reaction to all the over-prescription hysteria running rampant in the media at the moment.  Thank you Michael fucking Jackson.

So that's it, folks - I'm screwed.  No more pain meds for me.  Oh - I'll call my doctor tomorrow and see if he will prescribe an alternative....but my hopes aren't very high in that quarter.  Frankly - I don't know what I'm gonna do at this point.  The chronic pain I suffer has spikes that are off the chart even with the pain killers.  I cannot even begin to imagine how bad it will all get if I’m left to cope on my own.

What a fucking mess!

Comments

[The Fat Lady Sings]

It took me a while to organize my thoughts. My reaction to all this has been quite complex - more so than I realized. I hardly even know where to begin..... I applaud his genius, repudiate his behaviors and abhor where the media is taking this. I certainly don't mean to sound uncaring or mean. I truly am sorry the poor man died....but I'm sick and tired of the media reaction to any celebrity driven, prescription related incident. There are legitimate uses for pain medication. A distinction should be drawn. Instead you get a knee-jerk reaction: let's throw the baby out with the bathwater; no more pain meds for you! The rich and famous will always be able to indulge themselves. It's the rest of us that suffer. I cannot begin to describe my frustration!

Then there's the music, the man, and the media response to his death as a thing separate from the addiction question. All have hit me quite differently. I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm frustrated. Shades of Anna Nichole, I'm afraid - with a touch of Elvis and Howard Hughes thrown in for good measure. Will someone tell me when exactly it was our society embrace the concept of 'virtuosity' in lieu of what’s really ‘real? In fact - 'real' hardly seems to exist any more. Truth has become what the media defines it to be (and that changes from subject to subject, network to network and day to day). Can one really say ‘anything’ without fear of repercussion? Anything at all? *sigh*

My prayers are with his children. What a hard row they’ll have to hoe these next few years. Everyone’s gonna treat them like gold filled piñatas.

[Joanna]

I totally understand both of your respones: the anger at the public misrepresentation of his death. My personal theory is that he was so far gone with his debt that he scheduled these shows in London, and then was terrified that he would fail in public because he was so drugged up he was a shadow of his former self. I think he either committed suicide through an overdoes intentionally or completed the long suicide process that is addiction heavy enough that you're on the verge of overdose every day. I have kept my own public response on my blog to a rememberance of what his music meant to me and my sister when we were young because frankly, I despised MJ the adult. Yes, he had an abusive childhood, yes, he was subjected to the stresses of unnatural fame, but so are/were many other people and they did not spend decades orchestrating publicity stunts, spending millions for empty self indulgence, and buying children, either as companions or as personal pets. Understanding the roots of his behavior does not excuse it for me, and I don't care what kind of genius he was, Michale Jackson was the circusmaster of his life, and he was a manipulative asshole.
He was an addict who exploited people--he did exactly what my addict relatives did: got multiple prescriptions from many doctors-- and was encouraged by millions to think he was above any kind of judgement because of his talent. Well, frankly, I'm sorry for the people he left behind, and especially for those three kids whose existence he created out of other people's genetic material.

As you say, now those of us who live with chronic pain will continue to live with the fallout of his abuse. I do not experience the levels of pain that you do, but mine has been bad enough this past week that I wished I had some medication, but I can't get anything stronger than ibuprofen. I have to suck it up, as you say. Even to get the sleeping medication that is the only way I can sleep at all, involves rituals of humiliation with the prescription bureaucrats.

[Jude]

I'll always remember Michael the Superstar and how talented he was, a joy to watch.

As for the rich getting so much more than the rest of us NEED when it comes to pain meds, that's just so wrong. If you absolutely need it to get through, then you should have it. I'm so sorry that you are suffering like you are honey. (((((hugs))))))

[Ronald Horvath]

Pain. Yes, the whole situation, indeed his whole life, reeks of pain doesn't it, from the mobs of "adoring" fans all crying out for a piece of the idol, to the accusations of pedophilia, to that horrific mask of a face, a twisted disguise carved out of his own flesh to escape and evade an all-consuming world. And God knows what pain his children will go through living down, and up to, the myths and realities of their father's life.

Yes, it's all about pain and his attempts to sing, dance, and fantasize it away. How fitting, how Elvis-like, that he should die in the attempt. And just how many of these sad, tragic, pain-filled legends does this celebrity obsessed society need? Exactly what purpose do they serve, what emptiness do they fill? And why can't we all get past this monstrous, superhuman co-dependency between fans and their chosen gods that makes such a black comedy out of our lives.

No, just bury him and be done with it, though I know they won't. They'll deify him, another Orpheus, a mixture of passion, creativity, genius, and too many personal demons, magnified by the public lens, all twisted together into a "virtual" human being, too unreal to exist, and too human to survive it all.

[JACK KNIGHT]

WHEN YOU MESS WITH MOTHER NATURE SHESOANGETCHY AND SHE GOT EEM . FATJAX