Part One | Part Two | Part ThreeBy: Jean Johnson for Wounds1
Long gone were the endorphin-producing days of mega-exercise for Tara Sullivan; “There’s nothing they can do for meningitis – just bed rest and pain meds. It’s so debilitating. You just lie there and suffer.”
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When you or a loved one is faced with a drug addiction, it is important to know your facts.
Types of commonly abused substances, according to the National Institute of Health, include:
Opiates and narcotics (These include heroin, opium, codeine, Oxycontin and others)
Depressants
Hallucinogens (like peyote)
Tetrahydrocannabino or THC (This is the active ingredient found in marijuana and hashish)
Warning signs that someone is using opiates or narcotics:
Needle marks on the skin(in some cases called "tracks")
Scars from skin abscesses
Rapid heart rate
Constricted pupils(pinpoint)
Relaxed and/or euphoric state ("nodding")
Coma, respiratory depression leading to coma and death in high doses
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Worse, Sullivan’s physicians put her on Oxycontin, a drug she feared growing dependent on. “I used to be a drug addict, and by the end of the meningitis, I knew I was going to have a problem getting off the Oxycontin — it’s an opiate — one of those pharmaceuticals highly sought after as a street drug. Anyway, it was really kind of scary. I was afraid, so I told my nurse practitioner who is a wonderful person, and she suggested tapering off. So I was really careful and followed her directions to the tee. It worked, but I still think the medicine men in our culture are a little too happy to hand out pills without thinking through all the consequences. People need to have a way to get off those medications. Some warning that after two weeks you’re going to be addicted and have to deal with that.”Sullivan is hypersensitive to addictive substances and explains that she got into valium and alcohol when she was a young woman before discovering that meditation worked better in 1974, and finally leaving the last of her substance abuse behind in 1982. “It was a deadly combination – valium and alcohol,” she said. “But we do stupid things when we’re addicted.”
A proper child of the Sixties, Sullivan also included Maui Wowie, a high-test marijuana from Hawaii, and psychedelics in her repertoire. She puts marijuana in a class, along with alcohol and valium, of substances which interfere with the mental clarity that meditation helps her develop. However, she’s less inclined to condemn psychedelics — even though she’s left these drugs behind her as well.
“LSD. Psilocybin,” she said with her voice slightly dreamy and a wistful look in her light gray eyes. “And my favorite was peyote. I only did it four times, but I saw things that I never would have seen otherwise. So it’s very hard for me to be negative about the psychedelics because things that come from there are profound and teach you stuff you couldn’t learn in any other way – like two particular experiences I had on peyote that I credit for directing me toward meditation.” Indeed, Sullivan thinks that because she had psychedelic experiences, she’s now more open to the idea of ‘Enlightenment.’
“Mainly, after taking these drug-induced, consciousness expanding trips, I started wondering if meditation might – after a few hundred lifetimes or however many it’s supposed to take – do the same thing for a soul, only permanently.” Nirvana. Sullivan’s right in line with the rest of the world – searching after that which truly satisfies.
But back to the subject of addiction; Sullivan considers this the big monkey on the back almost worse in her history than the diabetes and meningitis put together. “Addiction does such a number on a soul,” she said. “When you’re an addict, everything you touch in life is ruined — your relationships, career, spirituality — you name it. I’m so grateful I found a way out from that life. If I hadn’t it would have been tough to take my most recent diagnosis. You know how it is when they tell you you have melanoma – give you five years to life and all. It’s quite a blow even if you are a practicing Buddhist and know that everything is impermanent.”
Continued in Part Four
