One of the things I will do, given half a chance, is offer drugs.

If I have more than just my last one or two vicodin, I'll share, happily. If I have fuzzypills on hand (dextromethorphan hbr and chlorephene maliate, likely spelled wrong, available OTC in most places like walgreens and safeway) I'll cheerfully offer them. If I have access to pot, or valium, or toridol, or even 800mg ibprofin, I will encourage the person suffering to take what they need, as much as they need, and perhaps even more. Someone asked me a while ago why I was so eager to get them to take pills, and made a comment regarding the idea that I just wanted everyone else to be a druggie too.

It's not all that far from the truth.

Right now I'm on one hell of a vicodin high. I woke up from some damn good sleep that was induced with the aid of amatryptaline. I've got pepsi, so I have a bit of a caffeine and sugar buzz too. How do I feel right now? I feel FUCKING GREAT. I've been insanely depressed for the last few weeks, hormonal, bitchy, stressed, tired, hurting... but right now I can't stop grinning and I don't hurt anywhere and even though I know it's artifical I can't help being happy.

Now, take that knowledge, combine it with the fact that I don't want people I care about in any way to suffer needlessly or for stupid reasons. Of course I'm going to act like a pusher. I know how pain-free, how blissful, how relaxed and content and satiated drugs can make me, and I know that 90% of the time they can do the same thing for whoever I'm offering them to. I've bullied and nagged and taunted and ordered and pleaded and demanded until Puppy took drugs, quite a few times now. Usually for sleep, sometimes for pain, but always so he would feel better. I basically force-fed Nreshan a handful of fuzzypills when he was here, drugging him up until he couldn't do anything but go along with suggestions, turning him into a cat, leaving him dazed and dizzy... and afterward, on the plane trip home as well as quite a few times once he was home, he's taken them of his own accord, in smaller doses, because he's learned how nice it can be to make the world just... fuzz out... until the music and your heartbeat are the only things in existance. Caleb was already a stoner when we met, so I can't say I introduced him to it, but I definitely encourage it because he's... not a different person, when he's stoned, but a happier person. He deals with chronic pain and serious long-term depression and if a few puffs will make him cheerful and content and not-in-pain believe me, I'll go out of my way to see he gets them. I AM the one who introduced him to fuzzypills and as we can't seem to get pot out here those are often what he will take instead, as they do help with pain and are a lovely disassociative that turns music into bliss, touch into pure pleasure, and just generally relaxes. I got Slash vicodined up a time or three. I've drugged Ryan several times. I got Kadin to drink and to smoke pot for the first time, encouraged him the first time he wanted to try shrooms, and now whenever he gets the chance he'll take whatever seems useful to ease his mind and untense his body.

And you know what?

I'm proud of it. All of it. Every moment when one of my boys has had just a little bit of their pain or stress or worry or depression or insomnia lifted because of a pill I handed them, I feel GOOD. Hell, frequently even if I'm stone cold sober when they start I'll get a buzz off of them, slipping into their mind and feeling the drug hit, feeling their world suddenly brighten, feeling them go from sad to happy. I love it. I won't ever stop doing it.

There's one other benefit: the more they take, be it smoked or swallowed or drunk or inhaled or even injected, the less room they have to scold me about what I take. And... see, I know I take a LOT of medication. Most of it is actual doctor-issued picked-up-from-walgreens pills in the little orange bottles covered with warning stickers. Not all of it though; for a while I was drinking pretty heavily, when it's available I will cheerfully get stoned off my arse, and there's a wide range of OTC meds I will take depending on what I need, advil, tylenol, chewable aspirin, and fuzzypills being in the top of the list, with antihistamines not far behind. Hell, the main reason I take chewable aspirin is because it helps the pain a little bit on its own and my mind registers it as OMGDRUG and, well, let's just say that some days placebos work damn well. *sigh*

So yeah. I'm a druggie. And I encourage others to become the same, pop a pill if you feel ill, take whatever you need or want if it gets you through the day. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty.

And then, like now, the medication kicks in and I remember WHY I take it.

Without medication, without the combination of painkillers and antihistamines and the occasional feel-good drug, I hurt so much I honestly want to die.

I've got doctor appointments of various sorts, I've got a PCP who will be actively trying to figure out the CAUSE of the pain and fix it, I've got good intentions and I do try to go without meds whenever the pain isn't agonizing. But when it IS... when I know relief is just a few swallows away... I rarely even try to fight the urge. When I hurt, truly hurt, I don't spend hours in pain just because I don't want to take so much medication. I get the fuck off my ass, take whatever I need to make the pain go away NOW, so that I can function and cope, and so that my body can relax enough to heal, so that the pain doesn't continue as long. I do what I can.

I'm not even really sure why I'm writing up all of this. *shrug* I've said most of it in one form or another before. Meh. I'm going to go nibble on soda crackers and see if I can get a little bit more sleep.