![]() I miss it when it’s gone, and I fight it when it’s around. If pain really is my sister, then Vicodin is my brother. I look forward to the pure escape, the heady rush-and not just the gift of painlessness but the opportunity for joy. Any fool would be, although there’s more to it, since I’m also afraid of the Vicodin-mostly of losing the Vicodin. Still, only one truth comes out, no matter how I use it: When I don’t take Vicodin, I live in pain.Īnd I’m afraid of the pain. No matter how I use it: When I don’t take Vicodin, I live in pain.Ĭonversely, I have buckled down and refused to give it out or veer from my prescription for weeks at a time. I’ve ignored the warning stickers and doled it out to friends and relatives for every manner of reason-injury and hangover, curiosity and redemption, because they asked for it, because it works, because I wanted someone to know the Vike. I’ve doubled the dosage on my prescription label routinely. I have taken it in every conceivable combination and dosage. I dream about Vicodin when I’m not taking it. Going off it, which I did once for two weeks, leaves me sleepless, shaky, testy, and dry-mouthed. While I was writing a departmental report last spring, I found that I could not sit up in a straight-backed chair to write. Last summer, I took two so I could stand in the ocean without fear of a big wave, then took another one when I got out so I could lie in the sun without stiffening in agony. I once took six to get through a round of golf. ![]() I usually take two a day, but I’ve taken as many as eight in a day when things got really bad. I started on the standard, plain-Jane 5-milligram dose after a car accident and moved to the stronger, 7.5-milligram Vicodin ES (which stands, sensibly, for extra-strength) following my subsequent surgery. I’ve been on and off Vicodin for almost a year and a half. Loyal, intimate, the sort of friend who whispers to you while you’re sleeping or just as you wake. They tell stories, give warnings and admonitions. But within days, the same doctors want to ease you off the Vike. What they’re hoping is that you’ll get a leash on your pain, gain control of it. They might start you out hard-say, two 5-milligram tablets every four hours. Doctors set you up on Vicodin when you’re so badly hurt, cut so deeply, damaged so thoroughly, that you can’t stand it. I’m here to tell you, they take it because it works. It is the painkiller of choice for thousands of drug users, legal and illegal both. You can listen to hers, too, and dispense advice with acuity and sympathy in equal measure. You want to slide up and tell the barmaid your troubles. The full-out Vicodin hum is like the enormous relief that follows a really fine shit. It slickens you, sends you loose against your pain, so you loll and roll in the wake of your old mood like a flag on a pole in the middle of June. Vicodin, my Vicodin, is a wet pleasure if there ever was one. “If you dig that out,” she said, “we’ll know you have a problem.” I haven’t. She told me about it at dinner that night. Last week, my wife vacuumed a Vicodin off the floor of our bedroom. There’s a half of one in the bottle of Tylenol in the downstairs bathroom, four in the glove box of my black car, six in my white car, and one on top of a paint can in the basement. There's one Vicodin in the breast pocket of my black suit, six in my desk drawer at work, two in my golf bag, and thirty-three in the bottle in my medicine cabinet. I can't remember where I spent last Christmas, But I know where all my Vicodin are. I have no idea where my passport is or my birth certificate or the photographs from my wedding. I couldn’t tell you how much money I made last year. Upgrade your membership to All Access and read every Esquire story ever published. This article originally appeared in the January 1999 issue of Esquire.
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