Addiction to Oxycodone and Xanax Nearly Destroyed My Life: My Recovery Journey

My issues with anxiety, and therefore the root of my addiction, go back to childhood. I don’t want to put the blame on my parents and family, but I grew up in a household where we didn’t talk about feelings. “Mental health” were words I never heard. We were supposed to be strong and to simply internalize any bad feelings.

I have been a worrier for as long as I can remember. Even in elementary school, I worried about grades and about fitting in. In junior high, I had my first panic attack. I thought I was dying, and when the doctor told my parents what it really was, they dismissed it. What does a 13-year-old have to panic about?

Anxiety only intensified in high school, when we moved to a new city. I felt paralyzed by fear when trying to talk to other kids or make friends. This was when I discovered the power of self-medication.

Desperate to have some kind of social life, I accepted an invitation to a party. I tried to drink from my parents’ liquor cabinet before going out, to relax myself, but I couldn’t find a key. Looking in their medicine cabinet, I found oxycodone, leftover from my dad’s back surgery.

I took a triple dose and hoped for the best. The sensation was amazing. I felt relaxed, my anxiety disappeared, and I made friends at the party. From there, I formed bonds with other kids over misusing prescription drugs. I went to pill parties and tried Xanax and other benzodiazepines and opioids.

What I thought was simply a way to fit in and to finally release all my worry and anxiety eventually turned into an addiction. By the time I got to college, I couldn’t function or go a day without an opioid for relief. Xanax helped, too, but I took that less often.

I felt like I was fine. My anxiety seemed under control. Yes, I needed the oxycodone, but as long as I could get it, I functioned. What I realize now is that it was all an illusion. Everything fell apart in my second year.

I kept using more and more to get high and to suppress the dread and worry that kept threatening to arise. I felt nervous about going to parties, so I took more. I worried about a big paper due, so I took more.

Failing every one of my classes, knowing I would be kicked out, and the fact that my parents didn’t know any of this led me to a nearly fatal binge. I took more oxycodone than ever before and followed it with a few doses of Xanax. I woke up in the hospital, alive thanks to my roommate who had called an ambulance when I stopped breathing.

Yes, I knew there were risks to self-medicating and misusing these drugs, but I had no idea they could kill me. I thought I had everything under control and that these drugs couldn’t be that bad since they were prescriptions.

I found out later that both opioids like oxycodone and benzodiazepines like Xanax are depressants. They slow down both breathing and heart rate, which is why they made me feel so good. But the cumulative effect of taking both together was basically suicidal. If I had actual prescriptions to these drugs, I would have seen the warning label.

And I’m not the only one to make this mistake. The number of overdose deaths that involve both an opioid and a benzodiazepine has been steadily rising for years. I had no idea that on top of becoming dependent on these drugs, I was risking my life every time I took them.

The emergency room and my roommate saved my life that night of the overdose, but the real life-changer was going to treatment. I resisted at first, and it wasn’t my parents who pushed but my brother and sister. They convinced me I could not control this addiction. I also think they knew I had anxiety disorders, but it was just something we never talked about.

On the second day of treatment, my psychiatrist diagnosed me with social anxiety disorder and panic disorder. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. I was just ignorant about mental health issues and what that means. Now it seems so obvious that I used prescription drugs to manage undiagnosed mental illnesses for years.

Residential treatment provided me with so many options. I enjoyed hikes out in the hills to learn how to relax in nature rather than self-medicate; I practiced yoga and meditation; I even learned about nutrition and how food affects my mood.

But the two things that helped me the most in treatment were working with my therapist and getting to know the other residents. In therapy, I uncovered all the reasons I used drugs, how I got addicted, and how I could manage anxiety in healthier ways.

From the other residents, I got to practice those strategies and learn to overcome my social anxiety. I learned from others and found out how beneficial it is to rely on the support of friends. Once I overcame my fear, deep conversations with my new friends helped heal me.

A key part of my therapy involved talking about my family. My therapist helped me see how those early relationships shaped many of my later decisions. My parents initially did not want to acknowledge that I had an addiction or anxiety disorders, but once my brother and sister started coming to therapy, they relented.

We had a few family sessions that were so difficult. Nobody wanted to open up because we had been so set in our damaging communication styles for years. Slowly, though, my parents talked. We all talked, and our relationships are so much deeper now and more meaningful. I now know I can go to my parents with worries and problems, and that they will listen without judgment.