Hi. My name is Craig, and I am addicted to rock climbing. I’m not sure how humorous I intend this statement to be. I might have a problem.
In 2018, I climbed 210 days outside and put in another 25 days at the gym. I climbed as many as 14 days in a row. I climbed until I thought I might suffer a serious shoulder injury. So I ramped up my PT to enable me to keep going. Non-climbing friendships were put on hold. I felt irritable on rest days. All of the signs were there.
I figured if I stopped climbing cold-turkey, I’d probably have symptoms of withdrawal.
Well, I did stop climbing cold-turkey. For 3 months. While all that time, I dreamed of climbing the way that I imagine a junkie would dream of their next high, I didn’t get much of a chance to experience the withdrawal. Because I was on all kinds of happy-making drugs, that numbed my pain and took me to an alien world.
One of those drugs is called gabapentin. It is a miracle drug for me when it comes to alleviating the sciatic nerve pain that cropped up immediately after my accident. It took the pain in the back of my right leg from an 8 to a 2 with just a few doses. Eventually, the doctors and I found that getting rid of my nerve pain required a daily dose of 1800 mg – not the maximum dose for the drug, but not too far off.
The only problem is that gabapentin is pretty mind-numbing. My short-term memory has taken a big hit. And each day passes in a haze that suggests that my behaviors and interactions are controlled more by robotic action-reaction than actual sentient decision-making. For months now, I haven’t had the inner dialogue that motivates me, provides the source of my best ideas, and generally makes me feel like an intelligent, thinking being.
I’ll let you decide which three of these I have. Hint: It ain’t the sweet breath.
After being cleared to walk, my surgeon agreed that I could try to reduce my gabapentin dosage. On the first day of 2022, I happily went down to 1500 mg, hoping for some mental clarity. Instead, this “new year new me” was easily frustrated and quite agitated — a rarity for me. But I didn’t immediately connect the irritation with the titration (despite the dope rhyme). And I didn’t feel any extra nerve pain in my right leg, so after a few days, I dropped my dosage again — this time to 1200 mg.
The next morning, I woke up assuming that I had covid. I was sweating despite the freezing temperatures in the van. I heated things up in the van and had chills the rest of the morning. My anxiety was high. I felt nauseous. Even the sound of my favorite person’s voice made me feel agitated. I then realized that I didn’t have any of the cold symptoms associated with the omicron variant of the virus. I didn’t have covid.
I was in gabapentin withdrawal.
As a person who hesitates to take even one ibuprofen tablet when I have a headache, and whose pastimes don’t seem to overlap much with those described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I had assumed that drug withdrawal was something I’d only ever see on TV. But hey, here’s to new experiences. And what is a life truly lived but a series of new experiences. And since I’m still fairly disabled, I may as well happily accept whatever experiences this whole accident provides. I’d say around 7 of those simultaneous experiences are skillfully illustrated below.
I love a good infographic.
It turns out that withdrawal isn’t the only drug-related problem I may face. My sister, who works in the industry, said that I could experience depression and anxiety coming off of gabapentin. My psychiatrist friend told me that my dosage was dropping way too quickly, which could reignite my nerve pain and require an even higher dosage to relieve it.
So, I’ve decided to increase my dosage back to 1500 mg and stay there for a while. I’m struggling enough to keep up with the healing of multiple traumas. I don’t need to add any more changes to that list right now.
So as I slowly wean myself off of one drug, I hope to re-enter a different kind of addiction. One that doesn’t carry shame, but pride. One that doesn’t narrow my world view, but broadens it. One that won’t make me weaker, but stronger. An addiction that I would be proud to be back in the throes of, if I’m lucky enough to get a second chance.
So yeah… my name is Craig. And I’m addicted to rock climbing.