XXXII. Turn on, tune in, drop out.

For longer then I care about I have had some form of massive pain in my back. I tease that it's my kids but the truth of the matter is that I was suffering from a lumbar herniated disc that was pressing against two nerves in an odd manner not normal to this type of injury. A little over a month ago, as of this writing, I had a lumbar microdiscectomy performed on me that came very close to a spinal fusion once my surgeon got in to see the mess inside.

For about three months before this I was trying different things with a pain clinic here in Chaska that just was not working. It may have if I had real doctors in the years leading up to this and not some mystic shaman throwing chicken bones in the air and telling me that the source of my problems were that I was too fat, getting old and that it was all in my stupid head (bitter, party of one). But now that it is all done and over with I look at the dangers beyond the damage done, and would have continue to have been done to mt back. That danger is the drugs.

I have always felt sorrow for those that became addicted to drugs via pain. Feeling pain for over ten years, and coming a point where I was crippled and could barely move because of it has one looking to find something to ease it, even if just a bit. Many doctors are quick to hand out these pain pills without follow up, or in older days not really know the true effects because of the lack of world wide knowledge. Many because of war and injury became hooked. Bela Lugosi. John F. Kennedy. Herman Goering. Yes, even monsters suffered real pain and needed ease.

I am one that does not enjoy the feel of being 'high' and cannot understand the desire to do so. BUT wait you might say, you enjoy beer! True, the taste and aroma of beer. That is why I am careful when partaking as not to become under the influence. The same with Single Malt Scotch. The thought of drinking to become drunk and stupid appalls me.

Now comes that time of weening. Easing back from these pain killers makes me so happy on many levels. Knowing that the pain is going that I am not a slave to narcotics is the major reason. I have my bad days now and then and need to return to the original doses, but my good days are becoming more and more with the lower doses. I have never used any illegal drugs in my life and care not to and along with that I do not wish to become addicted to the legal ones either.

Dr. Timothy Leary might have wanted the world to 'turn on, tune in and drop out' but how much would we lose without the ability to use our reason, logic, passion and wisdom? To live in a world of haze instead of clarity? Yes, the world is ugly now and then. It is bad. Bad things happen. Even pain. But we as humans are given a God given gift to raise up beyond that if we give ourselves enough credit to. That power is to quit looking at our failings and realize that there is higher purpose for us, even the 'littlest' of us, if we look past our own egos and see that there is a higher power driving us on. It is easy to fall into the world of haze when we feel alone. When we know we are not we can face each day with hope and happiness...

...and even at my highest level of pain my wife can attest that I had happiness, because all this is more then about me.

Eirik Farwanderer
10 March, 2012 Anno Domini.