Carol Newman:
CLASS OF 1985
Chelmsford High SchoolClass of 1985
Chelmsford, MA
College of the Holy CrossClass of 1989
Worcester, MA
Carol's Story
Since my teens, altering my state of consciousness to feel better in my skin had been part of my weekend routine. From the moment I tried alcohol when I was 12, I knew I was in trouble. Even the smallest amount would activate an invisible switch in my brain: more. My mind and body had to have more. I could tell something was different about me when I saw how my friends drank. They could limit themselves to just a couple of drinks, but how?
Each ounce I swallowed held the potential to unveil a stranger. Obnoxious. Offensive. Obscene. If I were lucky, she wouldn’t break the law or get into trouble. She wouldn’t have to apologize or search for her belongings the next day. Regardless of how severe my hangovers were, how irrational I became, or how badly I harmed myself, others, or physical property, nothing could convince me that alcohol wasn’t the solution to my problems.
When alcohol wasn’t opportune, I’d sample pills from my family’s medicine chest, smoke pot with friends, or inhale nitrous oxide intended for whipped cream. For a few years, these were the only drugs I considered safe. Hard drugs like hallucinogens, cocaine, and heroin were eternally off-limits. Intense peer pressure, however, tipped the scales in favor of sampling and ultimately enjoying an increasing number of those self-prohibited substances. Anything that allowed escape from “me”—be it for a moment or an entire day—held appeal.
I took them appropriately when I needed opioid painkillers for legitimate, severe pain in my late teens and early to mid-twenties. I suppose because I was in real physical pain, I wouldn’t experience euphoria. I’d get tired. When the pain subsided, I would toss the remaining pills.
A few weeks after my 27th birthday, my relationship with painkillers changed forever. My hematologist at the time wanted to prepare me for the next inevitable bout of neutropenic-related pain. So he gave me, among other medications, a large, multi-refill Vicodin prescription. Doomed from the moment I took just one in an attempt to alleviate my emotional and mental anguish. That little white pill brought such relief. Such escape from loneliness. Like a newborn cradled in warm, loving arms, I was finally comfortable in my skin. Accepted. Free for a few hours from all worry and fear.
During the first years of misuse and abuse, I’d enjoy a couple of months here and there where painkillers weren’t controlling my life. Alcohol eagerly filled the void left in their absence. Over time, however, my run-ins with opioids—whether obtained through doctors or stolen from others—became more problematic. I grew mentally, emotionally, and physically dependent on them. Attempts to wean myself or have family members help taper me off the pills were downright impossible. Regardless of how much pills were destroying my relationships and how wretched I felt during withdrawals when the urge or opportunity presented itself, I’d be right back at it.
At 36, I entered rehab for the first time and stayed clean for almost eight months. Uprooting from Maine to California was an emotional trigger, however, and I had few tools at the time to deal with my fears. All it took was a return to the hospital to launch me back to active addiction.
With an increasing opioid tolerance, I quickly graduated from snorting pills to injecting oxycodone, morphine, or fentanyl five months after returning to California. A lonely prisoner of my addiction and neutropenia, I feared leaving the house, talking to people, or doing much beyond using drugs to cope with my misery. Hope faded quickly, as did the life in my eyes. My world shrank in tandem with my pupils. I was a burden without purpose.
For months, I’d drop to my knees each night and plead to God that the next day be different. But my first thoughts each morning echoed like a needle popping at the end of a vinyl record: I can’t handle the pain of withdrawal. I’ll do it just one more time. Tomorrow will be different. The disease of addiction progressed with or without my permission. Its ruthless grip tightened regardless of how desperately I cried for freedom. The substance I once took to free my mind had unbridled a beast that enslaved every inch of me. Chewing me up. Spitting me out. Its one goal was to rid the world of my presence.
For several months, my IV drug abuse was a well-guarded, shame-filled secret. After coming close to death, I decided to get honest and re-embrace recovery. At 37, I returned to rehab to begin anew.
When I completed my second 28-day treatment, I had every intention of leaving the hell of active addiction forever. Attending meetings and working a program were going to keep me sober. Or so I thought. The morning of the day I was to celebrate two years of recovery, my heart was filled with joy and hope. I was clean and sober. And I was pregnant for the first time. That afternoon we saw the ...Expand for more
embryo growing in my belly. I searched the ultrasound monitor for a heartbeat. Nothing. My heart dissolved in the pit of my gut. “Why? I don’t understand. Why me?” I silently screamed as I imagined God reassessing my potential value as a mother. Instead of using the tools I’d learned, I sprinted from them. From God. Straight into the familiar darkness of a bottle of pills.
For many years, I couldn’t achieve long-term sobriety. I’d have a few months, and then I’d take a handful of Sudafed when exhausted. I’d get to a year and then misuse a prescription to help me sleep. I was plagued by avoidance of physical discomfort — fatigue, insomnia, restless leg discomfort, and routine physical pain. I wanted any control over my body I could garner. I hated it for its defectiveness. For stealing dreams I’d had. For every minute it had chained me to a hospital or sickbed. I rationalized and I justified at every turn. “I’m different. They don’t understand what I’ve been through. That part doesn’t apply to me.” My uniqueness, self pity, and entitlement were preventing me from giving my will and life to God absolutely.
Eventually, during the summer of 2011, something shifted within. I surrendered the fight against drugs and began looking at my life through lenses of acceptance and gratitude. One day at a time, doing what was suggested and putting one foot in front of the other, I managed to enjoy continuous recovery for almost four years. God grew to become everything to me, and I relied on that relationship to see me through many challenging situations. Until I didn’t.
Three months after arriving in Oakwood, Ohio, I developed severe, mysterious, right-sided teeth and facial pain. Because I’d told my physician and dentist I was a recovering addict, neither would prescribe adequate pain relief. Non-stop physical agony and hopelessness had become my life once more. Suicide grew in my mind as the only solution. I couldn’t understand why my life had to be filled with so many hurdles. Colored by anger and fear, my relationship with God evaporated from my psyche faster than water on sun-baked asphalt.
After four months of misery, misdiagnoses, and hospitalizations secondary to incorrect medicines being prescribed, I found a physician to prescribe opioids and a surgeon to diagnose and correct the underlying cause of my pain. The discs on both temporomandibular joints (TMJs) needed replacement. My right-side disc had fallen forward, and the inflammation around that TMJ was pressing the trigeminal nerve (hence the mysterious pains in my face and teeth). At this point, I was taking opioids on a daily basis, and the phenomenon of craving “more” badgered me from morning till night.
Although the TMJ surgery helped to address one aspect of my pain, because I’d been in severe, untreated pain for so long, I developed an autonomic, neurological condition on the right side of my head, neck, and face. It’s similar to trigeminal neuralgia and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Type 1. It can go into remission. It can recur.
During the fall of 2018, I found myself in severe physical and emotional pain once again when we moved from Ohio to California. I was desperate for relief. I’d alerted my new physicians that I was an addict. It was a repeat of 2016. None would prescribe narcotics for my pain. Feeling abandoned and desperate, I made a stupid and almost fatal mistake. On November 11, 2018, I accidentally overdosed on what I thought was oxycodone. The pill I’d obtained from a woman I’d met contained large amounts of illicit fentanyl. Seconds after the fentanyl was in my bloodstream, my body shattered to our cold bathroom tiles in sync with the breakfast plate I’d been holding. Witnessed in silence by my nine-year-old, sweet Cailin. No more breath. No more pulse. Turning blue. Cailin repeatedly shrieked and raced for Brian. He arrived to find his wife a morbid gray.
For ten minutes, Brian performed CPR until paramedics could race me to the nearest hospital. Eight hours later, after multiple doses of naloxone, I came to in the ICU from a place of utter blackness. Dumbfounded. Scared. In last night’s urine-soaked pajamas. Unable to move any part of my body. “Where am I and what the hell happened?” I thought. “You died,” Brian later recounted.
I now believe to the core that the disease of addiction wants me dead. As in gone forever. Am I willing to go to any and all lengths to stay sober? In this moment the answer is yes. But my fears of abandonment and severe physical pain continue to plague me from time to time. Trusting that He/She/It, the Universe, my Creator, my God can handle these fears or realities remains an ongoing journey. One day at a time.
If you or someone you know is suffering from alcoholism or addiction, and you’d like to connect with someone who can relate, feel free to message me via careenewman(at)gmai...or Classmates.
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