Monday, September 07, 2009

Crush That Oxycontin

I just have cheap basic cable service. I don't get channels like HBO or Show Time. If I want to see any of their award winning dramatic productions, I wait until the series has finished its run and and rent it. Sometimes I spend a whole weekend watching one marathon style. I like that.

Show Time has a new series about an immoral, substance abusing nurse starring Edie Falco. I haven't seen it. I've heard and read a little about it. It's got to be more true to life in its depiction of a fairly sizable minority of the American nursing community, than you usually see on television, even if it is exaggerated and laced with dark humor. Attempts by State Boards and employers to weed out drug addled, miscreant nurses are laughable. There are plenty around. I could tell you some amazing stories. Doctors routinely have even worse problems. They can get away with more and do.

One of the things I've heard about Edie's character on the show, is how she breaks up illicitly obtained, time released, pain meds to get the whole jolt all at once. I like to think I'm an intelligent and "in the know" kind of guy but this technique has never occurred to me, although now that I know about it, I can see it would obviously be very effective. I've never heard anyone discuss the technique on the job, even in ERs, where the habits of drug seekers are endlessly dissected. Just shows you how old, clueless and in the way I have become, that or how much everybody else thinks I'm an old narc, waiting to drop a dime.

Everyone out there, crushing your time release pain meds, have a good time. Don't take too much.

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