Hi. My name is Allison [chorus of "hi Allison"] and it's been 16 months since my last Advil.
Aspirin was my gateway drug. By college I was hitting the Tylenol pretty hard. Then one fateful day in grad school someone offered me some Advil and I was hooked. Whereas aspirin and Tylenol often had little impact on my headaches, Advil took care of them instantly. As long as I had a bottle of Advil on hand, I was invincible. And I never went anywhere without that bottle.
Turns out tho', that if you use a lot of ibuprofin, your brain comes to like it. And brains are a bit like toddlers; they figure out pretty quickly that the best way to get what they want is to throw a tantrum. By my 40s, daily headaches were my brain's version of a 2-year-old throwing himself on the floor and screaming. Brain needs ibuprofin; brain gets headache to get ibuprofin.
So, yes, I'm a recovering ibuprofin addict. Is that pathetic or what? Most addictions at least begin with pleasure. You get a high, a kick, a buzz, a rush. Or so I'm told. But what would I know?--my addiction began with a headache. "Well," said Keith the other night, "when you first started taking ibuprofin, your headaches went away. So that was a form of pleasure." I glared at him and explained in my "I'm talking calmly and slowly but say one more wrong word and I will hurt you" voice that the absence of pain is not, in fact, an equivalent for pleasure.
At least if I were recovering from some other sort of addiction I'd have the memory of good times, of late nights and dancing and gales of laughter, of the delightful and the delectable. . . you know, life on the edge, a bit of risky business. But no, no decadence and debauchery with ibuprofin. Just a total nerd addiction, a dweeb dependence. One neurologist told me that by taking too much Advil I have permanently bruised my brain. And I didn't even get to have fun.
The thoughts and adventures of a woman confronting her second half-century.
About Me
- Facing 50
- Woman, reader, writer, wife, mother of two sons, sister, daughter, aunt, friend, state university professor, historian, Midwesterner by birth but marooned in the South, Chicago Cubs fan, Anglophile, devotee of Bruce Springsteen and the 10th Doctor Who, lover of chocolate and marzipan, registered Democrat, practicing Christian (must practice--can't quite get the hang of it)--and menopausal.
Names have been changed to protect the teenagers. As if.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
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Did you have to quit cold turkey? How exactly does one detox from Advil?
ReplyDeleteCold turkey. One takes a lengthy leave from work and relies on lots of ice packs.
ReplyDelete