U.S. MILITARY H BOOK EXCERPT 9TH OF A SERIES

THE RESILIENT WARRIOR

OPIOID STORY

BY DAVID KENDRICK

Book Editor's Note: Featuring self-help, mental health, and mind and body tactics from a variety of sources — veterans, former and active U.S. Marines, Navy, Army Rangers, Green Berets, family members and caretakers — The Resilient Warrior is collaborative collection providing needed wisdom for complete well-being for all of us. The first step to thriving is surviving, and the first step to surviving is knowing how to get what you need, when you need it. The following excerpt of this essential self-help guide to living a healthy, resilient, fulfilled and better life is the ninth in a series that EP Magazine has featured over the last several months.

Understand and know that quitting an addiction is an option. In 2007, I was shot in both legs by a sniper. My left leg was shattered and my femoral artery was severed, leading to an exceedingly long stay in the hospital – three months total. Over the course of my stay in the hospital, I had two blood transfusions and 14 surgeries, during which time, I was hooked up to a morphine drip to reduce my pain. Every hour or so I would have a new dose of morphine flowing throughout my body.

After three months, I left the hospital. After being out for a week, I noticed something. I was fiending for the morphine I'd been hooked up to for the previous three months. Doctors prescribed me Vicodin to deal with the pain, and it did help, but the morphine from the hospital is what I really wanted.

I tried to go back to the hospital to get more surgery. I told doctors I was still having pain and I needed another procedure. But that did not work. Instead, I was prescribed a strong opioid to deal with the pain I was having. That did the trick for me. Along with alcohol, I'd found a great way to get the buzz that I was looking for from the opioids. The unit that I was assigned to at that time was called the Warrior Transition Unit.

The unit was new on Ft. Carson, as a place for injured soldiers to get back to a regular unit, or heal from their injuries and