I related my experience with taking pain pills after my surgery a couple months ago, and my overly analytical brain is still processing the experience and trying to make some sense of it. The most important thing of course is that I stopped taking them when I no longer needed them, and I got rid of the leftovers. I certainly am aware of the addiction potential of narcotics and I treat them with great respect - however, this was the first time I had ever really felt "the hook" so to speak. It was not what I expected - it was far, far more subtle and it literally snuck up on me. Much as alcohol did 35 years ago. With any new experience, perhaps at first you are more curious than judgmental. There's all this input, and you don't know what to make of it. Then you repeat the experience a few more times, and begin to decide what you like about it, what you don't like. You say to yourself, maybe I'll do this again - or maybe I don't ever want to do this again. And then you go back to what you were doing, and a few days down the road it sneaks up on you like a lost lover. You *miss* it. Science can tell you what alcohol does to the body, and to the brain. It can explain conditioning receptors, depletion of neurotransmitters, all that stuff. In a strictly classroom sense, science can make a damn good case for staying the hell away from alcohol all together. And that's where I was at when I entered college at the age of 18. My only taste of alcohol had been a sip of communion wine, and a couple of sips of beer I had tried, which I found harsh and bitter. My father had died of alcoholism a few years earlier. I was educated in the dangers of alcohol and drug addiction, a child of the 70s. I had been lectured by real people, recovering alcoholics and addicts. I had no intention of ever touching an illegal drug, and really no intention of drinking. But I did eventually have a beer here or there in college. I struggled to drink it, and over the course of an hour or two, got it down but it was warm and nasty and I was drinking soda along with it and eating snacks. I felt no effect of alcohol. Again around me I saw the effects, guys passed out, puking, acting stupid. I had no intention of doing anything like that. The first time I actually got enough beer down in a short enough time for it to actually effect me, I was really caught off guard. I had wanted to find out what the big deal was all about. I was expecting physical effects, and I got them. What I was totally unprepared for was the emotional effect. Reconstructing it all these years later, my only theory is that my chronic anxiety was lifted. When you have something your whole life, you aren't aware of how oppressive it is until you experience some relief from it, and boy did I feel it. Even just from a couple of beers. In this moment, my mental obsession with alcohol began. I had some years of drinking ahead of me to qualify as an alcoholic, but everything was in place from that moment . The chronic anxiety that the alcohol provided such a beautiful and welcome relief from was something that came with me from birth. I was born an alcoholic, and I believe that to this day. Being sober means dealing with that chronic anxiety in other ways, but primarily it means acknowledging that it exists. I can't always exist in the serene state, that place where the anxiety goes away *without* chemical assistance. But I can do it a lot of the time, and that comes from working the steps and all that goes with it. So fast forward to 2011 and my surgery, and those little Percocets (generic Watson actually), 5 mg Oxycodone Hydrochloride/325 mg Acetaminophen. A very modest dosage. I took as directed. For the first 4 days, I was just in recovery and I couldn't really tell you what those pills did, if anything. They seemed to help with the pain and just generally feeling crappy - which a general anesthesia will do to you. On day 5, I just stopped taking them because I felt better and really didn't think I needed them. On day 6, I felt worse and I took one at bedtime, it seemed to help. On day 7, I went all day and then in the evening, I thought of my "cute little pillsies" and smiled. I took one at bedtime, and that was the last one I took... clearly my attitude had shifted a bit... LOL. Like I say, I'm still processing - but - those pills didn't produce any physical, euphoric sensation in me. I didn't feel "high". No effect like alcohol. I was taking as directed, and only for a short time. So what was it that made me smile on day 7 when I anticipated my "little pillsie"? How could something I didn't even really notice suddenly make me light up as if a pretty girl had just entered the room? Yep, that's it - subtle but cunning. And powerful. In fact, the feeling was *exactly* the same as a pretty girl entering the room. Not sexual, just an "Ohhh, that's nice!!" thought. But why? What exactly implanted that wonderful memory in my brain, that made me think so positively about the little pillsie? The only thing I can come up with is that somewhere in me, it was doing what alcohol did - and what I learned to do in sobriety. Relieve that anxiety just a little bit. That's when it brought me all the way back to my first drinks and the first time I felt them. The difference was then, I knew it was the alcohol immediately. In the case of the percocet, I didn't have the attribution until some time later. I'm very glad to have made a full recovery from surgery, with no complications and no aftereffects. I missed less than a week of work. I was on the pain pills at regular intervals on a Friday (day of surgery), Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, off on Tuesday, and one Weds night and one Thurs night. I was cleared to full physical activity (no lifting restriction) after 30 days. Yet the memory of those immediate post-surgery days has that pretty-girl fondness associated with it. I really don't like being sick. I don't like being down, being in pain, having to fast, or having to pay the bills. It's a scary process. Yet my brain *fantasizes* about it... just as I fantasize about the pretty girl. It's good to know what I am. My disease isn't miles behind me, even if my last drink is years behind me. My disease is right over my shoulder, and it taps me every now and then to remind me what I am, and what I need to do to stay sober every day. I'm an alcoholic, and I call myself an alcoholic. But I could be a drug addict at the drop of a hat. All the more reason to keep spiritually fit. And always tell on myself. Barisax