The Ad Man studied his watch, his eyes darting nervously through the Venetian blinds to the outer office. He was alone, save for a distracting voice in his head, not quite identifiable. “Must remember to breathe.”

Sam Lutski pops his flat head into his colleague’s corner office and with an annoying Cheshire Cat smile croons, “Board room, Frank. Five minutes. ”

“Be Right there,” Frank the Ad Man replies.

“Quarterly’s ready?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, yeah. Gimme a sec.”

Sam backs away, closing the door behind him. He’s seen the Ad Man like this before.

Frank is suddenly cognizant of his knee jerking spasmodically under the mahogany desk. The Ad Man removes a patina of sweat from his upper lip. He suddenly remembers to breathe as he reaches into his desk drawer, removing a prescription bottle, unscrewing the cap. The Ad Man pours the white oblong pills into his palm. He counts them. Seventeen. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, he tells himself. He’ll have to call in his refill by Friday. Make a note to make a note in my calendar.

As the Ad Man goes to replace the pills, his index finger twitches and he fumbles the ball, the bottle slipping out of his hands and plummeting to the thickly carpeted floor, the painkillers spilling across the shag behind and under his desk.

“Shit.”

The Ad Man drops to his knees, teased by arthritic stings, as he hurriedly gathers the pills, one by one.

Sally enters, finding the Ad Man on all fours.

“What?” the Ad Man snaps.

Caught off guard, Sally replies, “I have your Quarterly print outs for…”

“Put them on my desk and get out!”

Flustered, his secretary obliges

Frank finishes his task, placing all but the last two pills in the bottle. He gulps them down. The water in his coffee cup is empty. He chews the chalky oblongs anyway.

A few minutes later, he’s headed to a staff meeting. Partners and Executives have gathered. C.O.O. Thompson sits impatiently at the head of the table. The Ad Man enters last, taking his appointed seat. A wave of warmth and comfort washes over him.

“Frank?”

His eyes flutter. The Ad Man cannot see that all other eyes are on him, especially Thompson’s.

“Frank? We’re twenty minutes behind, for chrissakes. Do you or do you not have the department’s Quarterly Reports?”

“Yessir, I….” Frank’s tongue is thick and dry. The Ad man grimaces. He has left the damn papers in his office.

The Opiate Robot is savvy. They know a lot about their “medicines.” They are “educated” about opiates – every kind of opiate. They understand that if they can’t get OxyContin, they can use Hydrocodone or they can get Vicodin or Percocet or Percodan or Fentanyl, or Lollipops or Patches or Demerol or they will shoot Dilaudid or take 3mg of Neurontin three times a day. It’s not uncommon to find someone who is mixing methadone with Dilaudid and Oxycodone. Robots like to manipulate the high: the sudden onset of the high, the maintenance of the high, and how to avoid coming down too quickly. Patients’ discussions with their doctors about opiates have become very sophisticated. They know that Percocet usually has so many milligrams of Tylenol and acetaminophen and that they can’t take too many of those. They know they can only get so many of this kind or that from any one doctor. They know that the acetaminophen in the Percocet is bad for the liver and that they have to limit those to six days so they have to mix it with Vicoprofen and keep the Fentanyl Patch on at all times. The robots know what they are doing. The old junkies on the street never came to doctors. The New Age Addicts are concerned about their health. They know that using these opiates are bad for them so they check with doctors. As a result, the addictions are maintained and made “safe” by the prescribing physicians. It’s quite bizarre. The doctor is constantly changing the opiate prescription because the patient may become tolerant to one or another. The conventional protocol was to rotate the prescriptions periodically to limit the patient’s likelihood of dependence. But the New Age Opiate Robots have gotten very smart. They “doctor shop”, moving between one physician and another. They even seek out healthcare benefits. As incredible as it may seem, often insurance companies are paying for these drugs. The smart Opiate Robot will stage-manage the system in this way. Many will even begin the addiction years before the addiction begins. They want “secure” access to opiates so they shrewdly construct a medical profile with a medical chart that will allow them to take their “case” to any doctor, to wherever they have to go to get the opiates they need. Some will go so far as to injure themselves. They will take advantage of an x-ray or an MRI that is clearly indicative of some injury. Although there is no longer any pain it is very difficult for a doctor to tell that. A physician can look at an injury on a CAT scan and see damage, see evidence of damage, see where the pain must be coming from, and the addict will say, “You’re right, Doc. That’s where it hurts.” How does an Opiate Robot become a robot? How do they become addicts? The first stop on the road to understanding the sources of addiction is the “genetic” model which suggests that a predisposition for addiction is inherited, generally from the father. The idea is that addiction can be passed along from generation to generation. But it is certain that in most cases it is not only genes that are passed along but the dysfunctional modeling of addiction itself. If you come from a family who’s genetically predisposed to addiction, it is possible to pass on drug dependent behaviors from one generation to the next. Next stop is the victim of recreational use. This robot started out just doing it for fun and enjoyed the ride so much that they eventually became drug dependent and couldn’t stop. The fourth source of addiction is the one belonging to the chronic pain patient. This individual is tormented by an agonizing illness and needs to medicate to make the pain go away. Eventually the drugs take over and destroy the patients, preventing them from psychologically functioning beyond their use of drugs. The final underpinning of addiction appears as a result of psychiatric illness. Someone who suffers from a psychiatric illness like bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorder, or obsessive compulsive disorder will frequently attempt to medicate away the disorder. Unless a psychiatric illness is treated, that individual will never be whole. Sadly, they turn easily into Opiate Robots.

Opiate Robots don’t see themselves as robots. They don’t want to believe they are addicts; they are in partial denial. Partial because, in most cases, they recognize they are dependent upon their medications, but they think, “I don’t use cocaine, I don’t score heroin on the street, I don’t drink alcohol. I am just taking medicine. I take it for sleep. I take it for anxiety. I take it for pain. I have a job. I have a family. I’m not a drug addict.”

But the Opiate Robot is an addict. A mainstream addict, but an addict nonetheless who doesn’t want the boss to find out, or the wife or the kids. He doesn’t want his employees or his co-workers to know. The robot consumes enormous amounts of energy in this endless endeavor. Life for the Opiate Robot is a prolonged high-wire act. Life is a prolonged manipulation. They are hiding it, endlessly lying about when they are using; the robot’s whole life becomes a prolonged pattern of untruth. The only way you can tell if an Opiate Robot is lying is when their lips are moving.

In fact, the Opiate Robot is so consumed with lying, covering up, manipulating, hiding their use, making sure they have time to get loaded, making sure their “medication” is Fed-Ex’ed to them – there is no time or desire for love-making, no time or desire for children or family. Mom or Dad may go to the girl’s Little League game, but they are not really there. They just took an 80mg tab of Oxycodone. They are in the motions of life, but their life is the drugs.

Let’s imagine the husband is the robot. He’s a real estate developer in Kansas City and he is addicted to high doses of opiates. He is not interacting with his teenage son, he doesn’t track his son’s mental development, he doesn’t counsel his son. He is not forming bonds. He is not interacting with his son in any significant way, caring for the boy. He makes sure he shows up at his son’s game, he watches a movie with his son, but although these two people are living lives in the same house they are really lightyears apart. There is very little communication because he is not capable of it. He’s robotic. He performs at work in a robotic way, but the emotionality of life, the intimacy of life, the tracking, the compassion, the stuff that makes us human is medicated away. Tracking who his son hangs out with, tracking the boy’s development at school, tracking his general progression, tracking that his son is moral and ethical, tracking that his wife’s health is good and that she’s doing well, monitoring the relationship and communication with his wife is all missing. Although he is going through the motions of life, he’s not capable of worrying or consumed or intervening or interacting with his wife or his son. His family suffers. He is absent on-the-job. These people are there, but they are not there. They show up to make sure catastrophic events don’t happen. If his son is in a car accident, he’ll take him to the hospital but what if the son is having trouble forming relationships with girls for the first time? He won’t pick up on it, he won’t sense it, he won’t intervene, he is not capable, and he won’t be able to handle that kind of problem. Nor would he be able to predict that it will happen in the future. His sensitivity to psychological events is nonexistent.

The Six Types of Opiate Robots

Look around you. It’s not hard to spot the Opiate Robots. There are six main types to watch out for:

Type one: The Fabulous Disaster Robot. This individual is a mess. Nothing is working in his or her life. Family, career, friends, and physical health all severely suffer. There is no clarity of thought for this character anymore. He or she is identifiable by the three F’s: They fall, they forget, they fail.

Type two: The Jeckal and Hyde Robot. This addict seems fully functional, but then, without warning, he or she uses drugs and turns into an absolute monster. They suddenly switch personalities, disregarding everything they value except for the need to be high.

Type Three: The Worker Bee Robot. To the outside world, the Worker Bee Addict appears completely normal. He or she shows up for work, but leads a secret life. When work is through for the day, the Worker Bee will consume mind-numbing amounts of drugs until blackout occurs. He or she will then sleep, wake up, and go back to work. The weekends are spent entirely in a drug fog.

Type Four: The Tightrope Addict. This user is a master of balance. He or she will use enough drugs to get high, but somehow manages to never fall off the tightrope. They are always able to talk the talk and walk the walk, although occasionally with a slur and a wobble.

Type Five: The Party Animal. This person uses people as an excuse to get high. The social situation is secondary; the party is the catalyst and the reason to get loaded. The party is the lubricant on the Water Park Slide, but the real fun is going down, down, down; the drugs just make it go faster.

Type Six: The Over-the-Counter Robot (aka The OTC Addict). He or she follows all the rules except how much, for what, and when. They buy drugs off the shelf and disregard the instructions on the labels, creating a recipe to get an OTC buzz. The Coricidan for colds mixed with Benydral (Diphinhidramine) for sleep or allergies with a pinch of Sudafed (Psuedephdrine) to keep you up. These drugs, either alone or in combo with each other, get you higher than anything you can find on the street. When pushed too far, the OTC Robot turns up in the E.R., bruised, soiled, seeing butterflies, and deliriously talking to himself.

For help and more information, visit us HERE.

Like a macabre vision from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” everyday men and women, as a consequence of the “Invasion of Prescription Painkillers,” are having the life sucked out of them as they are being transformed into soulless Opiate Robots. The Opiate Robot is an individual who functions at home as a parent, a husband, a wife, or at work, but as a result of the mind-numbing effect of prolonged prescription opiate use, becomes a drug-induced robot.

Opiate Robots have one primary objective:

The Three Laws of the Opiate Robot:

Law 1: Stay high on Opiates.

Law 2: Obtain opiates at all costs.

Law 3: Do everything to insure that Law 1 and Law 2 are possible.

The Opiate Robot is a typical New Age Addict: legitimate, a member of society, your neighbor, your boss, your doctor, your lawyer, your accountant, your air conditioning man. The old school addict would readily admit, “I’m a junkie. I buy illegal drugs. I shoot it in my veins. I know it is wrong. I know it is an addiction. I’m a heroin addict.” The Opiate Robot, entirely in denial about his or her addiction, but equally addicted nonetheless, will murmur: “What time is it? I’ve got to take my medicine.”

The Opiate Robot is consumed with the use of the drug. He is consumed with paying for the drug. He is consumed with securing a supply of that drug. He is consumed with arranging for uninterrupted periods of time to use the drug. The Opiate Robots rationalize that just because they are high it doesn’t mean they are not working. The Opiate Robot believes that using drugs in fact increases productivity as the euphoria created allows them to work harder and for longer hours. The Opiate Robots also believe their opiates increase their psychological acuity and prowess. What the Opiate Robots don’t see is that in the process of making themselves “more productive” they lose the ability to have intimate relationships, the desire to make love, and the desire to be concerned about the feelings of others.

The Robots go through the motions of life to hide their addiction. They don’t want to be discovered so they take care of their families, they take care of friends, they suit up for life, but they are not in life. They are automatons. They believe they are in control, but in reality are quite out of control. There is no real pursuit of happiness for the Opiate Robots, but rather the simple pursuit of the only thing they really care about – drugs: how much, how long, how much more. Those three components are critical to the Opiate Robots; they need to ensure that their supply isn’t cut off. In the process of maintaining their supply they have to maintain a multitude of willing doctors, maintain internet sites, maintain money, maintain time, and maintain anonymity. The Opiate Robot doesn’t want anyone to know he is dependent on opiates, fears exposure, and dreads the thought of anyone “intervening.” The Robot must not get fired from his job because he has to pay for the drugs. The Opiate Robot must remain a well-oiled addiction machine.

For help and information visit us HERE.