h50bamf:

After spending some time digesting the news that Alex is taking a break for treatment and thinking of my own personal experience with pain management I think once again how strong and what a success Alex is.

First, he was a child with undiagnosed ADHD & OCD, became a school drop out yet managed to be accepted into & graduate from prestigious NIDA. No matter how much success he gains in Hollywood, he is a success story.

Now news comes today about him taking a break to “receive supervised treatment for prescription pain medication due to a recent shoulder injury.” Certainly the easiest and first response would be to think oh shit, he’s addicted to pills…..he’s an addict. (it was my first thought) It is a fact that people with ADHD have a much higher risk for addictions than people without ADHD. So he is a bit predisposed for it.

But I will never apologize for being positive and thinking outside the box. Putting more thought into it, there are other possibilities.

My story: I’ve had to take a break from tumblr due to my own injury. I’ve lived for years with severe neck/shoulder/arm pain. I’ve gone through every form of pain mgt there is. Recently they all stopped working. This led me to surgery which ended up being more extensive than expected. Because I did pain mgt for years, my body became tolerant of most pain meds. It took them 2 days to get my post operative pain under control. Since then I’ve been on a strict meds schedule. Even setting an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night to take my meds. Why? Because you have to keep ahead of the pain. Once you let it get too bad, its that much harder to get it back under control. Now I’m home on a medical leave from work so its easy for me to keep my schedule. And believe me you don’t want to let the pain get away from you. T.R.U.S.T!!

So what if Alex’s problem isn’t “addiction”? The statement from his publicist says he’s going to “receive supervised treatment for prescription pain medication”. What if he simply needs help managing the pain? If his injury is new, he could be in tremendous pain and trying to maintain his work schedule on H50 is not conducive to a good pain management schedule like I currently have. What if in trying to give 150% on set every day that he let his pain get away from him? Uncontrolled pain will also effect your appetite, your pallor and personality. Pain could cause all the problems people are attributing to pills. Rehab does not always mean addiction. The true purpose of rehab is assistance/help.

Now I’m not saying this is what happened, just playing devil’s advocate and offering another possibility. One that unfortunately hits very close to home for me right now. Every time I take my meds I worry about my ‘need’ for them.

Whether he’s ‘addicted’ or just needs help learning to manage his pain, it doesn’t really matter to me. He needs help and bravely owned up to it and accepted it. I applaud him and will continue to think of him as a tremendous success story. I send love & light and peace and wishes for continued success his way.