“Last Christmas was my first not taking painkillers since I was 16,” said Katie Bedford, who has been a patient at the Bridge Project in Bradford for more than a year. “It was also the first I remembered.”
For more than a decade, Bedford, 27, experienced memory loss as a result of an addiction to opioids that began when she was given morphine after surgery for suspected appendicitis in 2008.
She is just one of hundreds of patients who have been seen by the cognitive behavioural therapist Michael Ritchie since the alcohol and drug charity began offering its services to people experiencing issues with the drugs five years ago.
The medication’s ability to block both physical and mental pain means that in many instances, patients who develop addictions have “underlying emotional issues”, said Ritchie, and need tailored counselling as well as medical advice to withdraw.
“They’re prescribed opioids for legitimate pain but it makes them feel better than they have in years,” he said. “They need more to get the same effect, so they start using more and more until their life revolves around their medication.”
Sessions are weekly and one-on-one. After an initial meeting, if Ritchie thinks mental health issues are fuelling a patient’s addiction, he will provide counselling as well as advice to their doctor about how to safely taper them off the drugs.
The service, which is mostly funded by Bradford council, is running at capacity – treating about 70 patients – although there is an “enormous demand”.
The charity’s chief executive, Jon Royle, said providing treatment across five GP surgeries rather than at their city centre clinic was key to the Bridge Project’s popularity, because people “won’t come to addiction treatment centres”.
“They have got this problem in primary care. They don’t want to be stigmatised as drug addicts,” he said.
Proof of the method’s success is Bedford, who had become hooked on the co-codamol – a mixture of codeine and paracetamol – she was sent home with from hospital.
The first hit made her feel like “the walls had turned pink and I was laid on bubble wrap”. She added: “After that, I wanted to constantly be in that place.”
As a result of her addiction, she became a recluse, skipping sixth form and losing jobs throughout her formative years, while ongoing surgeries meant it was easy for her to acquire more painkillers through her GP’s online repeat prescription service.
By last October, she had increased her daily intake to 24 tablets – three times the recommended limit. It was only the threat of crashing her car while driving loved ones that prompted Bedford to visit the West Yorkshire service for help.
But it is not just sedative side-effects that can endanger the lives of opioid painkiller addicts. Sarah*, another service user, became addicted to co-codamol after experiencing a “euphoric” side-effect after wrist surgery and began taking above the recommended limit.
When doctors wised up to her excuses for requiring an early prescription, she topped up with ibuprofen and paracetamol from a pharmacy, but was taken to hospital for an overdose after taking 128 tablets in one day.
Through counselling with Ritchie, both women discovered the link between their addictions and unearthed trauma – such as Sarah’s emotionally abusive relationship and the death of Bedford’s dad from pancreatic cancer.
“Some days I left the sessions and I was so drained and exhausted by these feelings and I’d get in my car and cry. But I’d go home with a smile on my face,” said Bedford, who by late November was opioid-free.
Both women have been clean for months and continue to see Ritchie occasionally. They are offering to help run a support group so that the charity can help more people suffering with opioid painkiller addiction.
In January, Bedford will be operated on for endometriosis. She is concerned about having to take opioid painkillers again, but remains optimistic that support from the Bridge Project will see her through.
Although he is proud of the work Bridge has achieved, Ritchie stressed that local authority cuts to drug and alcohol treatment meant their workforce had halved while their caseload had doubled in two years.
Royle added: “We’re sort of pioneers in many ways, because we’ve started something. But we’ve just scratched the tip of the iceberg. We’re in a small corner of the country; what about the rest of the country where they’re not getting help?”
* Name changed
