Late Recovery. Blog 3 in Recovery Series
Care Becoming Quiet Understanding
I am Dr. Conway, a Tennessee physician who practices private medicine in Nashville. I will be your doctor.
With time, stability forms. From stability, freedom follows.
My work is to help you remain with what is difficult until it becomes understandable.
It is a privilege to witness your life becoming more its own.
Introduction
Recovery is a process, not an event.
You have been in recovery for decades in Nashville. You have not craved for years. Your vulnerability from an injured brain is hidden from you. Suboxone quiets your ever present risky addicted brain. Your recovery with Suboxone has stood the test of time. Your brain has not fired intense craving for years.
The nature of your vulnerability, however, has changed. Your body now faces challenges from ageing and other illnesses. Your old football knee is producing chronic pain. Laying concrete is no longer as easy. You are becoming aware that your body is different.
You are fortunate if the same physician provides you both primary care and suboxone. Your relationship with this physician has deepened over the years. You are fortunate if your suboxone is dosed to fit to you like a glove on an aging hand. Fortunately, Dr. Conway offers this in Nashville: combined primary care and suboxone therapy (if indicated).
You are now the maintenance manager of a large plant, requiring you to walk miles every day in supervision. This walking was easy until you developed a knee injury. Failed knee surgery left you with chronic pain. You now need suboxone more for pain than for recovery.
Or, you are the owner of a small concrete company, working 50-70 hours per week beside your crew. You now find you require suboxone to complete your day’s work while in recovery.
You have learned over the years that suboxone is a truly remarkable drug. Suboxone was the foundation of your recovery from fentanyl.
Suboxone has long been recognized for its superior pain-relieving qualities. In Europe, Suboxone is commonly used for relief from pain.
Many patients have informed me that suboxone has elevated their mood independently. The Suboxone that you started for recovery now benefits you years or decades later in a way that could not have been predicted.
You may have tried to discontinue suboxone, but you discovered that less than 4 mg/day is destructive to your recovery, and your life. Suboxone is an old friend who walks everywhere with you.
Recovery is a reorganization of Your Life in Nashville
You thought that your growth was completed at adolescence. Your early use of fentanyl was a misadventure . The reorganization of your life in early and middle recovery worked well for decades. Now it requires change as you age in a world radically different that the one you grew up in.
The reorganization of your life now requires adapting in Nashville to the following:
- Aging
- Career shifts
- Retirement
- Physical limitation
- Care giving
In my practice, William Conway, MD, I have patients who I have been with for years. One has adapted to retirement, the unexpected death of his lifelong wife. Another has had unexpected major medical illness requiring surgery. Another has adapted to death of her mother and sister. Another had to stop working for his ill wife before her death. Such are lived experience of my patients in contemporary America.
Your foundation in recovery requires you adapt to the life you find yourself now living,
Recovery requires Supports
You have benefited long term from the Tennessee Rules. The monthly visit to your primary care suboxone clinic has changed its nature. Your dose of suboxone requires modification. Your dose may go both up and down. Your dose required frequent changes over the years. Your fear of requiring an ever-increasing dose of suboxone has not materialized.
Medical care has become much better. Medical care is becoming much more complicated. Knowing how to choose from your multiple choices is difficult. What physician should you see? Should the physician be seen in your hometown, in Nashville, or at distant academic medical center?
Recovery changes Who You Are.
Your identity has endured. Your identity has matured. You acknowledge the latent vulnerability that you carry lifelong from your period of fentanyl use. You are comforted by your decision to remain on suboxone. This part of your identity remains stable.
While you adapt to the competitive realities to life in America , your required change is supported by your enduring recovery. Your ego continues to integrate from the unconscious. Life is good for you. With time and grace, the best is yet to come for you.
Conclusion
My work is to walk with you through those decisions — quietly, steadily, and without judgment. I am William Conway, MD in Nashville. Please reach out for a consultation.
📞 Call 615-708-0390
or Request a Visit to Our Website
