Harold Friedman Is Not a Junkie

It was one of those old school kettles, the kind that shakes more and more violently on the burner the closer it is to boiling. The roar of steam and the angry whistle was loud enough to cover the rattling of pill bottles as Dr. Friedman frantically unlocked the cupboard behind the pharmacist’s desk and shook out a generous handful of Percocets while his colleagues ate lunch in the next room over.

The relief was instant. He hadn’t even popped one yet, but just having them in his hand was enough. To Dr. Friedman, the anticipation of the feeling was almost as good as the feeling itself. Almost.

Harold Friedman was only 16 when he had his first experience with opioids. He was already 6’2 and disarmingly handsome, and the rising star of his high school basketball team. It was a dirty tackle that threw out his back as he was mid-air about to dunk shot on the other team. The guy who tackled him didn’t even go for the ball. He lunged right into Harold, who was already at least three feet off the ground, hyper twisting his back one too many degrees. Harold felt a sharp pain and fell to the ground. It was just a sprain but for a second, he felt paralyzed.

Harold was confined to the couch, anxious to get better before the next game, but any small movement sent shocks of pain through his body. He asked his doctor for the strongest pills possible. His coach needed him to play, he told the doctor. It was the most important game of the season. If they didn’t win this one, they wouldn’t qualify for regionals, and Harold knew it would be all his fault. The doctor prescribed Tylenol 3s and a few Percocets. The Percs should get him through the game, the doctor said.

It was impossible for Harold to forget the feeling. He knew he liked the Percocets too much. It was almost instant. His back pain melted away, but so did everything else – his pre-game anxiety, the fear that he was falling behind from missing so much class. He felt calm. Confident. And more alert than ever.

It was his best game of the season. Nobody could touch Harold as he dribbled up and down the court. He broke the school record for the most points scored by one player in a game. It was hard to believe he’d just come off an injury.

Harold was also exceptionally bright. He was the kid that had it all, and so effortlessly too. His parents both worked in the medical field, and he never even considered taking a different pathway. They were happy, his family was wealthy, so he didn’t see a reason to imagine a different future for himself.

Harold took his acceptance to Queen’s University for granted. It was one of the top schools in Canada, but he didn’t consider it much of an accomplishment since he didn’t have to work for it. He didn’t think twice about how he would pay for it – his parents paid his way through and the concept of not being able to afford school was foreign to him.

University was a different story – Harold had become used to being the best at things without even trying. Everyone was too bright and too keen. Harold hated it. These arrogant, rich, white kids who all thought they were the smartest people in the room. Harold knew though, that he was just like them. The only difference was that he had been at the top of the social hierarchy before coming to university. Now, he felt stupid amongst these former nerds who were suddenly cool since the ranking criteria had changed.

His plans to go to medical school seemed to slip farther away each time he walked out of a lecture. The amount of readings, tests, and exams overwhelmed him to the point where he felt paralyzed. He froze every time he tried to begin an essay and his heart raced when the TA’s slapped an exam face down on his desk. He wanted to go to medical school. He was expected to go to medical school. This was the first time in his life that he realized he might not be able to do something just because he wanted it.

Shortly into his first year, he discovered the magic of drugs. Where there are wealthy kids living off their parents’ money, there is no shortage of substances to abuse, and nothing you can’t get your hands on. Everything from Adderall and caffeine pills to coke, ecstasy, oxy, you name it. He found out where to find everything and he tried it all twice. Once for fun, and once to find out what would help him excel in the same way those Percocets got him through his back injury.  

Harold wasn’t a junkie though. He told himself that every time he snorted a line of coke in the library hidden behind his physics textbook. It helped him focus and gave him the energy to pull those all-nighters that got him through his undergrad and into med school. He was an academic.

The more Harold learned about medicine and the body, the more fascinating he found it that the body and the brain could be so manipulated. It could do whatever you wanted it to when you wanted it to do it. You could change how you feel in an instant.

To Harold Friedman and to many of his patients, this made him a perfect doctor. When a patient came in with an ailment, Dr. Friedman always had an answer. He always had a prescription. Patients rarely left frustrated with him, contrary to many of his colleagues whose patients would come back complaining of the same ailment, only worse over time since they’d last seen them.

Looking for the source of a problem was difficult and time consuming. It often led to nowhere – just another referral to another specialist, only to have them come back and tell you nothing had changed. Dr. Friedman had a different approach. A prescription always helped. He could target the brain, the body, or both if he needed. He was only four years into practice, but so far, he was happy with his work and for the most part, his patients were happy with him too. 

Standing in the pharmacy now, while the roar of the tea kettle muted his heist, Dr. Friedman quickly screwed the child proof lid back onto the bottle and locked up the cupboard. He popped two Percs in his mouth, swallowing them dry, and then headed back into the kitchen. He slipped the rest into his pocket. Two of his colleagues were finishing up their lunches, speaking more loudly to each other over the noise of the kettle, and gave him a friendly nod as he walked in.

The effects were instant – that fuzzy, happy feeling that he had never been able to access any other way. He chirped a “good afternoon!” at them, turned off the burner, and poured the boiling water into his mug which he’d already prepared with a chai teabag.

Dr. Friedman was at a crossroads –his body was becoming resiliant to the opioids, and it was taking higher and higher dosages for him to enjoy their effects. He knew he would have to stop soon and that his tolerance was too high. Of course he knew – he was a doctor. He wasn’t a junkie. He could stop any time he wanted. He’d used the substances he needed to achieve his goal and was now practicing family medicine with a full schedule of patients.

He could stop any time he wanted.

He could stop any time he wanted.

He’d told himself that ever since he started at the clinic. His thoughts were interrupted when Anita, the receptionist, walked into the kitchen.

“Dr. Friedman, Sandra Williams is here.”

“Take her into room three, I’ll be right there,” he replied.

He walked over to the sink and scrubbed his hands diligently, then gave a friendly nod to his colleagues before heading to his next patient.

He didn’t recognize Mrs. Williams when he walked into the room. This once beautiful woman who was always so full of life looked pale and hollow. He tried to cover up his surprise as he took in her new appearance. The bags under her eyes were dark and sunken, like their puffiness had been so depleted by weeks of crying that they had deflated. Her mouth now curved down instead of upwards and she oozed of relentless sadness.

He started the conversation the way he began every appointment. “What brings you in today, Mrs. Williams?”

The intensity of Mrs. Williams’ eye-contact was making Dr. Friedman uncomfortable, but he held her gaze. As she began to speak, her sadness started to pick up the smallest hints of anger as the words left her mouth.

“Jason overdosed,” she said, her expression unchanging, her eye-contact unbroken.

Dr. Friedman had already known that and made no effort to fake surprise. “I was so sorry to hear that, Mrs. Williams.”

Empathy was difficult to force when he was feeling so damn giddy. It was sad news, for sure. Mrs. Williams’ son Jason had been a patient of his as well, and he really liked the kid. He was one of his first patients. Harold saw so much of himself in Jason, so when Jason had described how difficult he was finding things, he knew exactly what would help him.

It wasn’t Dr. Friedman’s fault that Jason couldn’t control himself around the drugs. Any medication can be abused if used improperly. He had done his job. He had only prescribed him enough to take in an emergency, and besides, it had been year over a year since Jason last visited. Who knows what else he had gotten into since then. Mrs. Williams couldn’t possibly be here to tell him this was his fault. Was her expression accusatory, or was it in his head?

“I need to know what he was on when you saw him last,” she said. There was a begging in her voice now. All these emotions swirled around her body and weighed the room down like an anchor, while Harold just wanted to float.

“I can’t discuss another patient with you, Mrs. Williams. I must respect Jason’s privacy, even if he isn’t here anymore,” he said apologetically. This one was easier to force – he really did feel badly for the woman.

“He’s not just another patient, he’s my son. Who got hooked on something that you prescribed. I need to know – how did he get to that point, what else was he on? Do you know?”

Dr. Friedman stood up. He wanted to help her, but he couldn’t. Patient confidentiality was important to him, and he would not betray Jason’s even if he was dead.

“Mrs. Williams, if you don’t have your own health matters to discuss I’ll have to kindly ask you to leave.”

He couldn’t be in there anymore, it was too much, too heavy, and he hadn’t done anything wrong. Mrs. Williams was too exhausted. She didn’t come here to fight. She was looking for answers, for some tiny pathway towards closure, no matter how narrow. She would come back when she had the energy – maybe get a police order. She gathered her coat and bag and looked at him once more before walking out of the room. He hated the way she looked at him. She saw too much of him.

Thank god she was gone now. Not even the Percs were strong enough to ward off her sadness.

Dr. Friedman let out a giant exhale and sat down in the desk chair. With his elbows on the desk, he dropped his forehead into his palms. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out two more pills. He swallowed them dry.

He just needed to take the edge off. He could stop any time he wanted.