Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher

by Gwen Olsen

  Getting a “Higher” Education

  Indiana University is nestled in the wooded hills of Brown County in southern Indiana in a small town called Bloomington. Along with the outstanding school of music, excellent business program, and, of course, dental and medical schools, IU is more popularly known for its reputation as a party school, a well-deserved reputation!

  Drugs were abundant on campus when I was there in the late seventies and early eighties. According to my niece, drugs were still easily obtained with a nominal amount of effort. Prescription drugs are sold for abuse equally with illicit street drugs. Today, lots of kids use Prozac, Xanax, Ritalin, Adderall, Oxycontin, and Vicodin in order to get high. Our local news has profiled students twice in the last month at the University of Texas who are using Adderall to study and binge drink. One female claimed to have faked ADHD symptoms to get a prescription. She now sells the extra pills to her sorority sisters during exams. Another male student proclaimed he felt like a genius on the drug and it enabled him to keep going after the hangovers he suffered from long party weekends. (This guy sounds like a genius to me!) Snorting these drugs like cocaine has become a popular way to pass the blood-brain barrier and intensify the buzz. More often than not, they are consumed simultaneously with alcohol.

  I always had an innate fascination with and absolutely no fear of drugs. Back then, the dissolution of my parents’ marriage left me depressed and confused. I started experimenting with a variety of substances that were going around campus. Hypnotics like prescription Placidyls and Quaaludes, or 714s as they were known, were a popular prescription drug of abuse back then. I had a friend that was known as “The Quaalude Dude” because of his Quaalude use. We had adorned our dorm rec room for his birthday party with big Quaalude tablet mobiles that hung from the ceiling as decoration. Kids often mixed Quaaludes and alcohol (a deadly combination) to further intensify their high. I liked the buzz from “ludes” but they left me feeling hungover, somewhat like alcohol.

  Various dorm and frat parties would offer partiers a “window pane punch” in addition to the more traditional kegs of beer. Windowpane is LSD or blotter acid, as it is commonly known. Another friend from our dorm was affectionately called “Tripper” because of his frequent use of psychedelics. Psilocybin mushrooms and peyote were also available for the more naturally inclined experimenter. Speed in the form of black beauties, Christmas trees, and crystal kept students awake to study for final exams. Cocaine was around, but the average student did not have the budget for it. I personally hated the way it and speed made me feel. I was all jittery with diarrhea and an upset stomach. Plus, I couldn’t stop talking, and it annoyed the crap out of people! Alcohol was the most commonly abused drug on campus. Weed and hashish were available everywhere and was made little issue of. Nearly everyone I knew smoked pot, and I found it preferable to the awful hangovers, drunken public displays, and the personal controversy that always seemed to erupt around alcohol consumption. Marijuana was so accepted back then. I remember a police officer asking me to put out a joint that my friends and I were smoking on the grounds of the Student Commons. “Why, of course, officer,” I sheepishly replied. Can you imagine that happening now?

  I quickly learned what drugs felt good and what drugs did not agree with my chemistry. Every time I used a stimulating drug, I regretted it. After a couple of harrowing experiences where I had to talk myself down for hours, I quickly adopted a pot-only policy. I would jokingly tell my friends I lived too close to the edge to do major drugs and I didn’t want to end my days in a round room with padded walls, twisting my hair around my forefinger! How insightful that policy would turn out to be, and how relative that experience would later become in helping me to identify the adverse reaction I was having to a psychoactive drug. That’s how I had known to get off the Zoloft. I had experienced a much milder version of this reaction in my previous experimental drug use. However, it had never occurred to me that an antidepressant was a stimulant. Duh!

  I reveled in my days on the IU campus. Although I struggled to define myself and to learn to love and relate to others, I learned some very valuable life lessons there. Unfortunately, I would hurt several people that cared about me. Acting out my fear and confusion, I would look for love in all the wrong places, hoping someone could melt the icy cool of my intellect and touch the warmer, softer side of my spirit. It made me appear to be both promiscuous and capricious. I had very few loyalties to anyone else and was a waking nightmare for any young man who dared try to love me. Little did anyone else know it was because I didn’t trust anyone. Everyone I loved had hurt me. So, in turn, I built thick walls around my heart and my spirit in order to protect them. I certainly didn’t love myself. That would not come until much later.

  Married to my Best Friend

  Rod, my life partner, husband, best friend, and the father of my son, and I have been together for twenty-four years now. Our marriage has definitely had its peaks and valleys. We were divorced in 1992 and remarried in 1994. We have weathered many storms together over the years. In spite of our many differences, we are very close at heart. Our relationship has provided the support and structure I’ve needed to remain as healthy as I have these past twelve years. It has been Rod’s unconditional love and support that has salvaged our family and marriage in times when I have struggled with my family-of-origin dysfunction, disillusionment, health, moods, and addictions.

  Rod and I met in 1984, shortly after we had both relocated to Texas. My first corporate job out of college was with the Indiana Medicaid Program for a Texas- based company, EDS (Electronic Data Systems). Back then, it was still owned by H. Ross Perot and had just been featured in a best-selling book by Ken Follet, On the Wings of Eagles. The book chronicled the story of a privately orchestrated rescue of American businessmen that were working for EDS and held hostage in Iran. Corporate spirit ran high. I was thrilled when, after only one year, I was promoted to the company’s home base in Texas. Rod had just gotten out of the navy. He moved south from his native Wisconsin in order to escape the cold winters to which he had become unaccustomed while stationed in Hawaii. He decided to join his younger brother, Gary, who lived on the gulf coast in Corpus Christi.

  Rod and I moved into the same apartment complex within weeks of one another. It was love at first sight (at least for me), and our romance was a whirlwind. We had only dated a month when I invited Rod to move in with me. We had been living together for three months when I proposed on Rod’s birthday, which was also Sadie Hawkins Day. We met, dated, and were married in just nine months total.

  It was six weeks before our wedding date when a superior who recognized my writing skills sent me on special assignment to EDS Government Services. I worked with a proposal writing team on the contract rebid for the Indiana Medicaid account. It was so exciting to be staying in the pulse of the nation’s capital. EDS was located in Bethesda, Maryland, right outside of Washington, DC. I was able to make several trips into the capital during my six-week assignment.

  Unfortunately, the rebid was not successful, and there was no job in Indiana for me to return to. That is how I ended up permanently relocating to Texas. I had moved to Corpus Christi to become a provider relations rep for the Texas Medicaid Program. My job was to call on doctors with our company’s registered nurses concerning Medicaid billing problems and utilization review issues. On one of these visits, I met the McNeil Pharmaceutical rep while in an office waiting room. He was working with his district manager. That was my shoe in to the pharmaceutical industry. My previous political grooming and loyal corporate spirit from EDS served me well in the pharmaceutical industry. I enjoyed a prosperous, successful career and received multiple awards and numerous promotions.

  After leaving McNeil, I later worked for Syntex Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott Laboratories, and Forest Laboratories. However, during my last three years spent with Abbott and Forest, I worked as an independent contractor on a part-time basis. This brought a completely different air and dyna
mic to the job. In the late 1990s, this cheaper form of contract labor would become the newest tool in the industry to increase voice share in the market and would seriously change the face and reputation of the detail rep. In 1994, there were estimated to be 35,000 full-time reps calling on physicians and detailing drugs. By 1998, that number exceeded 56,000 (Strand 48). Today there are over 90,000 reps. Contract reps came from all areas of sales, were not nearly as well-trained, and had no incentive to self-educate. The quality of information the doctors were receiving began declining rapidly. Reps started piling up four and five deep in office waiting rooms as companies jockeyed for additional exposure in busy practices.

  Rod continued supporting my career advancement for several years while he attended college. He lost credits at University of Houston when we relocated for my hospital job promotion. After I left McNeil, we also decided to leave Houston and moved back to Corpus Christi to have the baby. That allowed Rod to finish his degree at what is now Texas A&M in Corpus Christi. I went to work for a small, biotech firm called Syntex Laboratories and settled back into the sales territory I had worked initially. It was an immediate culture shock for me. Having recently worked with ultraconservative cultures in EDS and McNeil, to say the least, Syntex was extremely open and free-spirited in its corporate culture. I gawked in amazement at my first national sales meeting where professional women sported short leather skirts, bare legs, and open-toed shoes. Syntex was founded by the Stanford University researcher who discovered the birth control pill. The corporate culture reflected, not only the carefree, Bohemian attitudes of the California coast lifestyle, but those of the advent of the sexual revolution as well. Hijinks among sales reps and even management were continually rumored at meetings where wine and liquor flowed freely and reps had adjoining hotel rooms.

  Rod finally obtained his bachelor’s degree right before he was reactivated in the naval reserves and deployed to Desert Storm in 1991. Austin was eighteen months old at the time. Of course, the stress and fear surrounding Rod’s absence caused my anxiety and insomnia to return. Unaware of my previous dependence on the drug, my doctor once again prescribed Xanax. The vicious cycle of addiction and withdrawal returned and continued.

  11

  God's Call to Loving Arms:

  A Spiritual Awakening

  God’s Call to Loving Arms

  A gentle call awakened me in the middle of the night.

  At first, I thought I dreamed it…but I heard a voice, all right!

  I felt this strange familiarity—like meeting an old friend—

  as this voice began to educate, explain, and comprehend

  the things that I had gone through…the childhood pain I’d felt…

  and with each soothing revelation the ice began to melt.

  The feelings all came pouring out like rain, so soft and sweet,

  and in the wake of all the cleansing tears that fell upon my sheets

  was an aura of acceptance—almost humble gratitude—

  for each and every lesson that life’s heartaches had imbued.

  For God had come to show me the strength that I had gained

  and the countless other children who could profit from my pain.

  The little girl who cried that night surrendered all that was

  and drifted back to sleep assured his words would be her cause!

  Although the voice had faded as I faced the morning’s dawn,

  the memory of its peaceful lilt continues lingering on.

  Occasionally, it makes its way into my silent space

  reminding me that I am still protected by his grace.

  And every now and then, when my ego shows its pride

  that voice of understanding comes to reassure—not chide!

  It tells me he forgives me and extends his loving arms

  and reminds me that illusions cannot do me any harm!

  He gives me the security to err.to fail…to grow.

  Since I heard God’s call to loving arms,

  I don’t believe—I know!

  Gwen Olsen (1994)

  It is amazing how the pieces of the puzzle called life all come together in hindsight. Things appearing completely unrelated one to another are later revealed to have been intricately tied to an outcome or event. Such is the case with my childhood, family, education, career, advocacy, and other life experience.

  Was it karma I would be the repeated victim of serious drug reactions? Probably, I cannot know for sure. I do know that each step of my life up to this point has led to the writing of this book and the mission that has become the cornerstone of my existence since Meg died.

  In fact, I was advised of and prepared for the writing of this book nearly a decade ago in the mystical experience I recount in my poem that serves as this chapter’s title. The poem came to me two weeks to the day and hour after I had my conversation with God. It was a confirmation that what I had experienced was real, not imagined or hallucinated as some might suggest.

  God didn’t speak to me in the throes of madness, but he came to me in the quiet of the night a couple of years after I had embarked on this spiritual journey. My ego had been completely debased, and I had opened my mind to infinite possibilities. It was then that I hit rock bottom emotionally and fell seemingly through to another level of consciousness, an abyss of knowledge, wisdom, compassion, and unconditional love of self. I had what is known in near-death experiences as a panoramic life review. I was allowed to see all of the events that had led up to that point in my life in order to deliver me to that very meeting with God and the fulfillment of my special calling on this planet. I was reborn and my dis-ease of spirit was healed.

  Do I believe this happened to me because of the mental illness? Partially…at least I believe the experience was a catalyst. However, my conversation with God was mostly the result of an angry cry I had made from the angst and pain at the depths of my soul, an exasperated plea for answers and an invocation to take over my life or give me the courage to end it. It states in the Bible, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). I had asked God questions that I yearned desperately to have him answer, and I had asked him to claim my life. He did both of these things. He just didn’t do it at that exact moment in time because I was not yet prepared to receive his grace.

  Psychospiritual Integration

  As I mentioned earlier, I turned my back on conventional medicine and sought alternative therapies in order to heal. Although I know it was my own inner healer that delivered me from my mental torment and physical hell, I am extremely grateful to the wise, compassionate pioneers in psychotherapy who helped me access the healing power within. Those individuals embraced and applied the knowledge that psyche is the root word in psychology. Psyche means soul or spirit.

  Perhaps it is a result of the brain damage I sustained, or maybe it is the product of the psychospiritual integration I have experienced through various therapeutic techniques, but I no longer remember all the nasty details of my entire childhood storyline. Some memories are certainly more poignantly painful than others, but most have been replaced by or attached to more pleasant healing experiences that I’ve had since in therapy. These therapeutic techniques actually diffused the negative feelings I had surrounding those memories.

  It is difficult to describe or articulate the profound emotional and psychological healing I have experienced in some of the most unusual, if not controversial, new paradigm psychotherapeutic programs. However, my intellect does not need to comprehend a truth my heart, body, mind, and soul illustrate. I am grateful I was led in this direction before it was too late for me. Before my own belief systems made my brain a bowl of oatmeal. Among the various techniques and therapies I have explored are chiropractic, yoga, aromatherapy, homeopathy, acupuncture, massage therapy, Ayurvedic medicine, herbal and nutritional supplementation, Reiki, transpersonal psychology, transformational breathwork, psychodrama, mask-making, trance dance, shadow wo
rk, mandala art, guided imagery, journaling, meditation, small group therapy, one-on-one life coaching, hypnosis, masterminding, visualization, and orthomolecular psychiatry.

  The founder of Eupsychia, the psychospiritual recovery foundation that changed my life, Jacquelyn Small, said something to me I will never forget. “Often the only difference between a mystic and a psychotic is who they’re talking to.” How true that would prove to be in my experience. After you have been formally diagnosed as some form of crazy, everything you say or experience is suspected as delusional, a product of your mental illness.

  For this reason, I have refrained from sharing the details of some of the most blissful, beautiful miracles of my life, except with my husband and closest loved ones, less someone lock me up and throw away the key! Even the folks I did tell listened with wide eyes and puzzled expressions as they tried to discern whether or not I was on solid ground. Here was the family’s no-nonsense scientist speaking to them from previously unendorsed platforms of the etheric, spiritual side of human existence. Whatever they thought, they couldn’t discount my obvious behavioral changes and newfound zeal for life.

  I no longer carry the baggage of the anger that once consumed me because of all of the egregious transgressions made by the adults that destroyed my childhood innocence. I discovered that it required a massive amount of energy to retain the emotional charge and remember details surrounding those memories. Releasing them felt so freeing! At one time, forgiving someone signified defeat to me, an admission I was letting someone off the hook, so to speak. Now, I realize forgiveness is a tremendous spiritual gift and the key to freeing oneself from old wounds and fears. Forgiveness has renewed my emotional bond to my mother and father. Having accepted sole responsibility for my choices as an adult, I can now appreciate the tremendous spiritual strength I gained from having exercised those muscles early in life under their tutelage.