ReportageTramadol, oxycodone and other fentanyl have become their drugs. While confinements have increased addictive behavior and the opioid crisis in the United States is wreaking havoc, these French women and men are telling the same story: intense physical suffering, relieved by powerful painkillers, which they soon have no more could have happened.
In Véronique Roche’s kitchen, an enormous clock is attached to the wall. Its needles have long governed the life of the owner. “My day was settled like this. At 8 o’clock, my morphine. At 11 o’clock, my morphine. At 2 p.m., my morphine. At 6 p.m., my morphine. At 8 pm, my morphine. Sometimes I would get up at night for my morphine. “ Even without looking at the time, this 52-year-old woman had in her body, and more in her brain, the ticking of time passing and the stressful wait for the date with her medication. “I shouldn’t go over a minute”, she remembers.
Sometimes the lack was felt long before. Véronique Roche could no longer keep still. “I was going crazy. How many times have I walked around this table? I had ants in my hands, I was constantly rubbing them. My body was on fire. At night, I would go for a walk to stretch my legs. I tried to hold on, but I couldn’t. “ And that damn pendulum that didn’t move …
When the moment finally came for the taking, Véronique Roche rushed into her living room towards the heavy chest of drawers adorned with family photos. There, in the second drawer, was stored his pharmacy, boxes of OxyContin, a drug based on oxycodone, a powerful opioid from the United States. She had several kinds, with different dosages, to take depending on the time of day. “I put the stamp under the tongue. It melted on its own. It was good, besides, it was sweet. “ The effect was immediate. “As soon as I took it, I was good, I was zen, in a good mood. My grandchildren loved to come and fall asleep on my knees so much I breathed calm. “
More and more victims
In her house polished like a new penny, in Chabreloche, a village of 1,200 inhabitants of Puy-de-Dôme, near Thiers, in this countryside setting with breathtaking views of the first foothills of the Massif Central, Véronique Roche crudely depicts twelve years of nightmare, for her, for those close to her, for her comrades in the factory. “Twelve years spent going up and down”, she describes.
Family, friends, colleagues, everyone was relegated to the background behind the one Véronique still affectionately calls “My morphine”. Sometimes she says the right word: ” my drug “. And then the voice breaks. “I could see that I was hurting myself and that I was hurting others, but it was stronger than me. “ She pauses, finds a diversion by grumbling about Yako, the dog who is causing mayhem on the veranda. She squeezes her cup of coffee tightly. Images scroll, eyes wet and mist his glasses. Beside him, his daughter Margot, 27, is crying.
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