Confessions of a Drug User

Me with munchies

I’m going to out myself here and admit that I use drugs. Every day. Multiple times a day. Sometimes I take a whole handful at a time. Life without them would be unlivable. And guess what? They're all dosed and prescribed by a physician.

Strange as it may sound, the fact that I take medication at all sets me apart here in Spain. Despite the universal health care, the Spanish have a deep and abiding mistrust of pharmaceuticals. If you have the flu, you puke, run a fever, and think happy thoughts. You don’t take Tylenol or Pepto Bismol.  If you have a migraine, you complain and make the lives of others miserable. Pain killers? Bah! They’re the devil’s work!

Even if the illness is serious, it’s tricky business getting people here to take meds. Ruyman’s dad, for instance, firmly believes that everyone has cancer all the time. Smoking, getting fat, or thinking negatively is what causes the cancer to metastasize. Happy people don’t get sick, so someone with cancer needs to cheer up and eat apples. They don’t need treatments like radiation or chemo.

Both my husband and I have chronic health conditions. He’s asthmatic and I’m diabetic. A month’s worth of medication for the two of us fills a regular-size suitcase. Considering the mindset here, we get a lot of grief for our pill-popping ways. Ruyman’s parents constantly badger him with their belief that he can talk himself out of an asthma attack and that it’s “all in his head.” It’s taken me years for me to convince Ruyman he’s not a hypochondriac, so I don’t appreciate their misguided efforts.

At the same time, the total aversion towards medication is not just annoying, it’s dangerous. I've never seen so many advertisements for flu vaccinations in my life. They’re free to the general public and the people still won’t get them. There are public service signs around the city which, roughly translated, say, “Stay away from each other!” For a culture that has a personal bubble of 2 centimeters and likes to spit when it talks, it's a legitimate problem, especially when you throw in the national greeting of two kisses on the cheek. 

After seeing all this, only one thought comes to mind: no wonder they called last century’s big plague the “Spanish flu.”