It’s so beautiful how my dependence on buprenorphine to live a functional life makes me totally reliant on the whims of some shit head pharmacist working for some evil corporation. Going without buprenorphine for more than a couple days induces torture comparable to the worst flu you’ve ever had in addition to a massive chance of relapse onto street heroin (read: fentanyl and xylazine).

But very month I have to hope they have my medication in stock. Not every three months, drug war policies don’t allow schedule 3 prescriptions that large. Gotta prevent the fucking junkies from diverting buprenorphine at absolutely all costs, I guess.

If they don’t have it, then I’m just shit out of luck because they seem to have no idea when any particular medication will be in stock. Apparently it’s just random, they have what they have regardless of the fact that they always know an entire month in advance exactly when I need refills.

When they don’t have it in stock, you’d think I’d just be able to call around and ask a bunch of other pharmacies if they have it, right? But no I can’t because it’s apparently universal policy not to reveal which controlled substances are in stock to anyone. So before I even know which pharmacy has it, I need to do the full prescription transfer process to each pharmacy one by one on a trial by error basis just to learn if there is even the slightest chance of it being filled on time.

I swear to god, I’ve been on this medication for years and I have to switch pharmacies every six months or so because this whole process literally happens at all of them eventually. When I kicked full agonist opioids, I was glad that I’d never have to constantly worry about getting my next dose. I never thought that anxiety would remain with prescription buprenorphine.

My last pharmacy was Ralphs, and on the day I went to pick up my last refill there, they outright told me my medication was on back order and that they had no idea when, if ever, it would be back in stock. It’s now about five months later, and my new pharmacy Rite Aid is telling me they are out of stock despite the fact I just brought them a new prescription with three refills last month.

This fucking blows. Death to America for the war on drugs among so many other things.