‘Gas Station Heroin’ Being Outlawed: Now What?

TUPELO, Mississippi—Mary Rainwater’s life has been marred by highs and lows. Now she’s working to build a life of substance...  without substance abuse.

“I was exposed to addiction my entire life,” says Mary, whose father was addicted to prescription painkillers. “I started experimenting with drugs at 16.” When she got pregnant that same year, she stopped. But a traumatic miscarriage launched her into a downward spiral. “I spent the next three months just doing drugs,” she says.

A second pregnancy sobered her up once again. After an extended labor with her son, her doctor sent her home with a prescription for Percocet, an opioid pain medication, which soon became her drug of choice. “I took it as prescribed, but I couldn’t wait til my next dose,” Mary says. “After that, I’d look for any reason—even a headache—to get pain medications. I’d go to the doctor, to the dentist, to the ER. This was in the early 2000s, and back then they really didn’t turn you down (for pain medication). I did that for about five years.”

In 2007, her father died at age 56, largely due to his addiction. “That was my wakeup call,” Mary says. “I told myself I wasn’t going to turn out like my Dad. I wanted to give my son a better childhood than I had.”

When Mary moved to another state in 2012, her son stayed with his father so he wouldn’t have to change schools mid-year. Suddenly, she found herself alone with few responsibilities and more time on her hands. She fell in with friends who smoked weed and crystal meth, and within a few years, she was in deep. “Until then, I had always had a job and was able to function fine,” she says. “But I really started doing meth hard. My Mom kicked me out of her house, and I stopped talking to my son—I’m not proud of that.” She found herself virtually homeless, staying wherever she could.

In 2015, she met Jamie Harlow, a successful professional who owned his own home and thriving business. “I moved in to help him around the house,” she says. “I stopped using drugs and hanging out with addicts. Instead, I focused on building a relationship with him.”

Jamie was unaware of Mary’s drug issues. “He had no idea I was on anything,” she says. “Nobody did. I didn’t look like a typical addict.”

But when Jamie’s business and hobbies kept him away from home more often, Mary caught up with an old friend who, at the time, was sober. “Before long, she started using again and then so did I. About three months in, I shot up with meth for the first time,” Mary says. “Jamie knew something was going on. I started spending his money on drugs and not paying his bills. In an addict’s mind, it’s everyone else’s fault.”

In May 2017, Mary and some friends stopped by a known drug house that police soon raided. “I got caught with loaded needles in my pocket,” she says. “I was arrested and called Jamie to bail me out.” The judge went light on her punishment, giving her three years of supervised probation. During the first year, she got pregnant and delivered a healthy son. Because she had done well, the judge suspended her sentence after that first year. In October 2019, she added a daughter to the family.

Life was good. Mary was clean, happily married and the mother of three beautiful children. “But I started having a lot of pain connected to different health issues,” Mary says. “I took so much ibuprofen and naproxen that I hurt my stomach and had to have surgery for an ulcer and hernia.”

To help control her pain, a friend suggested Mary try an over-the-counter capsule called Pegasus that’s sold at convenience stores. “The label said, ‘dietary supplement,’” Mary says. “I thought ‘if they can sell it over the counter, it can’t be bad.’ I took one and after about an hour, I felt amazing. I started using it daily.”

The active ingredient in Pegasus is tianeptine (also known as brand names Za Za Red and Tianna), an antidepressant that also modulates the same opioid receptors as drugs like morphine. When taken in high quantities, it can produce opioid-like effects.

After six months of taking the drug, Mary decided it was time to stop. “I overdrew our checking account because it got to the point that I was having to take it more and more to get relief,” she says. “At that point I wasn’t getting any kind of high from it. That’s when I knew I had a problem.”

Mary reached out to her doctor, who saw her promptly and referred her to addiction medicine specialist Dr. Brent Boyett at North Mississippi Regional Pain Consultants in Tupelo. She also told Jamie, who was unaware she was using again. “My husband had no idea,” she says. “I was too embarrassed to tell him.”

While she waited to hear back from Dr. Boyett’s office, Mary tried to quit on her own. She did some online research and found that the drug is aptly called “gas station heroin.”

“I took my last dose at 7 p.m. on Mother’s Day,” she says. “Within four hours, I was sweating, my nose was running and I was restless. I was curled up in the floor shaking. I’ve never felt anything like that—it was awful.”

By 3 a.m., Jamie had called for an ambulance to take her to NMMC. “I thought I was going to die,” Mary says, “I really did.”

She doesn’t remember much about the next few days in the hospital. As she improved, Dr. Boyett and Mary decided on medication assisted treatment with suboxone, a prescription medicine used to treat opioid addiction.

For Mary, treatment has made a world of difference. “It makes me feel normal,” she says. “I got my life back.”

Because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned that tianeptine has similar addictive qualities and withdrawal symptoms to opioids, many states have banned its sale. On March 23, Mississippi joined these ranks when Gov. Tate Reeves signed Mississippi House Bill 4 into law.

Mary worries that once it’s no longer available, those addicted to tianeptine will face the same horrible withdrawal she did. “I am scared to death for people in Mississippi,” she says. “I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I went through.”

If, like Mary, you or a loved one has developed an addiction, North Mississippi Regional Pain Consultants can help. Call (662) 377-5199 or 1-800-THE DESK (1-800-843-3375). No referral is required.