Tammy Wynette by Jimmy McDonough

Author:Jimmy McDonough
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

It was during this chaotic period that prescription painkillers entered Tammy Wynette’s life.

Following her hysterectomy, she had been having constant problems with her stomach. Adhesions kept developing in her intestines, wreaking havoc on her digestive system. “It would look like there was a grapefruit protruding from her abdomen,” said Joan Dew. “She was always talkin’ about how painful it was.” Jan Smith remembered heading over to a late-night pharmacy on Twelfth Avenue in Nashville to pick up the first narcotics Tammy ever had. Wynette was suffering severe stomach cramps, and, said Smith, a doctor “innocently prescribed” Demerol, an extremely powerful and highly addictive painkiller. Tammy’s adhesions kept returning, which necessitated repeated operations—and more and more painkillers to enable her to work. Thus began a terrible cycle. “Everything was a catch-22 with Tammy,” said Jan. “More operations, more keloids, more drugs, more obstructions.”

Unfortunately Wynette started taking the drug even when she wasn’t in pain. “She wasn’t like a person who went out into the street to get high,” said Joan Dew. “Tammy wasn’t even the kind of person who really drank. She was one of those people—this is not uncommon in her era—that if the doctor gives you the prescription, it’s okay. He’s not gonna give you somethin’ that’s gonna harm you in any way. The doctor’s word is law.”

Not only that, but physicians are prone to the same sort of celebrity worship as anybody else. Georgette Jones, who worked as a nurse, noted that her mother’s addiction was not unlike what “happened to Elvis. Doctors want so badly to impress and make friends with celebrities that they prescribe things that they wouldn’t necessarily prescribe for just their average patient. And it’s a terrible thing, because it makes the person feel like it’s appropriate when it’s not.”

The end result was that one way or another Wynette had easy access to narcotics and she quickly developed a tolerance. “I have seen her go onstage and do a show with enough Demerol in her to knock a two-hundred-pound man out during surgery,” said Dew. “She started needing Demerol shots because the pills weren’t working anymore. So we would go into a town, and usually James Hollie would find a doctor for her, explain what was going on, and the doctor would come on the bus and give her Demerol. That would keep her for the night, and we’d go on to the next town.” Her entourage aboard the Silver Eagle kept her secret. “I can tell you, everybody on that bus has given her a shot,” admitted Nan, who said a Nashville doctor “took me into his office and taught me how to give her a shot. He would give us thirty cc’s of Demerol and thirty cc’s of Valium every time we went on the road.”

As Wynette’s need for the painkiller intensified, it became harder and harder to get the drug in her hometown. “The doctors in Nashville all caught on, and they would not give her any more prescriptions for Demerol,” said Joan Dew.

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