@BoBo1946 So sorry to hear about your joint pain and potential for more surgery. Can you ask your doctor if they have any pain specialists who can help you through this ordeal while you await surgery? Not sure if you’re in the U.S. or not, but Kaiser has a pain clinic as part of its whole insurance plan.
Mixing alcohol with pain meds can lead to liver failure pretty quickly. That’s definitely not something you want to mess around with or add to your other troubles.
Your doctor should be able to give you some kind of alternatives to help with the pain. Could be hypnosis, accupuncture, guided visualization, bio-feedback, marijuana or even some other kind of medication. You need to let him know that you are kind of at a point of desperation.
Stay with Fluther if you can so we can at least talk you through it, if nothing else.