The effort to stop the opioid epidemic is a problem in itself. I’m on opiates because they are amazing pain killers. I can’t imagine not having them for the pain I am feeling right now.

The problem is that the medical people are creating the addiction with the way they handle the medication. They give you something to relieve your pain but then they make it artificially scarce. In my experience a big part of addiction is the fear of needing the drug and not being able to get it when you need it. I quit cigarettes by keeping three quarters of a pack around in case I needed them. I was able to not smoke a cigarette knowing that should I change my mind it would be there waiting for me. I don’t know how many times before that that I’d bought myself one more pack just because I couldn’t quit knowing that it was unavailable if I needed it. What if the store is closed? What if I can’t get there?

They need to quit creating that mind set around the drug. They should be reassuring people that should they need help that it will be available to them in the amount that they need to ease their pain.

I’m certainly not getting anything else from the drug except pain relief. Once the cause of the pain is gone, I’m all for working the medication out of my life. I’m confident that I will be able to quit when the time comes but it won’t be because of how careful everyone was in the medical industry.