Pain and drugs

Pain management or mismanagement as the case may be seems to be an often overlooked influence on the opioid crisis happening in the state currently. People in pain want to feel better but due to pharmaceutical company pressures combined with worries of dependency/addiction a bunch of drs will prescribe stuff that is not effective. There is also a social component, in the states wanting pain relief is somehow looked upon is immoral and/wimpish. Even when given proper medications to alleviate pain people take them joy when they are in unbearable pain instead of maintains a steady level through the day so that their pain never gets that bad. While met (I hope) drs do tell their patients to take whatever pain relief is prescribed at regular intervals it's not unreasonable to see why patients aren't compliant when the dr also is telling you that the drugs they are giving you have high rates of addiction. Nobody wants to chance becoming an addict and more importantly nobody wants others to see them as addicts in training. Society has done a great job of making the silliness to endure pain needlessly into a moral standard. The more pain you grin and bear the better a person you are.

I think people with properly managed pain, and on medications appropriate for the causes of their pain who are actively encouraged to take it as prescribed are less likely to ramp up to prescription drug abuse and/or street drug usage. It's commonly understood that people take drugs to get high but what is glossed over specificity about opioid abuse rooted in pain medication is they are being given medication that doesn't actually relieve their pain. So  trying to find relief slips into thinking you just need a higher dosage and can lead into figuring some other drugs (legal or otherwise) may work. That doesn't sound like an addiction to getting high to me that sounds like trying to get rid of the pain. I wish our society didn't see remaining in pain as preferable to taking any medication. Personally I'm all for the strongest meds possible to make my pain go away as soon as possible. I'm also someone who has never abused drugs or become addicted. I suspect a correlation if not causation.