A couple weeks ago I had an accident that ended with me sustaining some fairly serious injuries, and since then I’ve been on prescription painkillers. Needless to say, this is not good. Physical pain definitely isn’t fun but it’s the painkillers that are really messing with me. 

I’m not happy. When I’m on them and I feel any sedative effects, I feel guilty. When I’m not on them and I’m in pain, obviously, that’s not a happy time, either. Either way, I’m not getting a whole lot done.

Chronic Pain Versus the Risk of Relapse?

It feels like I have to choose, figure out which is the lesser of two evils and commit. Many on this blog have expressed the same problem. Especially when the pain is chronic or related to a chronic disease, it can be torturous to deal with. How do you make a choice like that?

Now I’m not one who believes that if you take a prescribed pain pill for pain after, say, a root canal or surgery that you’ve relapsed. To me, prescribed painkillers can potentially lead to relapse but are not, in themselves, an automatic relapse. Does that make sense? If you continue to take them after the pain subsides or attempt to increase their potency by combining them with other drugs or taking them inappropriately, then that’s a relapse. But if you take them as prescribed for a short period while paying attention to your reactions and the potential for relapse later, then it’s not a problem. And yet, I feel guilty.

How do you handle pain when you’re also dealing with opiate addiction?

We’ve been talking the past couple posts about the misconceptions that people hold concerning opiate addiction and opiate addicts and how those misconceptions work to prevent those who need it from receiving the treatment they need. Today, it’s racism I want to talk about, racism and its early connections with prejudice against those struggling with drug addiction, and opiate addiction specifically.

Racism and Opiate Addiction: Today Versus Yesterday

Today, racism and addiction comes in many forms. It’s apparent in the fact that there are more billboards and advertisements for malt liquor and cigarettes in predominantly African American neighborhoods and that the majority of offenders serving time for drug possession and sales are African American. But the victims of early racist opinion concerning opiate addiction were not African American but Chinese.

Opium Addiction and Racist Misconceptions

Because opium had been a part of Chinese culture for many years, it was easy for those who wanted to denigrate opium addicts to use racist misconceptions associated with Chinese immigrants to America to do the job on a large scale. Although opium smoking had not had any negative impact on society, stories first published by William Randolph Hearst, a notorious publisher of falsifications, described how women were seduced with opium by Chinese immigrants and how they were stealing jobs from American citizens.
 
Not only was this propaganda racial in nature, but it turned public opinion against opiates and helped to begin the long crusade against opiates and other drugs. Due in part to Hearst’s racist articles, Congress imposed taxes on both opium and morphine. Once opium started to be controlled, withdrawal symptoms ran rampant throughout the communities that used it, which in turn brought more negative attention to the drug because people blamed the negative symptoms on the drug instead of on the fact that people were going through withdrawal from it. Congress then passed an act that made the prescription of opium illegal without first registering and paying a tax.

The Stereotype of Opiate Addicts and Racism
 
With these seemingly (on the surface, anyway) noble acts, the stage was set for the stereotype of the drug addict to be born. The targeted race has changed, but the racism inherent to the so-called War on Drugs makes it something of a witch hunt. With little distinction given to drugs used for medicinal or recreational purposes, the public’s negative opinion of drugs was set and continues today.
 
The negative stereotype of a drug addict was intermixed with racism at the start; do you think it’s still that way, or has it become multi-cultural?

The other day we started this discussion about the misconceptions that people hold about drug addiction and especially opiate addiction as well as the people who are struggling with the disease. Today, I want to talk about the concept of addiction as a medical disease: one that is legitimate. One that can be treated.  

Opiate Addiction is a Disease

Drug addicts are thought of as lawless, reckless, selfish criminals who don’t care for anyone other than themselves. This perception is sad, but even sadder is how common it is. Very few people recognize that drug addiction is really a disease, just like any other. It has a cause, it has symptoms, and it has a treatment if not a cure. But the treatment for drug addiction is very often kept from the hands of those who need it most due to public misconception and hastily constructed laws from the early 1900’s that are still on the books.

The Drug Laws that Bind
 
Back in 1973, President Nixon formed the Drug Enforcement Agency, the same year that the Methadone Control Act was introduced. Methadone, a synthetic opiate, had been used since 1963 to help those struggling with opiate addiction. Methadone had a unique property that meant it only had to be introduced into the system once every 24 hours, instead of once every four to six hours like heroin. In the minds of medical professionals, this helped patients stay off of heroin and stay away from crime, since they no longer needed to find ways to pay for an expensive heroin habit. Sadly, the Methadone Control Act completely changed how doctors could prescribe methadone, making it much more difficult for those who needed it for opiate addiction treatment as opposed to pain management to receive the drug. While it is still possible to get methadone, it is highly regulated and there are many rules and regulations that make it more difficult for some to receive the doses they need to stay clean.

What’s the Problem Here?
 
This is just one example of how drug addiction is misunderstood. With other diseases, like heart disease or diabetes, treatment options that work are not held under tight guard. Doctors are allowed to prescribe insulin to diabetes patients, but what if they weren’t? What if insulin prescriptions were as tightly controlled as methadone? Sadly, this type of scenario might have to take place in order to help the public understand the true nature of addiction, but it’s one that I dearly hope won’t have to happen. Drug addiction is just a disease, and like any other disease, treatments should be available on an as-needed basis without having to jump through hoops and stand in lines to make it happen.

There is a Solution

Thankfully, Suboxone and Subutex, both buprenorphine-based drugs FDA-approved for nothing but opiate addiction treatment, are available through a doctor’s office just like the prescriptions that most likely caused the addiction in the first place.
 
Have you ever thought about drug addiction in these terms? What do you think about the comparison of drug addiction to other diseases like diabetes?