re: Honest Question about the "Opioid Epidemic"

The 3% or so of the population that consist of this "epidemic" bear the blame solely.

Alcohol is available on every street corner just about. How many alcohol addicts (shortened to alcoholics) have anyone to blame but themselves? No prescription needed, barely an age limit considering the loopholes of under adult supervision, private property,etc..Alcohol is even truly a poison, much easier to obtain, cheaper, just as addictive, and just as deadly. Who gets the blame with alcohol?

Let's not even get started on nicotine and who's to blame. Why treat opioids differently? Follow the money!

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Addiction is very real, but the effectiveness of opioid medications to treat pain is also very real.

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Treating pain is not a good solution, therefore it's not really effective. Opioids treat symptoms like most drugs. It's hard to find a root cause doctor that actually does good work...but you have to look out for yourself and your family and know that if a doc just prescribes medicine, and doesn't actually provide any other means to solve the problems, then you need a new doctor.

Good question. My sister was an addict for the last 10+ years, and I blamed her every step of the way. Lot of tough love and little sympathy or the pain she caused our family over that time. DUIs piled up, jail, trips to rehab, even with two young sons now 6 and 4.

She passed in May, a month out of her longest rehab visit of about 8 months. Now I ask myself every day how it got that bad. Yea, it’s her fault, I’m not trying to point figures. But there has to be shared blame somewhere. I dunno.

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Are people so stupid that they just do what the doc tells them


It's impossible to have a conversation with someone who says things like this

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The irony.....That's the point of a rhetorical question, a response is not needed.

I was addicted to pain pills that got prescribed to me after a drunk driver hit me head on out by LSU on highland road. It's a long story that I may go into some day on here. But, here's a very short version.

When the feds started cracking down on all these pill factories, it also scared the legit doctors. So, basically, mine cut me off after 3 years of prescribing me pain pills. You know the problem with being cut off after that long on Percocets? Your body is physically addicted to it and you will go through severe withdrawal. Also, little did I know, I had become mentally addicted as well.

Anyways, for me to get up and go to work, I needed drugs and didn't give a frick how I got them, as long as I felt better.

This was years ago, when they still had oxycontin 80s and I knew how to get some, so that's what I did. Then, my addiction progressed from there and I started selling and snorting heroin. It became a horrible cycle.

Yes, it all started out when the doctor prescribed them to me after an accident, but I don't blame him. Hell, I enjoyed the shite for a while. The high was good for a while.

Then, there came the point when I crashed and I needed help. I sought help that many addicts don't seek bc they don't have the means to. Our society shames addicts, so we try to hide it instead of getting better.

I thank God I never shot up. Many of people I met in the game are dead now bc of that. Not that you can't OD from snorting, but shooting up is just more dangerous. I lost 2 childhood friends to that and countless others I met throughout the years.

It's a nasty problem that's created all kind of ways. Some people get started by doctors. Some people just like the high and don't think they'll become an addict and things go South for them.

Eta - sorry, that wasn't the full version, but definitely not the "very short version" I thought I'd tell

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The big problem is both oxycodone and hydrocodone have become generic and big pharma no longer profits from its use.

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This!!!!

More than a lot of other reasons, it is this. There is no money in it anymore. CVS was talking about filling only 2 weeks at a time of hydrocodone. A. Because they don’t give a shite over a 5-10 dollar scrip. B. It is now a liability to keep any supply of Vicodin or others onsite. Drug stores are being robbed left and right.

Government main mistake IMO was Vicodin to schedule 2 or triplicate status. THAT was the tipping point. It set this shite cascade in motion. Other steps put in place were needed. A. Hold docs accountable in horrendous cases of rubber stamp scrips. B. The state and of national database they have now. Prescribers can look up your DL# or SSN and know what controlled meds you have had. Inexcusable that this took this long and now inexcusable to not use the site if you’re a doc. C. You have to give a valid ID for controlled meds. No more sending your “niece” to pick up prescriptions all over town.

Making Vicodin triplicate though essentially made it a prohibition on the med. prohibition does not work. Now you have Chinese fentanyl and real gangsters filling a demand. What could go wrong?

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Have you ever paid a highly educated expert to help you solve an urgent problem and the expert recommeded alcohol or tobacco?

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No, but I have had a highly paid escort suggest those along with a little blow, not clear on her education level.

That partially bullshite. No one is exactly "wired for addiction". That's a bullshite excuse people like to use.

I had no history of addiction in my family. Same with the 2 close friends I lost. Same with other friends I lost. Sure, addiction can run in a family, but it's not because they're "wired to be addicts". That's why many people don't become addicts even if both their parents are.

The problem is the upbringing and behaviors. People who are brought up around addicts are exposed to the behavior more. They may be more likely to try drugs when they're younger.

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