Here's a wild thought for all you doctors out there: what if your chronic pain patients aren't addicted to painkillers? What if they're addicted to not being in terrible pain?
@zip sadly, this line of thinking is exactly how the US/Canadian opioid epidemic started. See the third para of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid_epidemic#United_States
@zip I'm guessing you yourself are currently in pain and unable to access medication: that sucks :-(
@pozorvlak I'm okay, I just saw a story that the NHS in Scotland is having another push to get people off painkillers
@zip ah, OK. Yeah, I don't envy anyone trying to make that determination, there are major downsides to getting it wrong in either direction. But I'm sure some of them are overzealous.
@pozorvlak @zip how does one even define the difference? Either way you'll end up associating decrease in pain with other ancillary effects of the drug, so a positive association of those effects gets reinforced anyway.
@robryk @zip this is well outside my field of expertise, but I don't think there is a well-defined difference: a lot of people started out with genuine pain problems and ended up with opioid addictions. Prince and Matthew Perry spring to mind.