There was a school of thought against morphine use on the WW2 battlefields because their argument went...it might cause addiction. The gall! Same mind set now. I had one prolonged hospital stay hooked up to a self administered morphine pump. I hate to think what would have happened to somebody who tried to take it away. And I didn’t get addicted!
I have had operations all my life- having to go on pain meds for almost all of them- back in the day, they would give you a 3 month prescription- I took them all as prescribed (usually 5 or at most 10 mg every 4 hours)- and when the prescription was over- that was it- no issues- I even went on opioid for 3 years, and quit very easily- but I admit i may be somewhat unusual in this respect- However, for the most part, my meds were either only 5 mg or 10- people who are getting addicted are taking upwards of 40 mg at a time- and if they are taking that much each dose- then they are in some very serious pain- and likely can’t even function without the relief- I would think that someone with that level of pain would have the thinking that it would be better to be addicted than suffer the extreme debilitating pain that cripples them-
People on massive doses (ie 30-40 mg every 4 hours or so) do face the possibility of overdose, but then again, as mentioned, life without such pain relief would be hell on earth- people simply do not understand the devastating physical AND psychological effects of extreme pain- they get a ‘back ache’ and find relief with a Tylenol and think that everyone just has to take Tylenol and they will be fine- because hey, they found relief, therefore everyone will-