Not sure what agenda you think you are seeing here. It appears that you read the article through a certain lens. But, perhaps, I can clarify some of your concerns about the article.
The author often used “may” and suggested there might be other causes for such observations. Chronic pain affects personality, which is well documented, but in different ways than addiction affects personality. Where they are similar is the pain-avoidant behavior parallels medication-seeking behavior, to which you referred. Where it is different, however, is when alternative means are suggested but the patient is obsessed ONLY with the drug.
One is focused on pain avoidance, the other, as the author makes clear, is focused upon obtaining the drug. While those can, at times, appear similarly they are distinguishable.
Addiction can LEAD to OC behavior, but addiction to opiate painkillers (in this example) is a physical fact. It is not a behavior; it is a biological fact clinically observable through the servere medical reaction which happens when these drugs are suddenly withdrawn from long time users. (Which is not to deny there CAN be a psychological addiction as well; but the physical fact of biological dependence is VERY real. If you don't believe me, visit a local de-tox facility. Those folks aren't shaking because they want to!)
Yes, of course I have a certain lens. I am a long term user of prescription painkillers - under the care of ONE doctor, a psychiatrist whose experience with drug addiction goes back to treatment programs during the Vietnam War. (Once it became apparent I might be on painkillers for a long time, I wanted to make sure someone was "in charge" who knew what he was doing.) There is no doubt that I am physically addicted to these painkillers - and obviously I have talked seriously with my doctor about them. When I asked him directly about this he said: "You're not a druggie; you don't take this stuff to get high; you take what you need to be functional". When I got a spinal stimulator implanted, I was able to halve the amount of painkillers I took (and was glad to, because the CNS depressive efffects of painkillers are NOT pleasant if you ARE trying to function. In my case, I must also take an anti-narcolepsy drug to counter these side effects.)
So I find the original author is painting with far too broad a brush. Certainly there is a problem with people who take these substances in greater quantity than needed or to address an inability to cope with life, or to experience a sense of exhiliration. But the author seems to pay scant attention to differentiate the two behavior sets.
I think the problem comes in trying to use the term addiction to refer to 2 very different things. There is a physical addiction which is a side effect of taking these medications for a period of time; there is a completely different problem with a psychological addiction and the progression from druge USE to drug ABUSE. The author is clearly focused on the second problem but, I find, is less careful than he should be in differentiating a physical addiction from a pattern of self-destructive and anti-social behavior which he refers to as "addiction" with no other qualifiers. Of course, the person in a self-destructive spiral ALSO has a physical addiction).
We have enough of a nanny state as it is - I am not interested in giving the government any more ammunition than it already has to interfere with medical decisions which should be between a patient and responsible doctor.
If the drug companies waited on me to purchase their side effect riddled crap, they’d go broke. I take extra Strength Tylenol...even after major surgery. Always get an RX for 10 demarol, but rarely take more than 2. Side effects are not worth it.
And as I have FMS and PN and the back from Hades, I live in pain 24/7/365, they can keep their side effect riddled Lyrica too.
Find bio feed back works better, and then I talk a lot to GOD.