My brother brings up this topic (he’s almost fifty). In his rural region, he estimates that 40-percent of guys with no college background, have chronic muscle pain by age 35 to 40. Those who played high school football? Probably 20-percent of them at the same age....wandering over to opioids. He works with a guy whose daughter around age 25 got into a serious car accident....got onto opioids, never getting off. Serious liver issues within five years....dead eight years after the accident.
You are correct, all of this effort is about getting the four pain pills a day. It deadens the pain enough to walk and function. Thinking, logic and coordination? About fifty-percent at best. You can refer to them as zombie-like in functionality.
Actually, they develop a tolerance, and secondly when the pills wear off, they ARE MORE SENSITIVE TO PAIN, SO THEY NEED THAT NEXT PILL.
But in addition, I’m seeing a few, actually more than a few, who will fill the prescriptions from their docs monthly on the button, but may or may not take many or any of the pills. These people, usually unemployed, are selling the meds for 15-20 bucks per pill.
Oh, and yes, they’re getting the meds from the pain center, who does the drug test when they come in each month, and so they simply get on the meds the day or two before to test positive on the drug test, proving use.
It’s a big game. Pain centers...esp.