Being a soft tissue back injury survivor, it takes years. Years. I think I was in five years before I finally started being able to cope with the pain and learning how to live my life around the pain.
Two years is in that five year window, and you suffer, mightily. The pain meds either make you a zombie, or are not providing relief, so your brain is responding to pain, all day long.
My father had a back surgery that went badly and left tons of scar tissue that caused him agony. He took pain pills for 20 years. I would watch him take 7 at a time the last five years and beg him not to do it as I was afraid he would die of an overdose. His response was that it would be a relief.
Finally, laser surgery came along and a brilliant doctor went back in there and removed all the scar tissue around his spine. My father was back running around as a young man and did until the day he died. I just knew he would have to go into rehab because of the pain medication. He didn’t. He suffered no ill effects from withdrawal of the pain meds. Evidently, he was not addicted.
I have no doubt that my father would have done as this man if he had not had a doctor that gave him huge bottles of the pills for twenty years. I am very grateful to that doc.