In the last six months, things have spiraled out of control with regards to the opioid crisis<\/a>\u00a0hysteria. The release of \u201cDopesick\u201d has created armchair addiction<\/a> and pain experts. They believe Dopesick is a documentary even though it\u2019s an entertainment show. Don\u2019t you dare tell them that though, they\u2019ll accuse you of being an addict or being a shill for big pharma (however that works). With the opioid crisis, the line between fiction and reality is blurred, and that means that people in pain are suffering even more.<\/p>\n No one is listening to the people in pain crying out. Our voices are yelling louder and louder, and in stronger numbers than ever before, but they pretend we don\u2019t exist. They listen and believe nothing but a TV show. The data never matters (it\u2019s made up), people\u2019s experiences never matter (either made up or irrelevant), but they\u2019re convinced that Hollywood is the one telling the truth. Meanwhile, pain patients die<\/a> as the misinformation from Dopesick spreads despite the evidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve written a million blog posts disproving Dopesick\u2019s claim that \u201cLess than 1% of people in pain experience addiction\u201d is a Sackler family lie. It\u2019s not. Peer-reviewed studies<\/a> continue to find this to be true. Dr. Nora Volkow and Dr.Thomas McLellan of the National Institute on Drug Abuse wrote\u00a0in the\u00a0New England Journal of Medicine<\/em><\/a> in 2016 that:<\/p>\n Unlike tolerance and physical dependence, addiction is not a predictable result of opioid prescribing. Addiction occurs in only a small percentage of persons who are exposed to opioids\u2014even among those with preexisting vulnerabilities<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But that doesn\u2019t help sell a Television show.\u00a0<\/p>\n No one is listening to the people in pain crying out. Our voices are yelling louder and louder, and in stronger numbers than ever before, but people pretend we don’t exist. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n More about the opioid crisis<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Chronic pain and the Opioid Crisis: How a myth defines treatment for pain patients<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n People in pain want alternatives to opioids, but they don\u2019t exist opioid<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Why politicians are wrong about the opioid crisis<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The shocking truth about life with untreated chronic pain\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n My favorite Dopesick addiction experts on social media are touting the \u201cpain medication should never be used in any circumstances ever,\u201d school of thought. It doesn\u2019t matter to these people how many pain patients are dying of suicide due to pain. It doesn\u2019t matter how many people face long and difficult recoveries from surgery due to pain torture. It doesn\u2019t even matter that cancer patients are suffering with no treatment for their pain. In the name of saving people with addiction, the twitter experts are willing to kill pain patients along the way (this is directly from their mouths). Still, it\u2019s not even about people with addiction any more. If it was we\u2019d develop resources to actually help people with addictions instead of throwing them in jail. Meanwhile,\u00a0<\/p>\n According to the American Council on Science and Health<\/a>:<\/p>\n Prescriptions of opioids per 100 persons have\u00a0dropped<\/a>\u00a0nearly 50 percent since 2012. Almost simultaneously the overdose rate has surged from roughly\u00a040,000<\/a>\u00a0in 2012 to\u00a093,000<\/a>\u00a0in 2020. Meanwhile, pain patients\u00a0suffer\u00a0from pain and mental anguish\u2014especially\u00a0veterans<\/a>\u2014as doctors abruptly taper or deny opioids to treat their pain.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Things are incredibly bleak for the pain community right now. There were some glimmers of progress before Dopesick, but those glimmers have faded away into the night, and it\u2019s a dark one.<\/p>\n I often wonder if thirty years from now children will learn in history class what a disaster the \u201copioid crisis\u201d was and how the media perpetrated it. Will anyone ever bother to collect the statistics of how many pain patients die of suicide, and how many people with addiction die of tainted supply? Because in the name of \u201csaving\u201d people with addiction, they\u2019re actually killing them. Removing safe drugs from the market creates poor quality replacements significantly likely to kill. We learned this lesson in the prohibition era<\/a> when distilleries poisoned customers. As prescription levels drop, overdose deaths go up because of dangerous illegal Fentanyl laced drugs produced in China or Mexico on the cheap.\u00a0<\/p>\n The media is accountable for the damage they are perpetuating by their moral panicking and misinformation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite the current bleakness, there is always hope. When I started blogging about the opioid crisis in 2015, I couldn\u2019t find hardly any chronic illness bloggers like me covering it. On social media, most people had no idea about the pain medication crackdown, but thanks to the efforts of many pain advocates the word is getting out. Sometimes I\u2019ll even find an article in the media about our suffering, though it never stops them from sensationalizing the crisis <\/em>of opioids\u2019 mere existence.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My hope is that one day the moral hysteria will pass and people will move on to another manufactured crisis. That day may not come soon, but I know I\u2019ll keep fighting until it does.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\nNo one is listening to people with chronic pain, thanks to Dopesick<\/h3>\n
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Dopesick further demonizes the medication chronic pain patients need to survive<\/h3>\n
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Dopesick\u2019s narrative also contributes to the deaths of people experiencing addiction\u00a0<\/h3>\n
Do chronic pain patients have any hope left?<\/h3>\n
![\"Dopesick](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chronicmom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/no-one-is-listening.png?resize=525%2C771&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n![\"Dopesick](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chronicmom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/how-Dopesick-misinformation-is-killing-people-with-chronic-pain.png?resize=526%2C768&ssl=1\")
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