Interesting article:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/26/utah-mormons-prescription-painkiller-addiction

I've always said that they could cut drug use by mormons (anti-depressants & opiates) by 80% if they'd let members have a beer or two or a glass of wine after work. But that's evil, so lets load up on legal drugs to ease the pressures of life. Hell, if I we're a 30 year old woman that got married at 19 & then popped out 5 kids in 10 years, I'd need drugs too. The pressures to be a perfect mormon, plus the emotional, financial & physical demands of parents of huge families, are a recipe for disaster. Just another documented way that mormonism is bad for your health & happiness.

"Toxic perfectionalism." We're all going to have to remember that one.

Lets not forget the Mormon ice cream addiction. I knew a lot of Mo's that would turn to Baskin Robbins before the prescription drug craze took off.

It didn't work for 12 hours...


http://static.latimes.com/oxycontin-part1/

is that it still ends on the note that opiate painkillers ought to be banned or restricted. A few days before, the Guardian had posted an article saying how opiod restriction in Florida had led directly to that state's heroin problem.

I read this the other day, regarding the difference between dependence and addiction:

Dependence = the tolerance one develops over time and the withdrawal one suffers after stopping a drug.

Addiction = a behavioral disorder that refers to the desire a person feels for the effects of a drug, and the loss of control over their lives that they have in order to obtain it.

Banning a substance won't stop addiction. A person with that particular behavioral disorder will likely just find something else to be "addicted" to. Like heroin, in the case of Florida (and the case of Utahns in the OP's article link).

Okay, let's ban all the opioid analgesics. No one gives a $h!t about people with actual physical pain anyway.

I don't wanna get high.
I don't wanna cop a buzz.
I'm too old for that ©r@p.

I WOULD like some relief from pain so I can do things like clean my house without feeling like I'm going to fall down.

[Attitude? Who, me?] :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2016 07:46PM by Doxi.

If you haven't used Rx painkillers for an extended period, it may be difficult to describe how insidious they can be.

I had major abdominal surgery about six years ago. Oh, boy. I was hooked on Norco before I was back on solid foods.

I've experienced just about every recreational drug--legal and illegal--known to humanity, and NOTHING got its hooks in me so quickly or effectively as Rx pain meds. I don't even want to think about how I was in denial or some of my despicable behavior before I cleaned up.

Where I live now (South America) these drugs are extremely rare. You pretty much have to be in end-stage cancer or HIV to get them, and then only in a hospital. When I speak with both doctors and laypersons down here about the drugs' ubiquity in the U.S., they're dumbfounded. After all, the U.S. is supposed to be an "advanced" society.

What about effective pain management? Most health insurers are happy to pay for a prescription and maybe surgery. If they pay for other treatments, they make you jump through hoops and then limit the number of visits. When it comes to treating pain, the US health system does a poor job. I know, because I'm on disability, medicare and in constant pain.

DK, I understand! Pain sux, and so does the fact that they treat people in pain like druggies.

Neither evidence-based and alternative medicine have much to offer in the realm of chronic pain. There just isn't a good, reliable, consistent pain management treatment that actually works, without horrendous side effects. You can either take meds that come with a host of dangers, or try one therapy after another that only offers fleeting relief. I suffer from chronic pain from hip and bone problems, and meds are just one (small) part of the constant pain management. I use ice, heat, NSAIDs, meditation, physical therapy, ergonomics, and just plain trying to ignore it as well. I think the medical establishment needs to get real with the fact that they can't offer us much help, instead of throwing blame around.

Although, there are many many people who take opiods and do not get addicted, so addiction needs to be treated as a separate entity from pain management. They are not the same thing. Addiction also needs to be treated with openness and compassion, not shame and prison.

People in pain need to be treated with compassion as well, not suspicion, and not like feeling pain is a moral failing.

I'm sure this is nothing new to you, but have you tried nerve blocks, or intrathecal catheterization? of course, I think those catheters that go right into your spine mostly deliver narcotics, but I think they can deliver other types of medicine, too, I don't know a lot about it.

My only contribution to this is that it makes only too much sense how the churches stance on the WoW would make a 'prescription' for an Opioid epidemic in Utah only too forseeable. When you tell people no to drinking and drugs, but hey, get all the prescription meds you want from your doctor and you can still get your TR, people will get the wrong idea about how to safely take prescription opioids and prescription medications in general. I will also say, if it hasn't already, how much benzos are a contributing problem with this, but in tandem with opioid abuse and independently. benzos are extremely dangerous drugs to even attempt to get off of; while certain (most) opioids have a painful detox that can last from days to weeks to even MONTHS, in the case of long-term methadone use (a treat I have to look forward to in the next year or so), detoxing and cessation of benzodiazepine use can cause seizures and even death. When both medications are abused in tandem, the likelihood of deadly overdose shoots WAY UP, because of how shallow your breathing gets. They are both CNS depressants (I think.)

Hell, this isn't just a utah problem (although I do believe Utah is one of the worst states in the country in terms of Heroin and prescription drug abuse), it's definitely a national epidemic. Heroin that is laced with Fentanyl, 'bad' batches of heroin that are super-strong and addicts don't do 'test' shots to see how strong they are, and now I hear about fake roxicodone and oxycontin pills popping up that are really pressed heroin, and made to look like pills for smuggling purposes or god knows what purposes. It's all fucked up.

I'm so glad I took the needle out a few years ago, I'm sure I'd be dead, It's a miracle I'm not.

Here's another question. How many of the doctors that prescribed those pain killers were mormon priesthood holders, bishops, stake presidents or higher? For most other religions, your doctor and religious leaders are separate people. Your priest isn't writing prescriptions for pain killers and most doctors don't claim authority from god. When you have to hide and feel guilty about having a cup of coffee, how can opiates prescribed by your church leader be bad, and why would you admit a problem if the "solution" is to pay-pray-obey?

I knew an lds woman with 5 children who wanted to take leave (unpaid) from work and sought her lds doctor's help. He told her to "Just take your meds."

So, I think the point you make, dk, is very true!

i hope lisa ling would do a following story on mormon sexual abuse of women, not college students or children; and how wives cover up their husbands sexual abuse of single women in the church.

If you're of the belief that chronic disease starts in the mind, this makes sense. Depression and debilitating disease could be nature's response to Mormonism. Well, along with boob jobs and porn use. Things are different today, I hear every Mormon say. They just don't appreciate that you get tired.