The Cycle of Injury, Chronic Pain, and Addiction

The unemployed father desires to support his new family, so he finds a job, e.g., construction, falls off the roof, and injures his back.

He is prescribed pain medication (opioid) for treatment of injuries, which does not work well, so the patient gets additional pills on the street.

Since heroin is less expensive, he/she becomes an IV user and acquires hepatitis C infection.

Injured, sick, and stressed parent(s) progressively develop chronic pain syndrome (CPS), anxiety, and/or depression.

Incapacitated and dysfunctional, they acquire state-supported disability benefits, which further eat away at their pride, as he/she is no longer able to be self-reliant (1).

He/she tries to boost family income by selling drugs, ends up in jail, and/or loses custody of children.

The patient is forced by the legal system to recognize that detox is the only hope, undergoes closed facility treatment, and feels much better.

Released from detox, the facility patient returns to the same family environment, and again becomes exposed to opioids and relapses within days, weeks, or months, perpetuating the vicious cycle of this "family-inherited" chronic brain disease, which, like diabetes, requires long-term, coordinated therapy by an addiction (Suboxone) clinic. References:

Chirikos TN. Accounting for the historical rise in work-disability prevalence.

 The Milbank Quarterly. 01 Jan 1986, 64(2):271-301. -Dr. Bogdan Nowicki