Are You at Risk for Becoming Addicted to Pain Pills?

Who is at risk of becoming addicted to pain pills? Is it genetic? Is it just a result of poor choices?  Is it something about one’s personality that makes them become addicted?

With all the recent attention on the nation’s epidemic of addictions to pain pills, many people are looking at why they or others they love have become addicted to something they thought was safe, and if they, too, are at risk of becoming addicted.

The answers may surprise you, but after years of living and working in the world of trauma and addiction, there have been patterns and similarities in patients that I will share with you.  

In this blog we look at how those with histories of attachment trauma are much more prone to becoming addicted (dependent) on pain pills.  

Those who have become addicted or dependent on pain pills or other opiates almost always have a history of attachment trauma and an imbalance in the body’s biology that comes from that relationship trauma in their early brain and body development.

You can refer to the government’s website on Drug Abuse for the distinction between dependence and addiction.  

 

Overwhelm and Pain Pills

Has life been hard or are you overwhelmed with the hardships and pain that life has given you?

Are you looking for relief from something? It could be relief from physical pain and medical conditions, or depression, anxiety, or from life in general.

When it’s life we want a break from, we don’t often realize it! A good way to catch this is to listen to ourselves talk.  

Have you heard yourself say or think things like, “It’s so overwhelming,” “It’s just too much,” “It feels like everything is going wrong,” or “I can’t take anymore?” Have you been feeling that way?

This is what a person sounds like when life has been hard and they want relief from all of life’s struggles at the moment.   

There is nothing wrong to want relief from life! It doesn’t make a person bad to want a break from their struggles!

A single Dad struggles with the pain of his wife passing away and the hardships of raising three daughters while also losing his career due to injuries.  

A woman is overwhelmed with her financial hardships and losing her home in her retirement years with nowhere to go.

Attachment Trauma and Overwhelm

However, there are two key points that one needs to take to heart if they find themselves having these thoughts and feelings of being overwhelmed with life’s problems.

1. They are at higher risk of becoming addicted to things like pain pills, because it feels like it gives a person a little relief from life.
2. Those who find themselves with these thoughts and feelings are much more likely to have a history of attachment trauma.

This feeling of being overwhelmed by life is a very frequent long-term effect on your mind and body when you might have had early relationship or attachment trauma.

Life has been hard, from the very beginning!  

However, attachment trauma affects the development of the nervous system to be more sensitive, to feel more confused by life and relationships, and to react stronger to life problems.

This is all due to a phenomenon we call “Regulation.”  

Problems in regulation are what cause a person’s brain and body to respond differently to pain pills and become dependent and addicted to them when other people’s bodies would not respond that way.

Let’s take a closer look at regulation and how it plays a role in helping someone to become addicted to pain pills.

Regulation

In the most simple terms, regulation is the ability to calm oneself down and bring themselves (and their moods!) back into balance.

If you’re one with attachment trauma, you know all about the extremes of moods!  

People tend to feel things very deeply and have a harder time bringing themselves back into that place of balance and normal flexibility.  

Regulation is the job of the nervous system, which is one’s brain and all the nerves coming into and going out of the brain to the body.

The normal process of attachment is that of the mother providing co-regulation for the baby’s internal “nervous” states until the infant can do that for itself.

There are lots of mothers who are unable to regulate their infant enough to allow for healthy growth and development of the brain and nerves.  

This results in the infant having a foundation for its physical, mental, and emotional health that is imbalanced and prone to extremes.

Those with histories of attachment trauma will find themselves in the extremes pretty quickly after certain situations that trigger an insecurity and put them back in survival mode.

However, they will stay in those extremes for longer because they don’t have that good foundation of tissue memory in knowing how to bring their brain and bodies back into a place of balance.  

Pain Pills and Regulation

This is where pain pills are an answer to the body’s problems!
The opiate in pain pills is very good at calming down a nervous system that is dysregulated and stuck in the extremes!

For those with histories of attachment trauma, their brain and body will respond differently to the opiates because of the relief that the opiates provide for the extreme internal states.

As such, the opiates become a relief for physical pain and emotional pain. For a time, it makes everything seem much more manageable, because it has toned down that inside noise of panic and that inside feeling of loss and confusion.

For those who have felt that inside panic, confusion and loneliness, who wouldn’t want relief from that?
You may be thinking that you or someone you know who has become addicted to pain pills didn’t feeling this way before starting taking pills, or at least you don’t remember feeling that way.

This is very possible and actually usually the case! It’s more common that a person with a history of attachment trauma is unaware of their inner states!

Because they have always felt this way, they don’t know that there is a different way to feel. They  struggle with regulation (being in a healthy balance and flexibility) and resentments, but they’ve always (unless they have had therapy and healing in their life) seen it as a problem outside of them, never a problem inside of them.

So the problem can begin in very subtle ways…

How the Problem With Pain Pills Can Begin

The problem with pain pills can begin as a prescription. Then, a person finds that they start depending more and more on those pills, even to the point where they’re watching the clock so they can take their next dose.  

They look forward to and anticipate the next pill. They become almost obsessed with when they can get the next dose.  

Then, they start to justify occasionally taking an extra one. “I’m having more pain today than usual,” they think to themselves, and take an extra pill. When they find that nothing especially bad happens, it isn’t as hard the next time to take an extra one, and another one, and another one.

Most of the time, people who start by taking pain pills as prescribed after a surgery or an injury don’t realize the emotional effects the opiates are having on them. Over time, though, people around them start to notice they’re a little different.   

You see, the pain pills also numb us emotionally. Opiates don’t distinguish between physical pain and emotional pain, so they do a great job of numbing both types of pain.

Because of this, a person will be a little more disconnected from not only themselves and their body sensations, but also from others.  

This is also why there is a phenomenon called hyperpathia, allodynia, and hyperkatifeia where a person will experience exaggerated physical and emotional pain when they first get off of opiates.  

Getting off pain pills can be very tough, because of all the changes to one’s hormones and brain chemistry (especially Dopamine) that the narcotics have caused. It takes a long time for the brain and body to come back!   

If you’re coming off of narcotics, you should educate yourself about Post-acute withdrawal syndrome (PAWS) so that you aren’t surprised by the occasional return of certain withdrawal symptoms several months out.

Body Memory of Pain Pills

Unfortunately, if you already have a history of being dependent or addicted to pain pills, you’re at an even higher risk of becoming addicted once again.  

For many, their story of addiction to pain pills starts so quietly and innocently.  
Michael got pancreatitis (severe abdominal pain that often requires hospitalization) and the doctors in the hospital finally convinced him to have some narcotics.  

It started as IV narcotics since with pancreatitis you can’t eat anything. (The pancreatitis is involved with digesting food, so to calm the inflammation down, you can’t eat or drink anything that is food.)

He then got well enough to go home, and they sent him home on prescription pain pills. At first, he was taking less than he was prescribed, because he was still so scared about becoming addicted again.  

Then, he started taking them as prescribed, and finding that he was starting to feel “high,” the feeling that he got before when he would take too many pills or when he eventually started using heroin.

So, he tried to stop the pills, but he found that he couldn’t. His body would go into such bad withdrawals that he would eventually take a pill just to be able to feel well enough to function. His muscles would ache so badly, and it would feel as if someone had taken a bat to his bones and broken them.  

This is known as tissue dependence, and it is well known that once you have had tissue dependence in the past, it doesn’t take much or take long for your body to have the same level of dependence as it did before.  

The tissue memory for opiates and things that calm it down or provide relief from anxiety and pain is so strong even with the best of intentions and the most careful of actions, you cannot prevent that tissue memory from going back to times past!

There have been many patients who have relapses back into their tissue memory of dependence and psychological memory of addiction with just one Narcotic pill prescribed by a dentist after a root canal!

Relapsing Due to Pain and Grief

However, I have more patients who have relapsed back into taking pain pills due to loss and grief in their life than patients who have become addicted after taking a prescribed pain pill.

Just today, a 26 year old relapsed a month ago on opiates due to the death of his grandfather, a significant loss for him. He didn’t want to, but found himself craving the relief of the internal emotional pain that comes with the pain pills.  

Another patient of mine was on maintenance medication for opiate dependence and required a higher dose of that which was prescribed due to her feeling like she was going to relapse after her father died.
Boredom is another stress that often results in the relapse of opiates.

Many patients of mine have relapsed on pills or other opiates after they retired or lost their meaning and purpose in life. They felt the opiates would give them relief from this grief and stress as well.

Summary

Whether you know someone or have had a dependence of addiction to pain pills yourself, many questions come to mind, like, “Does this make them or me a bad person?”  

Understanding what sets us up for our brains and bodies responding this way to pain pills can help answer the question of “Am I just a bad person” and can help give us some clarity on how to find our way out and keep ourselves out.  

There is so much that becomes a part of one’s life when they have an addiction, so much so that there is a lot to heal in themselves and in their relationships with others!

Similar to healing from attachment trauma, healing from a dependence or addiction to pain pills is a mind-body approach where a person works on both medical and mental aspects.  

Recovery is then a lifestyle that one continues to maintain themselves in the best place physically and emotionally.

It is hard work, but it can be done and a good life can be obtained!

I encourage you to seek help if you find yourself in this predicament or take precautions if you find yourself relating to the above descriptions and think you might be at higher risk.  

To your health and healing from trauma,

Dr. Aimie