[zdragnar]

A friend of mine was a mechanic in the air Force and took a wrench to the knee. The VA basically prescribed him a giant bottle of benzos and told him to take them as needed.

Young man laid up at home with nothing to do but sit on the couch playing video games and drink beer. Add in a big bottle of pain pills to take "as needed" and you've got an addict.

[nonameiguess]

Because people form their impressions of what the world is like by continually reading anecdotes like this, I'd like to at least throw my own experience out there. I (not my friend) got out of the Army needing three spine surgeries in the span of 16 months, after years of increasingly worthless non-invasive treatments. This involved daily percocet for a very long time along with periods of time in which I couldn't do much beyond mindlessly watch television while falling in and out of sleep.

I did recover, though. Today, I run 40-50 miles a week, lift 6 days a week, work in software making five times what the Army ever paid me, haven't touched a painkiller in 7 years, and don't even drink.

Make of it what you will, but people are individuals and medical policy should reflect this. Pill mills are a problem but physicians deserve the judgment and discretion you should expect of someone we spend up to a decade training and licensing.

[elzbardico]

Yes, a lot of the problems with drugs is probably cultural. We decided to convince people that they are absolutely powerless against addiction, that this is a disease they were born with it and there's no much they can do themselves, that they can't have absolutely no agency.

[devilbunny]

Benzos are not pain meds. Might make you an addict, but if that’s what was prescribed, it wasn’t for pain. Dunk on the VA all you like, but they’re not that bad.

[zdragnar]

You're right, I got my wires crossed for some reason. Pretty sure it was either for Percocet or the generic equivalent.

When he recounted this to be, he was frustrated that they didn't give him a small prescription to start with, but more or less gave him a large quantity up front and let him dose himself.

He managed to beat the addiction, and when I'd met him it was in a software development gig so it's not like it ruined his life or anything. He certainly wasn't happy with how casually he'd been treated was the jist of the story.

Edit: just realized I had a different friend at the same company who had been on benzos and dealt with the withdrawal... The three of us chatted quite a bit and I imagine that was the context for the conversation but it's been a decade or so.

[devilbunny]

That makes more sense. As for why, just look at the responses to my other comment saying that opioids aren’t generally warranted for weeks after a dental extraction.