Chronic Pain Issues in Recovery

Chronic Pain in Addiction Recovery

Chronic pain is a serious and sensitive issue without the added stress of being in recovery from alcohol and drugs. Everyone does recovery differently and for those who attend 12 step meetings there is a lot of pressure to be perfect in your recovery. According to Narcotics Anonymous as long as you are taking your medication as prescribed, according to the label and doctor's orders, then you are still clean even if you are using narcotic pain medication. But, not many other NA members will let you in on this because the total abstinence theory or model is more important. We cannot deny that addicts and alcoholics will indeed suffer with chronic pain or go through periods of time when they have to use pain medication because of surgery or some other illness. Chronic pain offers a unique case though because it tends to require ongoing use of pain pills.

The following articles are useful resources for anyone who has chronic pain even without having an issue with addiction/recovery. However, they are very helpful for someone trying to balance both issues and stay healthy.

Learn how to cope with chronic pain when you are a recovering addict.

Read a Methadone pain pill review. Granted, this one will not work for everyone, so keep in mind it's only a review by someone professing to use Methadone solely for pain reasons.

Prepare for the time when you need to stop taking the pain pills for your condition. Being ready for withdrawal of opiate pain medication in recovery or as a person dealing with chronic pain is important.

More articles and information are being added soon.  I've been gone for awhile and apologize to anyone who came here for information and was let down.  (5-24-16)

Writing About Addiction Without Triggering Drug Cravings

If you're an addict who reads about addiction it is quite hard to do it sometimes without being severely triggered by people with good intentions. So often I see someone who has written an article or web page about getting clean, stopping a drug cold turkey, finding a rehab, and then they put big pictures of the drug or syringes on the article. It goes from being helpful to harmful.

This articles details how to write with an addict in mind, how to write about addiction without triggering drug cravings. Granted, there are always going to be triggering topics when an alcoholic or addict reads about addiction because they are programmed to respond to the stimuli, but reading this will help writers effectively talk about addiction with some understanding of what not to do.

Take the time to learn to write about addiction without triggering cravings. If you at least have this in mind while writing you are one step ahead of many and the folks in recovery will surely appreciate this gesture.