By Carol Levy, PNN Columnist

The war on drugs always seems to target pain sufferers. We are the number one example of what happens when someone is given opioids. We are the villains, our pain the “gateway” to addiction -- a fiction that no one seems able to dispel, regardless of the evidence and common sense.

Why are we the bad guys? Is it because we are the easiest to single out?

Maybe.

I was watching an episode of the old TV show “ER.” One of the main characters, Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle), was stabbed repeatedly by a psychotic patient. His pain was horrendous, his need for opioids obvious. Dr. Carter survived the attack, but became addicted. In one scene, he even goes to the extreme of injecting himself with fentanyl.

I began to recall other shows where the plot was the same: injury, opioids to manage the acute pain, and then full-blown addiction.

In an episode of “The Golden Girls,” Betty White's character, Rose Nyland, discloses she was addicted to pain pills. She started taking them 30 years earlier after she injured her back. Her doctor never told her to stop taking them, so she continued using opioids for decades. It was her secret until her roommates figured it out.

It is a shame that TV shows like these don’t include a disclaimer: These characters had acute pain, not chronic. Most people with chronic pain do not become addicted.

It’s a common belief that if you have acute or chronic pain and are given opioids that you will probably become addicted. But has anyone ever studied the two types of pain and their rates of addiction?

I Googled it using the words "chronic pain and addiction vs acute pain and addiction." There were no studies that directly compared the two. The results were either about chronic pain and addiction, or acute pain and addiction. I changed the search terms to “acute pain, opioids, addiction rates.” The results were the same.

Why hasn't anyone looked into the differences in addiction in these two very dissimilar populations?

Why has no one done studies with a population of acute pain patients who became addicted after an injury or surgery? Then compare those rates with chronic pain patients who become addicted?  If they have, I wasn’t able to find them.

Are chronic pain patients being villainized because we are the most visible population?

It is always easier to go after the most desperate and the most vulnerable -- and when it comes to opioids and managing pain, we fit the bill. We will continue to be the bogeyman in the “opioid crisis” until this changes.

Carol Jay Levy has lived with trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic facial pain disorder, for over 30 years. She is the author of “A Pained Life, A Chronic Pain Journey.”  Carol is the moderator of the Facebook support group “Women in Pain Awareness.” Her blog “The Pained Life” can be found here.