I just finished watching the season finale... I was addicted to opiates for more then ten years of my life. If you think the ending of the show was untrue about your mind playing tricks on you while taking opiates, you would be wrong. I gratefully thank the writers of the show for doing research about addiction. Take it from a former addict, You do not want to wake up one day and realize ten years of your life are gone because you have spent the whole time searching and wanting the next high, without truely living a single day...

Thank God that my vices never took me there! I had a relative minor battle with alcohol and pot. The latter still comes around for a visit every once in a while. But my best friend has someone drive him from Kentucky to South Florida once a month to see a "pain management" doctor for his very real pain (3 vertebrate fused together) He eats Oxy 30s like House eats Vicodin (about 10 a day!). I can see it killing him a slow death.

With all the advances in medicine why can't they kill the nerves that carry the pain signal to the brain? I'm sure if it was that easy it would be done by now. But where would be the the profit in that? The drug companies learned a big lesson when they cured Polio. No money in cures, but winter houses in Palm Beach for making a pill for everything.


Somebody kick this soapbox out from under me....

It doesn't matter what the addiction is, it's all relatively the same...in a way--an addiction. Drugs and alcohol being the worse. Yes. When you're addicted to stuff like that, especially for being in pain, your body thinks you NEED it (but isn't that with all addictions). The pain seems to multiply 10x worse than it really is.

What's sad is the fact there are doctors and other medical professionals out there like House that are abusing perscription drugs. We may never know it, sad but true. I mean, it's not just the street corner bum. It's everywhere.

As for the nerve ending thing. I don't see how that's possible. Yes, perhaps someday. But cutting off the pain by cutting the nerves (or whatever other method) would cause more harm than good. You could be paralized, or have nerve damage in another part of the body. Like I said, perhaps one day with all the medical advances it could happen and alleviate all pain. How great would that be, then perhaps the addiction rate to pain pills would go down.

Ok, I'm off my kick. I hope it made sense.

On the episode where house first starts rehab,house is bent over the commode throwing up and says to the effect,quote,whoever invented bupenorphine should be shot,unquote.Well I live in opiateland westva and Ive taken bupe*as they call it and its puts you right to sleep and relieves pain.It works great by the way.
I now take the pill form for opiate addiction and truthfully it is a miracal drug.The pill form is suboxone and subutex.It is prescribed by a doctor with a special liscense and you must see a drug counselor also.You are strictly monitored.From the first time you take it,ll withdrawl symptoms are gone.You need to take it until your cravings go away,then you are weaned off of it slowly.Finally when your weaned down enough,you can stop taking it altogether with no adverse affects and no withdrawl symptoms.So,if you are an opiate addict,you dont have to take opiates until they kill you.Please seek this available medical help,this is from a person that knows all to well about the opiate sufferings.Only take opiates if they give you 6months to live,and even then Id have to think hard about taking it.Withdrawl from opiates is the worst thing that ever happened to me,and my c-5 and c-6,and t-2 and t3 in my neck were broken in 1990.

I just noticed the whole post I made on this topic this morning go totally deleted for some reason. Did I do something wrong, I spent like an hour typing it out, my personal situation and how it correlates with House, etc. Nothing inappropriate and then I look now to see if anyone responded or commented and its not even here anymore, it kinda pisses me off, all the time and thought I put in it... shrugs

jUST NOW i TRIED posting an answer to you but it came up as YOUR post in my name, so I'm leaving it here for now...let's see what happens...

Alright...here we go:

There is a HUGE backlash against any drug that makes people feel good and a PUSH by the drug companies (partly profit-motivated and who knows...partly gov't funded???) to promote the ubiquitous SSRI's like Zoloft and other mood-altering drugs that fill a # of purposes, such as:

a) Being currently in favor with the FDA and AMA and the Gov't.

NOT interfering (so they say, except for the suicides and homicides ---see the "Eli Lily Suicide" reports) with the average sane American's ability to do his or her job and support the status quo,

c) (Supposedly) not contribute to the drug war by being sold illegally since almost nobody WANTS to buy SSRI's!

As for the line your Dr. will give you: it goes something like this: "OH, people are committing suicide" (notice they do NOT mention the Lilly suicides and homicides on anti-depressants!) and/or "YOU might overdose" but they don't tell you that in the rare instance that you DO, it'll be far easier to save you than if you OD on SSRI's or worse, tricyclic anti-depressants.

The bottom line is the "Mother's Little Helper", once the code name for Valium and its cousins, a nice, mellow, friendly benzodiazipine, is now morphed into Prozac and Zoloft and others of its ilk: more profitable for the drug companies and less likely to be "abused" since their not "fun" (they fail to mention all the drugs related to amphetamines!).

House SHOULD be taking what he is. He is in pain and no cheap-a$$ substitute is going to cut it. I TOTALLY ADMIRE this show for owning up to that rather than pandering to the Pharm industry and its tripe! If a drug is needed, does its job and helps, then it is a good drug, regardless of propaganda.

Instead of focusing on doctors and others who try to stay functional and help society, by combatting their pain, even w/narcotics, the freaking cops (like that putz, Tritter), should go bust wife-beaters and child molesters! But they're too gutless...so there you have it. People in pain and trying to deal are ALWAYS more vulnerable and easier to bully than monsters...and cops KNOW that.

I have been addicted to crack cocaine for nearly fifteen years. I watch the show all the time, and even though I have never understood opiate addiction, I can understand completely what House is feeling inside as far as needind that next fix, and the pain associated with not having it. It can be a nightmare. Antisocial behavior goes with the territory. You become so consumed by drugs that you put others out of your life, so to speak.