why are pain pills addictive?

[oogie963]

   I had a tooth extracted last week, and had 25 Norco prescribed for the pain.
I only took one, because it didn't hurt after the first day.  I had my knees replaced
three years ago though, and took Norco for a couple of months for those.  They
did really help with the pain, but I never felt in the slightest danger of getting
addicted to them, or understood why anyone would.  I didn't get any euphoric
feeling out of them, nor did I have any desire to take them after I didn't need them.
If people are in chronic pain, I can see why they might want to take these a lot,
but if they aren't, what's the attraction?   I don't get it.  I was for most of my life
addicted to tobacco, and I know that if I smoked one cigarette I'd be hooked
all over again because that's happened before, so the answer is not that I just
can't get addicted at all.

[abel04]

ditto on narcs......but i could never be an alcoholic......same principle though.....some people love spinach, others can't stomach it......

[refusingbondage]

I *WISH* with all my might that someone could figure out why some of us are addicts and others not.  Is it physical?  Mental?  Both in my opinion.  I am an opiate addict. I rarely took medication for pain.  I took it to get high.  Lots of people get sick from opiates.  I loved the high.  

My father was an alcoholic.  Even when he was dying of cancer, he did not take his opiate painkillers.  He preferred his drink.  I guess everyone has their own favorite poison.

I guess that someone who is not an addict wont get addicted even if they take for legit pain. I can tell you that for me, even if I did take them as prescribed for real legit pain, I'd be addicted.  No doubt about that.  

[notgoingdown]

I am not an addict but the wife of one. I have learned more about opiate addiction in the last year than any person should ever need to know.

From what I have read....
Opiates dont help with what is causing the pain just the persons perception of it. Basically, it still hurts like heck you just dont care about it. The euphoria makes you feel ok about the pain. It has been argued that a person with legit pain taking as directed can not get addicted... dependent but not addicted. Speaking as the person not addicted this is my opinion only,,, but I agree. I think that there are many that once the pain starts easing up do not lower their dosage. IE, they took 4 pain pills per day no matter if they hurt or not. A lot of dr's will actually advise that it is easier to 'stay ahead of the pain' than it is to wait till you are hurting a lot to try to ease the pain. I think that once there isnt a pain for the opiate to work against is when a person really starts to notice how these pills make them feel really good. The euphoria feeling without pain prolly feels really good. This could then lead the person to expect more than just pain relief from the pills but to go beyond that to the feeling really good which, imo, leads to the problems with tolerance and starts the whole chase.

[oogie963]

   Thanks trouble, lee, and jolly, for your replies.  They don't really answer
my question, but perhaps that's because there is no answer why people
get addicted that would sound conclusive to someone who isn't addicted.  
As jollyman pointed out, I should take a cue from my cigarette addiction.  
If someone asked me what was so great about cigarettes and why I was
addicted to them, I could come up with a few points I suppose, such as
that it calmed me down or gave me something to do with my hands, but
those reasons and any others I might come up with would be pretty lame.
You really have to "be there" to understand, I suppose, otherwise it's like
trying to explain music to someone who's deaf, or tone-deaf.

[jollyman069]

if you were addicited to cigs then you sould understand the addicition concpet of any subtance.....opiates make ity easy to get adicited too for the firt few months t was funnnnnnnn...then it was pure hell for the next 4 years

[leeisgettingclean]

yep lucky for you! cause that feeling dont last long and you get hooked fast

[troubleinohio]

count yourself lucky that you didnt get the initial euphoria that most of us here did from them!