For years the number of people experiencing chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders including addiction has been increasing significantly. In 2003, according to Peter D. Hart Research Associates, the majority of adults in the United States (57 percent) have experienced chronic or recurrent pain in the last year. According to the American Chronic Pain Association, there are approximately 100 million Americans suffering from chronic pain. Research published in Pain Physician Journal (2006) reports that 90 percent of people in the United States receiving treatment for pain management are prescribed opiate medication. Of that number, 18 percent to 41 percent had opiate abuse/addiction problems. At least eighty billion dollars is spent for pain relief in the United States each year, a significant amount of which is for prescription medications. What is harder to quantify is the emotional cost to family systems when one or more members suffer with a chronic pain condition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoHlaQBn76c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1PLwodBSFs According to some professionals, we have entered an era of a prescription drug epidemic. Deaths related to overdose of opiates are on the rise, and since 2006 opiates have become the number-one most abused legal drug in the United States. Because of this, the DEA and FDA have created a panel of experts to develop Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) to minimize the risk of inappropriate prescribing and bad outcomes.
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