Living with pain

By MARY JANE HOLT
Contributing Writer

Last week, I said that we Americans are a spoiled people. We have things to do, people to see, places to go. We do not have time to be brought down, slowed down, or even influenced by our physical pain. So we will turn to anything to alleviate any pain that dares to slow us or stop us from achieving all our goals and being all we want to be. And, oh yeah, we also reach for drugs or alcohol or sex or other potential addictions to relieve the pain of not having goals.

All that said, sadly, I will add that I have known individuals who have committed suicide because they could not tolerate pain. Yet, I do not personally know of a single such person whose physical pain was not exacerbated (that means made worse), or perhaps even caused by, emotional pain.

I also have known physicians who have, themselves, developed drug addiction habits over the years. And I'm wondering, today, if some doctors are sicker than their patients.

Is the healer even more caught up in keeping up? Is he or she more driven, more stressed, more exhausted, more inclined to look for the easy, fast, most direct way to perform well.

Their patients come looking for (demanding?) quick fixes. To seek in-depth counseling is not an option. To change lifestyles requires too much effort. To find time for better physical conditioning is not possible. To make better food choices is not convenient. To develop meaningful, heartfelt relationships…well, that may be out of the question, as it would require the most time and effort of all.

Nobody has time to be sick or in pain. Perhaps we have all (doctors and patients alike) been blindsided. Just slipped up on and slapped silly by illegal and legal drug trade in America.

Legal pain pills are the biggest crock of stinking b.s. ever to have been put out before the American public, and we have all been so HAD that we can't even smell the stench anymore.

Oh, and we don't want to smell it. Just like we don't want to feel or don't have time to feel -- and are not inclined to take the hard way or the high road anymore.

And why should we? Legal drug manufacturing and marketing, one of the largest moneymaking industries ever to hit Wall Street, offers us relief from the hard and high road!

Fast food, fast promises, fast living, fast destruction. We truly have been had.

Does this mean the unhealed healer, who may be the most "had" of all, cannot help those who come to him for assistance? Or, does his own present pain or struggle lay the groundwork for greater capability and skill? It may be that the doctors have had enough…, and are on the verge of finding ways to treat the WHOLE patient better than ever before.

Nobody is more caught between rocks and hard places today than are medical doctors, regarding the issue of pain control (as well as far too many other issues!). They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they don't treat pain, somebody is going to sue them for not doing so. If they do treat pain, somebody else is going to sue because a mom or dad or child or mate died from overdosage or became addicted.

Consider this. Jane Doe breaks a leg. The doctor prescribes a pill for pain. She discovers that the pill dulls other pain as well. John Smith has recurrent headaches. His doctor prescribes a pill for the pain. John discovers the pain behind the pain is also masked by the pill. Mary Jones develops systemic muscle pain, can't sleep at night, and can't relax. She gets pain pills, sleeping pills, antidepressants, anti anxiety drugs… oh, yeah, folks, it happens.

Does Jane, John or Mary look inward at their hearts or outward at their lifestyles for real, but very time-consuming answers? Why should they, when they can look toward a prescription writing machine who dances fast to the music that the drug industry plays?