It doesn't matter if you buy your drugs on the street or if they are doctor prescribed. I mean sure the whole legal thing is there, but other then that takeing the medication you need to ward off pain will still tear your family appart if you are not very careful.
Drugs make people less controlled, and so eventually your actions and your words are a mishmash of things to drive your friends and family away. No, you probably won't get paranoid and you should get exactly what is prescribed not some cockatial they create on the street and sell as the pure stuff. So gateway? Not really, the only way you'll be getting different stuff is if its prescribed because your body tolerates what you are already taking. Yet, you will still get what is prescribed.
Oh we know that prescription drugs don't really make us high, or at least they usually don't make the people who need them high. To my knowledge and personal experience. The stuff on the street apparently does make you high. When high you are more reckless, so if you kill someone due to driving while under the influence you are screwed either way. However, prescriptions do warn you about things that are not the best. Like driving until you know how your affected. Prescriptions don't stop you any more then they encourage you, neither do the street drugs, though once more I would like to point out they make it easier thanks to your lowered inabitions.
The thing is though, even if prescribed, the drugs mess with your head. Even if you don't feel high, your mouth has less of a filter, your movements are slower and less balanced. It's easier to go back to instinct rather then conform to where society is today-which is very far from instinctive for the most part. It's easy to say and do things others don't like that you normally wouldn't. You know that temper you have? Well lets shorten it up, make you more succeptable to losing it. Oh yeah, pain makes your temper shorter too, so why tolerate the pain rather then take the medication? You shouldn't.
I am not saying stop taking it. I am just saying be aware that you do become a different person. Take that into account. You may be legally using drugs but to your mind you may as well be taking street stuff. It has the same effect, usually just less inense until you really get up there on the dosage. However, your mind, body, and the people around you still get the same wash as you get when you do illegal drugs. The trust may not be loss because they know why you are doing it, but because that lack of filter for your mouth and actions, that trust may fade away through different means.
Be aware of the fact that your still on drugs. They are legal, yes. But those around you will suffer just as your mind and body will. For me, the pain is to intense to be off of the medication, but I hate losing my control, losing my family, and not being able to do anything about it. So talk with your family, remind them what drugs do to a persons body and mind. Remind them that it will effect them and that in order to get around it you all need to communicate and find ways through it.
I commend you for saying what most, if not all, of us know & somehow suspect if not fully understand to be true --at least to some degree- about the chronic use of narcotic & non-narcotic prescription pain medications for chronic pain. Yes, pain does change your mood: it is well understood & documented that pain and inflammation pathways cause fatigue, short- or ill-tempers, bad moods; while one may not be clinically depressed, pain can make you tired, grumpy, weak, cranky, moody, whiney, sleepy, and essentially unable to function up to par (if at all), unable to think or plan ahead, and unable to get any ind of quality restorative (truly regenerative) sleep. So, we opt for or are offered & prescribed pain medications; if we follow-up regularly with our doctors as we are supposed to, we get these medications fine-tuned, switched, or an additional type of Rx med offered/prescribed in order to help us with our chronic pain condition. For some people, it is Tyl #3 or Percocet or Vicodin; if severe, after awhile, it may be Methadone or Suboxone. Studies show that certian segments or percentages of the population respond better to one rather than another type of medication. With pain controlled, one can function better, think better, sleep better, actually have more strength & energy; and then we can get things done during the day and feel that we have more of a normal life. All this being said, on some level after awhile, chronic pain sufferers still have ups & downs in their pain, they can be affected by weather changes (e.g., drops in barometric pressure), can strain something the wrong way and have a pain relapse or breakthrough their medication... and yes, we once again become a bit short/ill-tempered, dis-inhibited (and can get rather mean & ugly - that's the saying things we normally would not) and we then lack energy, strength, and are not as nice, sweet, & loveable as we would otherwise be! It's a tough gig all around - for our families as well us us the individual sufferer - who is very oftentimes NOT well understood (nor forgiven) -sometimes by those closest to us- for our disease and the resulting downright unpleasant behavior. Yes, it is true we are all responsible for our behaviors... BUT, connecting the dots this way-- seeing how one thing can lead to another as our life is torn apart as we are constantly tested and tortured by chronic pain... this should helps us (and hopefully others around us) to understand and explain how it can make us feel, act, think, speak, & behave. Because even the best of us can get ornery, angry, pitch a fit, and need to kick something, punch a boxing bag (a very good investment if your pain makes you angry & fitful; it is quite therapeutic (and good for your heart as well as mind!)). In this case, finding as channel for the behavior pain can cause us to act out is a very good thing; discussing it with your doctor if only to help convey to them how severe and destructive to your life that your pain really is - may prompt them to order more interventions. For me, a home traction unit (horizontal-pneumatic, not gravity); chiropractic (every 3-4 or 6 weeks); daily stretching & floor exercises for my back (it's tough to do every day & requires a special discipline I'm still striving to achieve!); taking herbal 5HTP (increases Seratonin - a feel good/happy/relaxed brain chemical), GABA (at bedtime--helps nervous system & brain to relax, helps anxiety, panic attacks--which often accompany pain attacks), & low dose Lithium (in places where it occurs naturally in the water supply, such as El Paso, have the lowest rates of mental illness & suicide per capita of population); use the Aqua Chi (foot bath detox system) in order to remove toxins, wastes, swelling, & overwhelmed lymphatics--as occurs with chronic conditions/stress/surgery/radiation/etc.); and finally taking a daily nutrition drink -to fill in 'the gaps'- (e.g., Reliv, Spirutien, etc.) and give my body every possible benefit to heal itself, have energy, and take away any possible nutrient deficiency as the reason for worsening pain symptoms, sleep distrurbance, fatigue, weakness, lack of energy, among many other well-documented symptoms that tie behavior and/or illness to nutrient deficiency. This has proven to a powerful combo plan, leading back to a quality of life that continues to be 'a work in progress.' I'm still not the dynamo I was for 25 years; am nowhere near the athlete I once was (but I will soon be in better shape than most people who have their health intact and do not suffer from multi-level or global "spinal degenerative disease"); and will probably never return to being able to work & study a total of 60 to 80 hours a week (but that's OK). I am learning to enjoy life a little more each day thanx to this multi-faceted approach to my chronic pain - and address the Hypo-Adrenia (adrenal fatigue) - thanx to James Wilson's book- 'Adrenal Fatigue - the 21st Century Stress Syndrome' <-- I highly recommend it for those chronic pain sufferers who also seem to have chronic fatigue. As it turns out, Adrenal Exhaustion/Fatigue/Insufficiency is actually a very common and un-diagnosed problem or underlying cause for many of the ills of many people (as it is un-recognized by much of western allopathic medicine).
Thank you very much for your encouraging words and understanding. It sounds like you may just have the best way to balance your life out that I have ever heard, without always giving in to your temper. I know we all slip even when we are not in pain or on medication for the pain, but it definetly is worse when we have those things. I just may invest in a punching bag, that may be just the thing to get out the anger. The thing is though, I never start out angry or upset, its just suddenly on me and I am in a fit of temper. I have tried writing to get out my feelings but it only does so much due to the fact that my moods are almost bi-polar (only instead of being one way for days then changing it happends in the course of an hour.) like. I can never tell what will set me off, and I do know its the pain and medication to a large point. I am glad-and yet saddened-that you understand all this. Thank you for the facts. I now have a lot of things I am going to look into and talk to my doctor about, especially the 5HTP suppliment, and researching adrenal fatigue. Maybe that will explain why at one point I couldn't do anything without falling asleep. Thank you for responding, I hope to read more from you during my stay here.