Beyond fear of pain and temporary disfigurement from missing teeth, I had another major concern: I was addicted to heroin in my 20s. As an expert on addiction, I knew that a return to compulsive drug use wasn’t inevitable with medical opioid exposure. As a result, some languish in extreme pain because they believe that drug exposure will cause them to lose control and immediately return to active addiction. There is much misinformation about how opioid pain treatment affects people in recovery and those at high risk of addiction. Understanding how psychoactive drugs and addictions really work is crucial for better managing medical opioid use — and ending policies that interfere with both prevention and recovery.

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Persons: I’d, ”, Sarah Wakeman, Dennis Bohlin Organizations: Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School