(upbeat music)
- I was in a pretty bad
motorcycle accident,
where my foot was crushed,
it was a catastrophic injury.
I was on escalating doses
of opioid medication
for about two months,
and nobody was kind of
looking or checking,
and so then by the time somebody was like,
"Hey, you're on a lot of drugs,
why don't we try to stop that."
I was given really bad advice
to discontinue abruptly
and so it sent me into
immediate withdrawal.
So I desperately wanted the
withdrawal symptoms to be gone,
but I didn't particularly want the drugs,
I didn't have the cravings,
the feeling of compulsive behavior
even in the face of negative consequences.
One of the things that's taught me
is that it's really
important to distinguish
between physiological dependence
which precipitates withdrawal,
and then addiction,
which has these behavioral sequelae.
But there's a continuum.
There's a connection.
This stuff is all related.
So what I have spent most
of the last four years doing
is researching, thinking
through and advocating
for responsible opioid
prescribing practices,
what all that entails,
and then also how we should
modulate our attitudes towards
those with addiction, addiction
medication treatments,
various sorts of things that
would help us move forward
with the drug overdose crisis.
(upbeat music)
