[nandm]

Unfortunately, only you can decide if you are truly addicted. I do know that my experience with pain medication has been that my body can become addicted without my mind being addicted. To explain that statement I will provide an example. When I was 6 months sober I had a motorcycle accident, went over the side of a cliff. Had to have a rod put in my right thigh and had both arms broke and muscle and tendon damage to my left leg. Needless to say after a month in the hospital I was sent home with both oxycodone and oxycontin. I was in a wheelchair for another month and a half, then crutches, then a cane and finally was able to walk with a limp after about a year. But back to the point. After arriving home I decided that after being on pain meds for 4 months I could deal with the pain just as well with ibuprofen so I just stopped the oxycontin and oxycodone. The ibuprofen did deal with the pain so in that respect I had no problems. The problem was it took me about a week to figure out that my body was in withdrawls. I had electrical type shocks that would shoot through my body. I was unable to sleep and if I did nod off I would be awoken by the shocks. It was pretty miserable. But mentally the addiction was not there, as I did not feel the need for the medication even though my body was demanding it. The withdrawls did stop and I would never recomend someone stop a prescribed medication without consulting their doctor. I could have avoided the withdrawl had I talked to my doctor and tapered the dosing down. At the time I was taking 30mg oxycontin twice a day with 5 - 15 mg oxycodone every 4 -6 hours as needed for pain. I am fortunate I did not wind up in the hospital with the withdrawls. What a way to spend a Christmas.....

Today though I consider myself still sober even though my body went through those withdrawls at less than a year sober. I did not restart my sober time. I certainly would have if I had experienced the obsession for the drug that I did for alcohol as I would have been mentally addicted as well.