As news reports continue to flood the internet and television about Prince’s cause of death, many reports fail to detail that the legendary performer suffered from severe chronic pain. Several of Prince’s closest friends stated that he had a severe medical condition that limited his ability to carry out regular daily activities. The medical condition was a result of damage to his hips from years of intense performances. Therefore, the legendary performer relied on opiates prescribed by his doctors to help alleviate some of the pain.
In the world of addiction and recovery, many professionals often fail to look at the root cause of addiction. Instead, many tend to focus on the patient’s reliability on prescription medications and not why the patients use medications.
Many media outlets are guilty of this transgression and focus their attention on the drug itself and not the root cause. This phenomenon is especially true when a world-renowned celebrity succumbs to prescription medication overdose. It must be made clear, as some publications have indicated, that Prince suffered from a severe medical condition that caused him to rely on opiates. Chances are pretty good that Prince was not physically addicted to painkillers.
Media outlets should also make the public aware that different drugs react to a person’s body in different ways. A person who relies on painkillers will not obtain the same effect if they attempt to replace the painkillers with heroin. This is not an opinion that some person created, but a scientific fact. Once media outlets learn some of the basic facts about pain and addiction, then the public will learn what really happened to Prince and exactly what he was going through during the last days of his life.