I spent 22y using to mitigate excruciating disability pain. Yes, the type that has you writhing in bed for days begging for mercy. That level of pain.
The pain has only increased with time. My ability to cope with it has as well, however, which was not true when I was using. I would drink or get high so that I could feel functional. All that really did was give me a little bit of a break and then bring back the pain worse because my ability to cope with it was undermined by my addiction.
It took several months away from the bottle for me to be able to actually sit with my pain for the first time in my life, and make conscientious decisions about how I was going to manage it. Self medication remedy was what brought me to my knees in all aspects of my life, including suffering, unavoidably some thing that I cannot affect as a disability.
8 1/2 years away from that type of willful numbing, and I have broken bones and been burned and have had huge wounds in me from infection, and I’ve been able to cope with all of it without losing my ability emotionally endure.
Not one urge to numb the pain anymore.
Such is the strength of not running away from our problems!
