How do you balance pain management with the worry of addcition? I have to admit, I worry every time my parents are prescribed one, especially with them both being recovering alcoholics. However, I recently read this article which helped relieve some of my concern.. Apparentely, when someone is in serious pain, pain medication functions differently in the body than when someone who's not in pain takes it. That was really comforting for me to learn! I would never suggest my parents not take a pain medicine if they needed it but I always worried each time.