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The Boys Will Work It Out, Part 2

February 1, 2023·43 min·3 clips

Abstinence-based opioid treatment has a 90% relapse rate in the first year, yet doctors still choose it over treatments with 70-80% success rates.

Addiction is misunderstood. After a brief cross-promo, the episode settles in with a physician explaining opioid treatment and the rules around it. She says the prescribing was outside the norm, but not against any regulation, rule, or law. That makes the treatment feel colder to her than being treated earlier as a real criminal. Her path began with a scholarship. Medical school led to a National Health Corps obligation, which sent her to an underserved area in Northwest Missouri. She tells it slowly, without polishing the hard parts. One patient comes through in the language of receptors, blockade, and medication that lets other opioids lose their grip. Then the story gets physical. A man walks into her apartment, plays with the cat, and says he has found a part-time job after years without that footing. He sleeps again. He works. He plays guitar. In her telling, that is what treatment can give back: a plain life. Another voice credits Dr. Maxwell directly. The pain nearly disappears, and when the care ends, she helps the patient find another psychiatrist and pain management specialist. But relief stays fragile. A later doctor pushes for less methadone, no oxycodone, and changes around diazepam and suboxone. Every month carries fear that the DEA could visit the doctor, threaten the license, and make the medication vanish. When the host asks when the DEA arrived, she remembers coming home from a trial talk and finding two agents on her stoop. Her lawyer had warned her. They were not there as friends. She invited them in anyway, because she talks to anyone. She had plans that night: Fellowship of the Ring on big screens while the CSO played live. Instead, agents were at the door.

As heard by us

A hard look at medicine, fear, and who gets to call it care.

Love and Radio's The Boys Will Work It Out, Part Two follows a doctor who thought she was staying inside the bounds of care, then finds herself under DEA scrutiny and facing the possibility of losing the ability to treat pain.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a tense, plainspoken fight over pain medicine and professional risk.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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