The Truth About Chronic Pain: How You Can Get Your Life BackThe Truth About Chronic Pain: How You Can Get Your Life Back
I Love Being Sober
Tim Westbrook talks with Dr Mel Pohl about chronic pain, addiction and why long-term opioid use may worsen suffering. They outline a multi-layered approach to pain recovery that focuses on the brain, behaviour and support in sobriety.
54:52•4 Nov 2020
Chronic Pain, Opioids and Sobriety: Getting Your Life Back
Episode Overview
- Chronic pain is driven largely by thoughts and feelings in the brain, even though all pain is real.
- Long-term opioid use often increases pain over time through tolerance, dependence and opioid-induced hyperalgesia.
- Effective pain recovery combines movement, psychological work, emotional support, spiritual practices and mindfulness.
- Expectations and beliefs about pain strongly influence how much a person suffers and how much their life shrinks.
- 12-step support and learning to reduce distress in the nervous system are vital tools for people with both pain and addiction.
“Just like there's a circuit of addiction, there is a circuit of chronic pain that reverberates inside the human brain.”
How do people manage co-occurring mental and physical health issues while recovering? This conversation between Tim Westbrook and Dr Mel Pohl gives a straightforward look at chronic pain, addiction, and why many traditional pain approaches fall short.
You’ll hear Dr Pohl share how he was once a treatment centre medical director giving lectures on cocaine "on cocaine", and how a quiet Saturday morning and a year of sitting in AA meetings as a "guest" led him to say, "I just can't do this anymore." His story speaks directly to high-functioning professionals who appear successful yet are secretly falling apart, showing that you don’t have to hit a dramatic "low bottom" before change starts.
The episode then shifts into chronic pain, with Dr Pohl explaining the difference between acute and chronic pain and why chasing scans, injections and surgeries rarely fixes long-term suffering. He argues that "all pain is real", but the ongoing distress is largely driven by thoughts and feelings, not just damaged tissue.
One standout idea is his description of the brain: "Just like there's a circuit of addiction, there is a circuit of chronic pain that reverberates inside the human brain," and the key is uncoupling the stimulus from the response. You’ll get a clear breakdown of why long-term opioid use often makes pain worse through tolerance, dependence and opioid-induced hyperalgesia, and why many people on pain medication feel trapped.
Dr Pohl outlines a comprehensive pain recovery programme built on movement, cognitive and emotional work, spiritual support, and mindfulness, with a good dose of realistic cheerleading rather than false promises. For anyone in recovery who also lives with chronic pain—or who supports someone in that position—this episode offers practical hope and a fresh way of thinking about pain. Could challenging your beliefs about pain be the first step towards getting your life back?
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