Veterans in “Veterans Face Greater Risks Amid Opioid Crisis” and “A Growing Number Of Veterans Struggles To Quit Powerful Painkillers” say they use opioid as a way to cope with their chronic pain which in the long run results in addiction. Whereas scientists argue that “addiction is a learning disorder, a difference in the wiring of the brain that affects the way we process information about motivation, reward and punishment. And, as with many learning disorders, addictive behavior is shaped by genetic and environmental influences over the course of development” (SZALAVITZ, 2016, p. 2). Although it may seem impossible to end addiction there are other methods to control it.

Veterans came to fall into addiction due to the excess prescriptions to opiate as “painkillers”. According to Lawrence (2014), during wartime, doctors and medics needed to treat troops for pain, and often used prescription opiates to solve that problem. This caused an abuse of prescribed drugs. Maybe if doctors were to think of other methods of painkillers which were not drugs then the percentage of veterans addicted to these opioids would be much lower.