I have a medical condition, which causes intermittent pain.
In addition, when it kicks up, it throws me into a bout of mild depression of sorts....unless I use painkiller med.....then I'm fine.
I hardly ever get depressed, so this is a foreign reaction for me and moping around depressed and hurting is NOT the way I want to live, so when I need to, I take the painkiller meds., which happen to be Ultram.
I am a firm believer in using what meds are available to fix what hurts you (why go through life miserable?) but as you can guess, I am concerned about addiction.
When does use become abuse?
I'd rather not get into how much I'm using and how often (moderate) because this isn't a drug question...it's a (potential) substance abuse question....how do you know if you have one and what do you do about it?