The opioid crisis in America has become an epidemic, with drug overdose a leading cause of death. The two most popular opioid prescriptions written in the U.S. are for oxycodone and hydrocodone (typically Vicodin); the effects of both drugs apparently “indistinguishable from the effects of heroin” on the brain.
In the last 20 years, prescriptions for opioids have increased, as have drug addictions and drug-related deaths. Opioids aren’t just prescribed for surgery recovery anymore. They’re also distributed for more routine ailments, like chronic pain, which is just one reason the circulation of opioids has increased.
Yet according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, opioids don’t do much more for pain than ibuprofen or acetaminophen. In a clinical trial, 411 emergency department patients with extreme pain were randomly treated with opioids versus non-opioids. Ibuprofen and acetaminophen reduced pain scores by 4.3. The only patients who saw a greater decrease in their pain were those treated with oxycodone — and their pain was only reduced by 4.4.
Some patients treated with opioids, or a combination of opioids and non-opioids, found their pain a lot worse than those treated with ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Patients treated with a combination of hydrocodone and acetaminophen only found their pain decreased by 3.5.
The conclusion here is that these emergency department patients did not feel significantly more relief when treated with an opioid. If the drug crisis increase is running parallel to the increase in opioid prescriptions, then this is a valuable finding. The choice to opt for an opioid over a non-opioid for acute emergency pain doesn’t seem to be backed by much. And, in fact, now there’s evidence that suggests we should opt for the non-opioid treatment. In most cases, why not prescribe the less addictive option for pain relief?
Robin Williams performs for military men and women as part of a United Service Organization (USO) show on board Camp Phoenix in December 2007
Gif of Robin Williams via 
A woman conducts a online color testCanva
A selection of color swatchesCanva
A young boy takes a color examCanva
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.