I appreciate your response. I eventually amended my original statement to addiction within itself is not a choice, it is a choice what we do with it. I am genuinely sorry to hear about your addiction to pain killers. My wife has RA, fibromyalgia, and degenerative disk disorder. The doctors want to give her pain killers. She refuses because we have seen too many people slip into an addiction. Her pain, and mobility (or lack there of) has created this insidious chronic depression… it seems like the choice is to suffer from one thing or another.
How are you managing your pain now, if you do not mind me asking?
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Thank you for your kind response. I’ve been managing pain with exercise, over the counter pain relievers and ice/hot compresses. It’s not as severe as it was before surgery. I’m sorry to hear about your wife and glad she didn’t go the route I did. I wish I had done more research on addiction before when I was given that first script. Wishing you and your wife the best. 
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I say it’s a combo,
Addiction comes from patterns established and can take many forms, Substances, Alcohol, Video games, spending, eating, sex, the list goes on.
The person or addict, uses the outlet to gain a sense of euphoria however in the case of substance abuse it often leads to physical dependence where deprivation can lead to withdrawal symptoms.
So yes addiction is a disease of the mind, the choice we make is what we choose to be addicted to.
For decades we always and still say addict, and we automatically relate to one who suffers from drug & alcohol dependency. That’s part of the problem, society refuses to acknowledge addiction takes so many forms, and often untreated leads to other forms of unhealthy addictive behaviors.
I quit drinking ok. But didn’t treat my psychiatric problems so to substitute I exchange my drinking time with let’s say video games, my euphoria comes from that. Still the same disease just substituting one for the other.
I refused to acknowledge my addictive behavior, meeting with a therapist pointed alot out to me, I always was an addict it just depended on what was my addiction.
As a kid it was baseball cards and bicycles.
As I got older it grew into cars
Then tools, CDs DVDs video games, guitars, eventually alcohol,
I was always an addict, I just shifted my addiction to different things, my parents logic was well at least your not out doing drugs so its ok… no it wasn’t ok.
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Reading all these today and have to say while there is a variety of opinions on the subject i personally believe every answer to be right from a point of view and its opened my mind more.
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I can only imagine you did what you thought was best at the time. Shame on the pharmaceutical companies for the hell they’ve unleashed, they knew what they were doing.
I am very happy to know your pain isnt as bad as it was. I pray it continues to decrease.
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For me, jacking off and playing video games 13 hours a day was definetly my own choice. And when I decided enough was enough, I couldn’t stop and eventually I realised I was an addict 
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Yeah its a hard decision to make to face your decision head on, glad you made it through tho !
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