At the same time, his excruciating physical pain had led to a spiralling heroin addiction.

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Addiction exposes the deepest forms of physical and psychological dependency.

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Like those dealing with serious addiction, one can take a path to detoxification which would rid the body of its ills at the price of a horrible physical experience, or one can keep feeding an addiction, perhaps in moderately reduced doses, in order to avert the pain.

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Instead, it's best to treat the addiction as a medical problem and stress the physical consequences of it, Johnson said.

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Farrar, on the other hand, says narcotics have worked well for many of his pain patients, as long as they're used along with other pain treatments such as physical therapy and the patients are carefully monitored for signs of addiction.

CNN: Facing chronic pain without drugs

Melissa Kit Chow, a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, designed a garment that will only fuel our Facebook addiction: Chow's "Like-A-Hug" vest gives you a physical hug whenever one of your Facebook friends "likes" your status update.

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