Surgery painkillers thoughts

Okay, so one that really struck me while rewatching S4E10 "Salud" is when Walt mentioned that he took some leftover painkillers from his (S2) surgery and washed it down with a couple of beers. (He specifically used it as an excuse for why he was so out of it when talking to Walt Jr. Admittedly, he was incredibly out of it, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was telling the truth.)

Anyway, this struck a chord with me, especially given the topic of the show and the period of time it took place in -- around 2009, while the opioid crisis was rapidly becoming worse. (Not-so-fun fact: the DEA recently released extensive data on prescription opioids for the US opioid crisis between 2006 and 2012. Go check it out.) It's rather likely that the painkillers that Walt was prescribed post-surgery was an opioid, likely OxyContin or Vicodin. This would make sense as the painkillers Walt consumed in "Salud" -- opioids are known to be a common prescription painkiller where leftovers just kind of... linger around the house. (And possibly become a foothold for addiction.) It's just a thought...

But it also got me back to thinking about Walt's surgery in S2E13 -- if Walt was taking an opioid prescription, hell, he was taking it right after witnessing Jane die of heroin overdose. And even further back -- many cancer treatment plans have opioids as a common pain relief medication. It's possible that Walt had taken opioids throughout S1 and S2, possibly even abused them a little in S3 for a bit during his depression slump. Nothing severe, like Jesse, but still enough that it would've possibly been hypocritical or contradictory to his attitude towards Jesse and Jane's heroin addiction. There are definitely short scenes of unreality during S1 where mild (prescription) drug use seems feasible.

Either way, this is all complete speculation. Could or could not have been the case. There's no real evidence that this happened, and the only reason I'm even contemplating it is because I'm interested in the implications of it, as well as how it fits into the context of Breaking Bad. I'm just throwing this out there because I've been thinking about it for a while now.

Submitted July 30, 2019 at 01:02AM by neqiba https://ift.tt/2MoFOI3