This episode breaks down ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and the Opioid Risk Tool (ORT) — what these tools were actually designed for, and how they’re often misapplied in pain care to flag patients as “high risk” and deny treatment.

We walk through:
• what ACEs really measure
• how the Opioid Risk Tool was created
• where the sexual trauma question came from
• why these tools were never meant to be used to deny care
• and how trauma history screening is being used against pain patients in practice

The misapplication of these tools is what pushed me to become an advocate in the first place, and we’ve spent years documenting and raising awareness about this issue.

This recording was originally shared privately with our Patreon community in 2024. I’ve now made it public so anyone can hear the full explanation directly, with the research and context included.

If I reference documents or screenshots during this episode, you can find the full video version on our YouTube channel.

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🌐 Website: https://www.thedoctorpatientforum.com/
📌 Support our work on Patreon: https://patreon.com/thedoctorpatientforum

Patreon support helps fund:
• patient advocacy
• policy research
• FOIAs and petitions
• educational content
• and direct support for patients navigating care

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Fair Use Notice:
This episode may include brief quotations, clips, or references to third-party materials for purposes of commentary, criticism, education, and public interest reporting. Such use is made under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act.

This episode documents how pain care in the United States was dismantled, not accidentally, but through deliberate policy choices that elevated addiction medicine over pain treatment and left millions of patients behind.

Bev Schechtman, Vice President of The Doctor Patient Forum (DPF), walks through the history of opioid policy, the rise of addiction medicine’s influence over pain care, and the real-world consequences for patients and doctors. This includes how clinical judgment has been replaced by fear, risk profiling, and enforcement-driven medicine.

The discussion covers:

• How the opioid crisis narrative reshaped pain care

• How CDC prescribing guidelines moved from recommendations to de facto law

• How litigation, settlements, and funding structures reinforced opioid elimination

• How algorithms, risk scores, and liability concerns now override patient care

• And why patient harm has never been measured

The episode also includes a first-person account of being denied pain care in the emergency room despite documented kidney stones, not based on medical findings, but on trauma history and perceived risk.

🎧 Source & Context
This episode is drawn from a live X Space hosted by Dr. Liza Lockwood, featuring patients, physicians, and advocates discussing the realities of pain care under current policy.

Watch full X-Space discussion: https://x.com/DrLizaMD/status/2009384856409506119?s=20

💜 Support our work & access deeper discussions:
https://patreon.com/thedoctorpatientforum

📌 Share your story:
https://thedoctorpatientforum.com/submit-your-story/

At The Doctor Patient Forum, we preserve patient stories because harm was never measured, and history is being erased in real time.

Why are pain patients treated like criminals, while people on Suboxone are celebrated as brave survivors?This isn’t just stigma, it’s a system. One that quietly rewrote the rules of who deserves compassion... and who gets discarded.In this video, we introduce a lens called Critical Drug Theory, based on Critical Theory, which helps explain how power, identity, and moral narratives shape public policy. It’s a way to understand why people with addiction are often seen as victims in need of care, while stable pain patients are labeled as privileged or problematic, even when both need medication.We break down how these narratives gained power, how they’ve influenced opioid policy, and why the system was rigged to treat pain relief as dangerous, but daily addiction treatment as virtuous.This video gives language to something many patients have felt but couldn’t name. It’s not political, and it’s not a conspiracy. It’s just the truth about how we got here and who got hurt along the way.🎥 Originally released as a Patreon exclusive, now public so more people can see what’s really going on.👇 Join our community & support the work:https://www.patreon.com/thedoctorpatientforum📌 Visit our website:https://www.thedoctorpatientforum.com/📢 Help spread the truth. Like, share, and subscribe.⚖️ Fair Use Disclaimer:This video may contain copyrighted material used for the purposes of education, commentary, and criticism under Section 107 of the Copyright Act. All rights belong to their respective owners.The information contained in this podcast should not be considered medical or legal advice.