Edie Fuog
Living with breast cancer, Guillain-Barre, and severe nerve pain, Edie was refused at the pharmacy counter around thirty times.
▶ Watch her story
The DNA Movement
Dependent,
Not Addicted.
More than 60 million Americans live with chronic pain. Many of us depend on medication just to get through the day — and we're being cut off, denied, and treated like criminals for it. That ends when we stop staying quiet.
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The Universal Pain Patients' Bill of Rights
Twelve rights every person living with pain is owed — from the right to be believed to the right not to be abandoned.
Read the Bill of RightsThere's a difference. It matters.
Dependence and addiction are not the same thing. Confusing them is costing people their treatment, their dignity, and sometimes their lives.
Dependent
Your body relies on a medicine to function — the way a diabetic relies on insulin, or a heart patient relies on theirs. You take it as prescribed. It gives you your life back. That's dependence. It's medical, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.
Addicted
Addiction is compulsive use that damages your life and continues anyway. It's a real condition that deserves real treatment — and it's a different thing. Most people who take pain medicine as prescribed never become addicted, yet they're treated as suspects for filling a legal prescription.
We are Dependent on our medicine. We are not Addicted. Both things are true, and the truth is being buried.
Real people. Real stories.
Behind every statistic is a person who was managing their pain until someone decided they shouldn't be. These are documented cases the movement has reported.
Kate Nicholson
A former Justice Department civil-rights attorney, left unable to sit or stand for nearly twenty years after a surgical nerve injury. With proper treatment, she walked again, and went on to found the National Pain Advocacy Center.
▶ Watch her storyJim Taft
Told a spinal-cord stimulator would make him "good as new," Jim of South Carolina got the opposite.
▶ Watch his storyPost with your name, or completely anonymously. A free account keeps your story yours — edit it or take it down anytime. Every story is reviewed by a real person before it goes public.
Help you can use today.
Everything here is free — and always will be. If you're being denied care, you are not powerless. Start here.
The Pain Snapshot (free printable)
A tool to help you tell your care team how pain really affects your life. Get it here.
Free Tools to Fight Back
Copy-and-send letters for your doctor, pharmacy, and insurer. Open the toolkit.
Myths vs. Facts
What the evidence really says about pain patients. See for yourself.
The Names We Carry
A memorial to those we have lost. Remember them.
Know your rights
What the law actually says about your prescriptions and your care.
When a pharmacy refuses
Exactly what to do the moment you're turned away at the counter.
Find a pain-friendly doctor
How to find providers who still treat chronic pain patients.
Advocacy groups
The national organizations fighting this alongside you.
If you're in crisis
When the pain and the fight feel like too much, help is available right now. In the U.S., call or text 988. See all crisis resources.
This is how we win.
No one hands a movement its rights. We take them back together — one voice at a time.
Join the list
Get updates and know when it's time to act. Free, and your email stays yours.
Share your story
The more of us who say it out loud, the harder we are to ignore.
Reach your lawmakers
Ready-to-send letters to the people who write the rules. Coming soon.
Tell someone
Send this page to one person who needs to know they aren't alone.
Why I started this.
My name is Tony Hardy. I'm a chronic pain patient, and I've lived what's on this page — including a pharmacy that decided I was taking too much and refused to fill what my doctor prescribed. I built Dependent, Not Addicted because tens of millions of us are being punished for being sick, and staying quiet has never protected a single one of us.
I have a heart condition, so I'm building this to outlast me. This isn't a campaign that ends. It's a place to stand — for you, for me, and for everyone still being told their pain isn't real.
Tony Hardy
Founder, Dependent, Not Addicted
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