What you are describing is an ideal scenario. Look at patients who are unstable from a cardiac standpoint, for example. They rarely come off their pain meds because they are too unstable to operate on.
I am saying that if they have a chronic condition, I rarely see them go off meds. Pain management will try bridging and primaries will try to taper off, but a lot of times, they go back to opioids because nothing else helps or there is no better option. There is a reason there is a major problem with opioid dependence in the U.S. and one reason why CBD clinics are such a huge trend.
When I say "everyone has back pain", I mean that's a common source of pain that a lot of patients present with, and the reason they start on pain meds, and a lot of ppl with chronic back pain are on opioids, especially if it's inoperable. I apologize for poor wording. If you don't work with these kinds of patients, you have no idea.
Anyway, this issue can't be oversimplified. It's too vast a topic. Just trying to shed some light without getting too anecdotal. The system here is EXTREMELY flawed and it sets people up to fail. And obviously people with addictive personalities/genes will fail most likely fail.