When i was in residency, we had a patient who in the hospital for a 'health issue'. it turned out that this patient was addicted to opiates and went into withdrawals because the patient's 'health issue' was not a pain problem so this patient was not getting pain medications. We mitigated the withdrawal by giving her morphine low dose, but this patient kept asking for it. this went on and on for the entire time of this patients treatment. The attending physician instructed the staff to substitute normal saline for the morphine in a tapering fashion. eventually the patient was only getting injections of saline. And the patient would still demand the 'morphine' and the patient got on and on about how the 'morphine' was great for the patient's pain and how much pain they were in if the 'morphine' wasnt on time.