Opiates do not “take away” pain. Instead, they reduce our consciousness of it as an unpleasant stimulus. Pain begins as a physical phenomenon registered in the brain, but we may or may not consciously notice it at any given moment. What we call “being in pain” is our subjective experience of that stimulus (i.e., “Ouch, that hurts”) and our emotional reaction to the experience. Opiates help make some pain bearable.
