I'm sorry it didn't work for you. I think the series was very poor in its treatment of House's chronic pain, particularly in the later seasons (the concept almost disappeared in the Huddy relationship - presumably Cuddy's love cured it...) I think though that as presented onscreen House viewed himself as an addict, and the show presented his addiction as just that - an addiction. Noticeably after Mayfield he was only on ibuprofen apparently for his pain and functioned well (to the extent of being able to crawl in and out of a very confined space in the crane collapse), and he turned back to Vicodin in a time of emotional turmoil (Cuddy being ill). So when I'm writing canon based stories I tend to go with the canon view (or what I perceive the canon view to be) - I don't like what they did with the issues, but that's what we have. IMO YMMV etc etc.

I think the series did a great diservice to chronic pain patients when it could have done so much better.

Cuddy? yeah, I'm going with the fact that House is happily rehired to work in the hospital with no apparent resistance from any of the staff - which to me shows a total disrespect for Cuddy on the behalf of Foreman et al. I hope Cuddy's perceptiion about the lack of sympathy is wrong though (also I get the impression she didn't hang around for long after the 'incident')

One thing I like about House (the show) is that it does bring a lot of isses to the table canon wise and the points can be argued back and forth :)

Thanks for reading :)