People usually mean something else by "painkillers", and I wnet on to explain that there doesn't seem to be any evidence behind the claim.

My bad, I meant any drugstore analgesic, OTC or not (I'm not in the US). I assumed painkiller was a synonym. I wasn't aware of the connotation.

You might be proving his point if painkillers have been so normalized that aspirin is not considered a painkiller any more.

Not really a big contradiction unless you want to be really pedantic. Over the counter painkillers and prescription painkillers are very different beasts. Painkillers as a social ill pretty much exclusively refers to the latter. Nobody would say “I’m on painkillers” while taking aspirin.

> Nobody would say “I’m on painkillers” while taking aspirin.

Really? That's exactly what one would say in my country... though they'd more likely to be talking about paracetamol. The strongest one that most people know about is Panadeine Forte (paracetamol + codeine).