We don't know why Mrs. Dubose needed painkillers. All we can say is that she was in pain for some reason. It is also reasonable to say that her sickness/pain was fairly severe. At one point Atticus said that she could have continued with the morphine in view of the severity of her pain or condition; no one would have judged her for doing so.
However, when the doctor told Mrs. Dubose that she only had a few months to live, she wanted to be free from her morphine addiction. Here is Atticus's words about the courage of Mrs. Dubose and her rationale for getting off of morphine.
“She said she was going to leave this world beholden to nothing and nobody. Jem, when you’re sick as she was, it’s all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn’t all right for her. She said she meant to break herself of it before she died, and that’s what she did."
In light of these words, it is no wonder that Atticus called her the bravest person he ever met.
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