Opiates, Benzodiazapines and stimulant ADD or ADHD medications are quickly becoming the gateway drugs of the new generation. It used to be that parents needed to be watchful for marijuana and alcohol use. These days young and old alike are becoming dependent on medications that are being prescribed by the family doctor. While these medications obviously provide a medical benefit to most people, in some of us, they produce a catastrophic effect. In some of us, the abuse of prescription medications can produce an allergic reaction that sets in motion a series of events that can be identified as drug addiction. This is the great lie, that these substances are 100% safe because they are being prescribed by a doctor. The problem usually is that a good number of doctors do not receive adequate training in identifying and treating addiction and the abuse of prescription medications. In many cases that I’ve been brought into work on, the genesis of the addiction was a legitimate medical circumstance which required the use of pain medication, anti-anxiety medication or other medication with a legitimate medical purpose. Those of us with the disease of addiction quickly found that these medications did much more for us than treat pain, anxiety, etc. They provided relief of an underlying condition (either emotional or mental or both) that was also untreated. This condition was much direr than any physical pain we may have been feeling at the time. We found that the ease and comfort provided by these medications was something that we could not do without. We had found a solution that worked, at least for a while…
According to a study done by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) the number of deaths that can be attributed to the abuse of prescription medications has tripled since 1990. Nearly three out of four prescription overdoses were from opiate pain medication. In 2010 more than 12 million people reported to use opiate prescription pain medication for non-medical purposes. According to another study conducted by the National Institute on Health, in 2011 more than 374 million prescriptions were written in the United States for narcotic pain medication. In that same year, the population in the US was just over 311 million. The math is staggering. The abuse of prescription medications in the US is overwhelming.
What is more difficult to measure is the impact to families and other loved ones. While we can quantify the number of fatalities that can be attributed to the abuse of prescription medications, it is much more difficult to measure the pain and heartache felt by those who are left asking why or how this happened. It is estimated that over 23 million Americans needed to be treated last year for drug addiction or alcoholism. 4 million were actually treated. While we can easily focus on the 19 million left untreated, let us focus on the 4 million that were. Here are 4 million individuals who sought help. There families were spared the pain and unanswered questions. These are the courageous few that stood up and said, “We are done suffering!” Yes we have a way to go to bring this battle to its end. But we are making progress one life, one family at a time.
