Why are Prescription Drugs so Addictive?

Pharmaceutical companies were once considered miracle workers when they develop prescription drugs that help take your pain, depression, anxiety, and illness away with a daily regimen scribed on a little orange bottle. Nowadays, those companies are frowned upon with skepticism as the prescription drugs are highly addictive and come with a long list of side effects that sound worse than the ailment you are taking the pill for.

How Do You Get Addicted to Prescription Drugs?

For those who see prescription drugs as an answer to their ailment, they are discovering that they have developed an addiction and find themselves depending on their daily regimen just to function properly. From painkillers to antidepressants, society has put their lives in the hands of those who prescribe them their daily dose of normal. One visit to the trusted general practitioner can lead to an addiction to painkillers.

The situation differs but the results are the same; you break your leg or maybe you were relaxing on the sofa and saw an ad for an antidepressant that remarkably describes your sudden change in mood. Whatever the scenario, you visit your doctor to seek advice and because you trust him with your life, you fill the prescription with your local pharmacy and begin to follow the instructions on the bottle. This is where the addiction potentially begins.

For an addiction to take hold of your life, you have to take a substance on a regular basis until your body becomes dependent on it. Once your body becomes dependent on the substance, it is easy to slip into an addiction, especially when it comes to prescription drugs that are Opiate-based.

Prescription Painkiller Opiates

Prescription drugs are addictive because you trust in them to solve a problem. The fact that you get a prescription from the doctor and not a shabby looking character in a back alley behind the bar gives you a false comfort in taking the medication.

Painkillers are one of the most abused prescription drugs across the nation as they are typically Opiate-based. People who are addicted to Opiate prescriptions often times eventually tend to move on to street drugs, like Heroin to keep up with their addiction.

There are 4.3 million people addicted to prescription drugs in the United States alone. Not one of these people had dreams or aspirations in becoming addicted to prescription drugs but sure enough, their addiction is real. It is too easy to become addicted to pain pills as pain is the one single feeling no one wants to tolerate. So when your doctor asked you, between 1 to 10, what is the level of pain you are in, more people are likely to rate their pain higher than what they are feeling.

So if you’re a soccer mom who has broken her leg and the doctor gives you a medication like Oxycodone, the pain you experience will vanish within 20 minutes of ingestion. You may feel a sense of euphoria being free from pain and really enjoy the feeling the medication does to your body. As recommended on the bottle, you decide to take 1 or 2 every 6 hours while your leg heals from your injury. In your mind, you may think nothing of it, but you are now starting to subject yourself to an addiction to Oxycodone.

To stress the situation further, maybe after a week and a half of being on your pain medication, you realize that you may have pushed yourself a little too hard with your soccer responsibilities and are in more pain than normal. Instead of taking it easy, you decide to pop another pill to take the edge off and once again that euphoria does wonders for your aching leg.

Fast forward to the end of your prescription. You realize your prescription is finished and at this moment you understand that your leg no longer hurts, but two days after your medication is gone, you start to feel achy, muscles in your healed leg may start to hurt and you feel cranky and uncomfortable in general. Maybe you convince yourself you may still need more pain pills and schedule a doctor’s visit to get more. Across America this situation is real and many addictions begin with an accident or a surgery that introduces you to the addictive properties of painkillers.

Addicted to Prescription Antidepressant Drugs

Have you or someone you know lost interest in a hobby? Maybe you feel sad or alone? Do you experience anxiety attacks when your depression is at its peak? Or maybe things just don’t feel like they used to. Your doctor has a pill for you! This may sound familiar and it should. Pharmaceutical companies have been advertising antidepressants pills for years because everyone wants to be happy, right?

Well, unfortunately, those prescription antidepressant drugs can also be extremely addictive and tend to stop working once someone develops a tolerance to them. Once a tolerance is developed, the person taking the recommended dose will slip back into a depression similar or worse than before. Thus, influencing you to increase your dosage or suffer a worse depression than before.

88,965 people visited the ER in 2011 for antidepressant abuse and an annual average of 22,434 people were rushed to the ER for suicide attempts due to an addiction to antidepressants. For those individuals who were prescribed antidepressants for anxiety attacks, you will be more susceptible to addiction than ever before.

Antidepressants are extremely addictive when prescribed specifically for anxiety because the bottle instructs the users to take as needed. So anytime someone experiences an anxiety attack they are instructed to take a pill to alleviate the problems anxiety attacks may cause.

How to Overcome a Prescription Drug Addiction

Again, no one intends to become addicted to prescription pills and the method of obtaining these pills has nothing to do with cooking it over an open flame or dealing with a creepy drug dealer to get your hands on it, but it does happen and 4 million people understand the struggle once it does. There are ways of overcoming an addiction to drugs, but you have to be honest.

Your doctor, more specifically the doctor that prescribed the medication in the first place, can save your life, you just have to be honest. When you start to abuse prescription pills, you tend to develop the need to be dishonest. How many you are taking a day, mixing the doses with alcohol, or whether you have been to multiple doctors to obtain more prescriptions; those who abuse medications tend to lie about these key things that lead to their addiction.

By talking to your doctor honestly about these activities you will save yourself a lifetime of suffering. Your doctor will not throw you in jail or call the cops on you! Your doctor will begin to develop an addiction treatment plan to help you eliminate your addiction and being honest with your doctor will determine if a medical drug detox is necessary.

Oxycodone to Black Tar Heroin

A warning to the wise, if you do not talk to your doctor about the growing addiction to Opiate prescription drugs, you may find yourself staring at a dirty syringe full of black tar Heroin. Many people who are addicted to Opiate prescription drugs get to a point where they can no longer get a script written for them so they turn to street drugs, like Heroin, to satisfy their needs.

The withdrawals from their medication become unbearable sending them to the streets searching for a fix that is filled with impurities just to feel normal again. Four million people understand how quickly their addiction happened and how quickly it can get out of their control.Please don’t become a statistic and get the help you need before it is too late. Check out Dr. Dan’s video on prescription pill addiction to get a psychologists perspective on the matter.

Please don’t become a statistic and get into a customized treatment program that you need before it is too late. Check out Dr. Dan’s video on prescription drug addiction to get a psychologist’s perspective on the matter. Please comment, like, shout, or share below. We want to hear your experience or point of view on prescription drugs because your experience matters.