31 Jan Prescription Drug Addiction Signs and Treatment
When you use prescription medication recreationally or not in a way that’s prescribed by the prescribing doctor, then you’re abusing prescription medication. What’s more, problematic usage includes everything from snorting or injecting ground-up pills for the sake of getting high to stealing a friend’s prescription painkiller to get rid of your severe pain even though such a drug wasn’t prescribed to you specifically (also known as self-medication).
The act of abusing such drugs could then become compulsive and ongoing on the part of the user despite the negative or adverse effects associated with them. This increasing problem can affect all age groups. However, it’s most common among the youth. The most often abused prescription drugs include stimulants, anti-anxiety medications, sedatives, and opioid painkillers (more on this later).
Early identification of abuse of and dependence on prescription medicine should enable early intervention and prevention of the condition from transforming into outright addiction.
Examples of Addictive Prescription Drugs
Prescription drug abuse and addiction signs and symptoms depend on the specific drug being abused. Because of their mind-altering traits, the most commonly abused medications include the following:
- Opioids: These prescription drugs are used to treat pain and include medication such as oxycodon (like Roxicodone and Oxycontin) and the ones that contain hydrocodone (like Norco, Lortab, and Vicodin).
- Sedatives and Anti-Anxiety Medications: These prescription drugs are used to treat sleep disorders and anxiety. They include zolpidem (Ambien), hypnotics, diazepam (Valum), and alprazolam (Xanax).
- Stimulants: These prescription drugs are used to treat certain sleep disorders and ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder). They include dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine), amphetamine (Adderall XR), and methylphenidate (Concerta and Ritalin).
Signs and Symptoms of Prescription Drug Abuse and Addiction
Opioid painkiller abuse results in the following symptoms and side effects:
- Nausea
- Confusion
- Constipation
- Poor coordination
- Slowed breathing rate
- Feeling high (euphoria)
- Increased pain with higher doses
Sedative and anti-anxiety medication abuse results in the following symptoms and side effects:
- Dizziness
- Confusion
- Drowsiness
- Slurred speech
- Slowed breathing
- Unsteady walking
- Poor concentration
- Problems with memory
Meanwhile, stimulant abuse results in these symptoms and side effects:
- Anxiety
- Agitation
- Paranoia
- Insomnia
- Reduced appetite
- Irregular heartbeat
- High blood pressure
- High body temperature
Other signs of abuse or outright addiction include poor decision-making; increase or decrease in sleep; looking sedated, revved up, unusually energetic, or high (euphoric); and excessive mood swings or hostility. Taking higher doses of the drugs than prescribed; selling, forging, or stealing prescriptions; seeking prescriptions from more than one medical professional; and continually pretending to lose prescriptions to get more prescriptions written by the doctor are common as well.
If you suspect that you might have a problem with prescription drug abuse and addiction, then you should talk to your doctor ASAP. Yes, it might be embarrassing to admit you’re addicted and abusing prescription drugs, much less talk about your possible addiction to your healthcare provider.
However, you should remember that doctors are trained to assist you instead of judge you. It’s less difficult to tackle your addiction and abuse tendencies when you tackle them early on by identifying the warning signs from the beginning and addressing it before it becomes a full-blown addiction, which then leads to more serious problems down the line.
The Causes of Prescription Drug Abuse and Addiction
There are many reasons why the youth and adults abuse prescription drugs, such as the following:
- They want to get high and feel good.
- They want to relieve tension and relax.
- They want to be social and get acceptance by peers.
- They want to increase alertness and reduce appetite.
- They want to experiment with the substance’s mental effects.
- They want to maintain an addition and prevent withdrawal symptoms.
- They want to improve their focus or concentration when it comes to work or academic performance.
The Risk Factors of Prescription Drug Abuse and Addiction
Many patients are afraid that they could end up addicted to prescription medications that are prescribed for their medical conditions, such as painkillers prescribed to them after surgery. However, as long as they take the medications according to doctor’s orders without abusing them or taking them beyond the indicated prescription recommendations, they should end up fine.
With that in mind, the risk factors for drug abuse include the following:
- Substance abuse problems are part of their family history.
- Peer pressure exposure or belonging in a social environment where drug use is normalized.
- Easy access to prescription medications, such as having drugs in the home medicine cabinet.
- Certain preexisting psychiatric conditions can make someone more likely to use prescription drugs.
- Lack of knowledge regarding prescription medications and their potential side effects or addictive properties.
- Young people, especially in their teenage years or early twenties, are more susceptible to peer pressure to do drugs.
- Past or present addictions to other substances, like tobacco and alcohol as well as marijuana, which is characterized as a gateway drug.
- Older adults can end up abusing prescription drug as well, especially when they combine alcohol and drugs together in order to cope with work stress.
- Senior citizens with multiple health problems brought upon by the disease risks of old age can end up becoming addicted by misusing drugs or self-medicating to address their symptoms.
When Young People Abuse Prescription Drugs
In contrast to adults, young people who’ve started abusing prescription drugs tend to have distinct and identifiable changes in their behavior. There are parents who wave these changes off to teenagers being teenagers. However, if too many of these signs do show up, it might be time for a closer look in regards to what your teen is up to.
Talk to your teen or prepare to stage for a possible intervention if he or she does the following:
- He or she no longer cares about curfew or family rules.
- He or she has given up on his or her hobbies and interests.
- There’s a dive in his or her quality of schoolwork and grades.
- He or she cries for little or no reason and is routinely irritable.
- He or she can no longer take care of his or her cleanliness, hygiene, and appearance.
- He or she withdraws from friends and family, preferring to spend more of his or her time alone.
- He or she has become aggressive, angry, and hostile towards anyone who attempts to control his or her actions.
- His or her sleep patterns are off, with him or her sleeping during the day then staying up all night or even whole days at a time.
Complications of Prescription Drug Abuse and Addiction
Prescription drug abuse can lead to a number of issues. These drugs can be especially dangerous when you’re addicted to them and can even lead to death when you overdose on them or simply take higher doses. You can also cause unpredictable results when you combine prescription drugs with over-the-counter (OTC) medications as well as when you mix alcohol and/or illegal drugs with them.
The serious medical consequences and complications that might occur when you abuse or overdose on prescription drugs include the following:
- Opioids: Abusing opioids can cause coma, a slowed rate of breathing and the potential for breathing to stop, and low blood pressure. When you overdose on these drugs, the risk of death rises.
- Sedatives and Anti-Anxiety Medications: You can end up with slowed breathing, low blood pressure, and memory problems when you abuse these drugs. Overdose can lead to coma and death. Abrupt stoppage of the medicine can cause withdrawal symptoms as well that include seizures and nervous system hyperactivity.
- Stimulants: Stimulant abuse can lead to paranoia, aggressiveness, hallucinations, seizures or tremors, high blood pressure, heart problems, and dangerously high blood pressure.
Other potential side effects from prescription drug usage in general include the following:
- Using illegal drugs
- Troubled relationships
- Motor vehicle accidents
- Being involved in crime
- Decreased academic or work performance
- Engaging in risky behaviors because of poor judgment
Physical Dependence versus Addiction
Because most of the abused prescription drugs available affect the reward center of the brain, it’s possible to develop symptoms of physical dependence on them, which in turn can worsen to full-blown addiction.
- Physical Dependence: Tolerance or physical dependence is the body’s response to long-term use of a given substance. If you’re physically dependent on prescription medication, you’ll naturally need higher doses to get the same experience and effects you used to get when you were first using the said medicine.
If you suddenly stop or cut back on the drug, you may undergo withdrawal symptoms. The physical dependence condition can also become apparent if you abruptly cease taking the medicine that your body becomes adjusted to over time, even without changing the dosage.
- Addiction: Patients who end up addicted to prescription medication can have physical dependence to it while at the same time they compulsively seek drugs and continue to use them with the hopes of chasing their first or best high (or the high where they got the most pleasure from the drug). Their continued use then results in the drugs making their lives much worse.
Prevention of Prescription Drug Abuse and Addiction
People who need stimulants, sedatives, or painkillers to treat certain diseases or conditions have a chance of suffering from prescription drug abuse. You should be aware of the ways you can prevent or decrease your risk for prescription drug abuse and addiction. It typically involves the following:
- The Right Medication: Make sure your healthcare provider knows your condition clearly, including all the signs and symptoms. This will ensure you have the right medications and you’re not taking a drug that you might end up being addicted to.
Inform your healthcare professional all about your OTC medicines, alcohol and drug use, and herbs and supplements. Also ask your doctor whether there’s alternative medication available with ingredients that are less addictive than the ones available on your prescribed medication.
-
- Doctor Check-Ins: You should check in with your doctor and talk to him on a regular basis to ensure that the medication you’re taking is working and you’re taking the recommended dose. There are times when your healthcare professional might change your prescription in accordance to the present state of your condition.
- Carefully Following Instructions: You should also carefully follow instructions, or the recommended dosage indicated by the doctor’s prescription. Never use your medication outside of the way it was prescribed. Don’t change the dose on your own if the drug doesn’t seem to work as intended without first consulting with your doctor.
If you think the medication is not improving your condition enough, consult your doctor about raising its dosage first instead of self-medicating. For instance, if you’re taking a painkiller that isn’t controlling your pain in an adequate manner, don’t take more on your own.
-
- Knowing What the Medicine Is For: Know what your medicine is for and what it’s capable of. Ask your pharmacist or doctor about it, including the primary effects, side effects, and addictiveness. This will allow you to know what to expect from the drug. Also, if alcohol, OTC products, or other prescription drugs should be avoided while taking your new medicine.
-
- Don’t Use Someone Else’s Prescription: Every patient is different and has individual medical histories, allergies, and conditions. Even if the two of you share the same disease or condition, the medication someone else is using might not be the right drug or dosage for you and your unique constitution. That’s why prescriptions require doctor consultation from a professional who has seen your symptoms and past medical history.
- Don’t Order Prescriptions Online: The only exception to this rule is if you’re getting the prescription from a trustworthy pharmacy. There are certain nefarious websites that sell counterfeit or fake nonprescription or prescription drugs that could be dangerous to your constitution, leading to overdose, dependency, and addiction.
Prevention of Teenage Prescription Drug Abuse and Addiction
Young people are statistically a high-risk demographic when it comes to prescription drug abuse and addiction. Therefore, you should do the following recommendations to help prevent your own teenaged children or relatives from ending up abusing these prescribed drugs.
- Discussion of the Dangers: Talk to your teenager about how dangerous prescription drugs are. Usually, they’re bombarded with warnings against using illicit recreational drugs. You should add that prescribed medications are also addictive, especially if they’re prescribed to someone else (like their parents) or if he’s taking other prescription medicines.
- Set Some Ground Rules: Forbid your teens from sharing medications with others, using their medications outside of the parameters of their prescribed dosage, self-medicating with old doctor’s prescriptions, or taking drugs prescribed for others. Highlight how important taking the prescribed dose is and talking with the doctor when asking for dose changes. Discuss also the potential consequences of abuse and addiction.
- Mixing Prescription Medication with Alcohol: Tell your teen to not mix stimulants, sedatives, anti-anxiety medications, or opioids with alcohol. They can experience all sorts of dangerous to fatal side effects from those substances interacting with each other. This also increases the risk of accidental overdose.
- Prescription Drug Safety: Keep your prescription drugs safe by investing in child-proof bottles (and learning how to open them, since some teenagers never learn how to do so). Keep the medicines in a locked medicine cabinet and keep track of the quantities of each bottle (in case you suspect your teens are secretly stealing the pills).
- Keep Children from Ordering Drugs Online: As mentioned earlier, some websites sell fake and dangerous nonprescription and prescription drugs. Therefore, you should make sure that your teenagers aren’t ordering their OTC or prescription medications online.
- Proper Medication Disposal: Medications should be properly disposed of. Don’t leave half-empty bottles of expired or unused drugs lying around. Ask your doctor or pharmacist, check the label, or get a patient information guide off of the Internet for instructions on proper medication disposal. Don’t just chuck them into your wastebasket without a care in the world.
Prescription Drug Abuse and Addiction: An Endemic Problem
In the United States of America, the so-called “Prozac Nation”, prescription drug abuse has become an endemic problem. It’s also the same with several other European countries as well. The proportion of the population searching for treatment for drug addiction of the prescription kind has been growing as of late all throughout the 2000s and 2010s.
To be more specific, the number of people seeking for help for opioid addiction alone grew more than 400 percent all throughout 2000 to 2010. In the U.S.A., stimulants, sedatives, anti-anxiety medications, and opioids are the leading medications that are abused there. However, only one in one hundred individuals who abuse prescription opioids are able to get treated for their condition.
Canada even reports that it also suffers from issues from the aforementioned drug types, even though its rates are lower. As for Europe, it’s mostly the Northern European Countries that are suffering from the addiction epidemic. These include Finland, Sweden, and Norway, which are collectively fighting a benzodiazepine menace. In South America, amphetamines are the prescription medications of choice to be abused by South Americans. As for Mexico, opioid drugs are more abused than heroin.
Prescription Medication Addiction Rehabilitation at Lanna Rehab
Get into contact with the staff of Lanna Rehab in Thailand to get assistance for addiction on prescription medication. Whether you’re addicted to opioids, sedatives, anti-anxiety medication, tranquilizers, benzodiazepines, amphetamines, or stimulants, the doctors, counselors, consultants, psychiatrists, sponsors, and crew of Lanna Rehab will take care of you every step of the way.
This is because Lanna Rehab is a safe place for you to recover and heal. The rehab center can also handle medication-assisted detoxification, controlling withdrawal symptoms, and even handling aftercare, whether you’re addicted to one or several of these drug types. Just call the toll-free number of Lanna Rehab for 24/7 info.
