Addiction is an awful thing to have, regardless of what you are addicted to, it sucks. Addicts as well as those close to them have a real hard time dealing with the aftermath of the addiction. If the addict dies he/she not so much, but the people who happened to be close or are related are left wondering why.
The addicts that can arrest their addiction are the lucky ones. Those are the folks who took a long hard look at what they did and who they are, then decided they wanted to change.
Someone made a comment today on a social site about pills and the problems our Nation are facing because of them. The problem I have with the comments is that instead of looking at the user, they wished to put out information that was misleading as well as spreading the blame around. Sorry but that dog won’t hunt. Unless an addict takes full responsibility for his or her actions the person will never stay clean. Having a family member making excuses for them only hurts the addict. I use addict to describe drunks as well as drug users, since addictions don’t really care which substance you get hooked on.
Do we have a prescription drug problem in our Nation? Depends on how you look at it. If you look at just stats then no we don’t really have a prescription problem, booze is much worse. Because one is legal for anyone over a certain age to buy and the other is not, folks tend to look at the pills as worse then booze. Both can and do kill, both ruin families and destroy friendships. The difference that I see is simple, because one must be prescribe the pills, people wish to pass the buck onto the Doctor who prescribed the medicine.
Now I have yet to meet a Doctor who writes out a script and tells you to take as many as you like. In fact all of the scripts I have seen, have had detailed instructions on both the bottle and in the little bag from the pharmacy. People need to understand that the addict will get their “high” regardless , either from pills, dope, drinking or needles.
Some say that Doctors should be held liable for their patients being idiots, not me. Sorry but when the Doctors found out about people crushing the Oxy’s up to remove the time release, most Doctors stopped prescribing them except for those in chronic pain, and even those patients are kept on a short leash.
The days of Doctor shopping have ended. Few Doctors will prescribe any type of narcotic to a first time patient. If you are seen at an E.R. you might get a small prescription of a light narcotic to help ease your pain until you can see your primary Doctor.
Its not the Doctors that are the root of these problems, its the end user. The parent or adult who does not lock up their medicine and fails to return the unused medicine to the pharmacy for proper disposal , they could be called the root of the problem.
I said it before, if an addict wants to get high he or she will. The only thing we can limit is the what they will get high with. Sadly even that is like spitting in the wind.
Addiction sucks, lets not make it harder for the addict to get and stay clean by sending mixed signals..