How to Cope With Prescription Drug Abuse

Millions of individuals receive prescription drugs for their ailments and injuries each year. Some of them never finish the prescription and others take it as it was outlined. However, there are many individuals who use the drug to an extreme and they become addicted to it. In most cases, it starts out as an innocent way to control the pain they have on an ongoing basis. Yet the brain starts to crave more of it to feel good, and that leads to the monstrous habit called addiction. This is known as prescription drug abuse.

Many individuals who abuse prescription drugs have families and careers. This is a very different type of addiction than street drugs, yet often the symptoms are the same. The individual will usually do a very good job of hiding their needs from friends and family. They may even borrow or steal money to pay for the prescription drugs in some cases.

With a prescription drug abuse problem, addicts find themselves unable to go back to their doctor to get the same medication prescribed again and again. So, they usually sneak around and go to several different doctors. It is also common to buy the drugs in the black market without any prescription. In some extreme cases, people have been known to break their own bones or cause serious injuries so that a doctor will prescribe what they are after.

Pseudo-addiction refers to pain relief seeking behavior of patients whose pain is poorly managed. It is considered an iatrogenic effect of ineffective pain management.

Drug addiction is a treatable disease, utilizing a multi-disciplinary approach, but relapse is common. Prescription drug addiction is relatively rare in patients with chronic case but may be more common in individuals who have a past history of alcohol or substance abuse or dependence.

The first step for effective prescription drug abuse treatment is admitting that there is a problem. The next step is to stop hiding it so that your friends, family, and co-workers can offer you the support you need. For the treatment to be successful, it has to be treated from a physical and mental stand point.

Ironically, some prescription drug addictions can be treated effectively with other drugs. In some cases this is necessary to control the pain enough that the person can cope without the addictive drugs. To help prevent prescription drug addictions, only prescribed medication should be taken and that too in specified dosage only. Physician should be notified immediately if you can’t control the pain without addictive drugs.

As a general rule, over the counter drugs are used to treat conditions not necessarily requiring care from a health care provider and have been proven to meet higher safety standards for self-medication by patients. Often a lower dosage of a drug is approved for OTC use, while higher dosages remain the province of a prescription; a notable case is ibuprofen, which has been widely available as an OTC pain killer since the mid-1980s but is still available in doses up to four times the OTC dose for use in cases of severe orthopedic pain.

The safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs in the US is regulated by the federal Prescription Drug Marketing Act of 1987. The Food and Drug Administration is charged with implementing this law. Herbal preparations, vitamins, minerals, and food supplements are not regulated by the FDA, so the individual consumer must be aware of the potentially-negative effects of using these preparations and also the potential interactions with prescription drugs they may be taking.

Abuse and addiction are separate and distinct from physical dependence and tolerance. Physicians should be aware that addiction may not be accompanied by concurrent tolerance and symptoms of physical dependence in all addicts. In addition, abuse of opioids can occur in the absence of true addiction and is characterized by misuse for non-medical purposes, often in combination with other psychoactive substances.

Proper assessment of the patient, proper prescribing practices, periodic re-evaluation of therapy, and proper dispensing and storage are appropriate measures that help to limit abuse of Prescription drugs.

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Signs of Teenage Drug Abuse

The teenage years can be a time of great emotional stress as it marks the transition from childhood to adulthood. It is at this particular time when teenagers have to grapple with a number of issues like search for identity, peer pressure, amorous and family relationships, as well as scholastic performance. These may be overwhelming to some teenagers as they undergo this critical stage in their lives.

For those who can’t adjust and handle the pressure, the use of illicit drugs becomes an enticing option to cope with, alleviate or escape from the issues that beset them. This is one of the primary reasons why quite a large percentage of teenagers resort to drug abuse. Teen drug abuse has now become a common and prevalent problem in modern society. In fact, drug abuse is currently the foremost concern among parents as cited in the National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse.

Parents can’t possibly monitor their teens 24/7 without invading their privacy, and they can’t physically be present at all times, particularly in today’s fast paced world. So what exactly are the signs that parents should look for to keep their teens away from prohibited drugs?

The first thing to thing to look out for is the teen’s behavior. In general, a teenager will manifest behavior patterns quite different from his normal behavior prior to addiction. Parents should also be skeptical once their teenager starts to behave aberrantly and becomes withdrawn or aloof to other members of the family. They may also exhibit irritability, paranoia and violent behavior. However, such changes may not be drastic, but are the most obvious signs of drug abuse. Drug abuse has far-reaching effects on the user’s mood and performance. A teenage drug user will most likely suffer from long-term psychological effects from drugs that modify their mindset as well. As a consequence, a teenager can have degrading performance in school or in the workplace.

On the other hand, there are also physical signs of teen drug abuse that parents should be on the lookout for. Among the red light warning signs of the effects of teen drug abuse are blood-shot eyes, nagging cough, lethargy, irregularities in eating and sleeping habits, constantly tired or hyperactive, sudden weight loss or weight gain, teeth clenching and muscle tension, convulsions, dehydration, and consequently, death.

Teen drug abuse may start as a phase of experimentation in a teenager’s life, in their effort to adapt and resolve certain issues that typically highlight this crucial stage in their lives. Nevertheless, it could also spiral out of control and lead to serious and severe drug addiction that may even persist up to adulthood. This can be very debilitating and difficult to resolve. Teen drug abuse, when addressed during the initial stages can be rectified and lead to a better quality of life not only as a teenager, but ultimately as an adult as well.

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Why Is Teenage Alcohol Abuse Treatment More Difficult Than For Adults?

There are several teen alcohol abuse treatment centers in almost every part of the US nowadays. While this shows the concerns of the states in curbing their teenage alcoholism problem, it is also indicative of how intensive the problem is. In any case, the teen alcohol abuse treatment centers are doing a good job in lessening the problem. They are providing all the care and comfort that is needed for this age group to come out of their alcohol dependencies.


However, the teen alcohol abuse treatment centers also face several problems when it comes to implementing their treatment procedures. Most of their problems stem from the fact that the patients they handle are too young to undergo treatment. This is what makes things difficult for them. Most of the centers have devised ways out from the problems they face, but one fact stands: it is more difficult to mete out teen alcohol abuse treatment than it is for adults. More resources need to be expended and the recovery is much more distant than for adults.


Here are the problems that most teen alcohol abuse treatment centers face and the methods that are used by them to counter these difficulties.


Ignorance about the Addiction


One of the prime problems when treating teenagers is that they do not know what an addiction really means. They are not aware of the repercussions. Most of them might have gotten into the addiction because of peer pressure or because they think the addiction is an escape route from some kind of problem or difficult situation they are facing in life. For this reason they will not be too willing to come out of the addiction. Their denials will be quite strong. It will take a lot of care and counseling to create the awareness of their condition in them so that they can agree for treatment.


To make this happen, the treatment centers will take assistance from the families of the patients and chalk out a proper intervention program. An intervention specialist, known as an interventionist, will be appointed to guide the families on how to go about this process. The interventionist will carefully train the family members to prepare speeches that can motivate and convince the patients to get into treatment. This can be quite a long process and needs to be very sensitively handled. But if it does not work, there is the risk that the patient will not respond to the treatment and that would be a failure for the program.


Possibility of Strong Dependencies


Though teenagers will be with their addictive habits for a much lesser amount of time than adults who are into addictions, their conditions are more difficult to handle because of their tender age. Teens who have caught a habit of a substance have done so at an age when their body and mind are still developing. An addictive substance in the body at this age will create a very strong dependency. That is the reason teenagers can get addicted to a substance much quicker than adults can.


Substance abuse statistics show that people who get hooked to a substance before they are eighteen years of age have four times higher chances to develop an addiction for it than people who start consuming the substance after they have reached twenty five years. That is the reason addictions in youngsters are much more difficult to treat. They will experience very difficult withdrawal processes if they are made to abstain from the substance and this can cause them to give up the recovery process midway.


Treatment centers targeted at teen alcohol abuse recovery try to mellow down the curative process for their young patients in the initial stages and then begin stepping up the treatment. By doing this, they are acclimatizing the bodies of the youngsters to the treatment and are ensuring that the body begins responding to the medication.


Possibility of Secondary Addictions


It is possible that teenagers will want to try some other chemically addictive substance soon. This happens because the effect of an alcohol abuse can wear off soon and then the person will want to try a stronger substance of addiction. Most youngsters may have even tried other substances. In several parts of the nation, methamphetamine is a very popularly used substance by the youth. Methamphetamine is also very highly addictive, much more than alcohol is. If there is such a secondary addiction, then the treatment process needs to be much more stringent. A completely different and aggressive medication pattern will be used for the treatment by the abuse centers.

Visit http://www.addiction.cc to read more articles like this one on the day alcohol abuse treatment.

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