Currently,
across the United States, there is an estimated 22.5 million people that are
dependent on alcohol and/or drugs. Painkillers seem to be what is driving
the big increase in the rise of drug problems; however some illicit drugs are
also to blame.
The
most prescribed medications in the hospitals and doctors’ offices are
buprenorphine and methadone, which are used to treat people addicted to
opioids. These are both powerful synthetic drugs which in turn people get
addicted to as well. In addition to this, prescription painkillers top
the list of the most abused substances.
But
according to new findings and research, there has also been a high rise in the
number of drug and alcohol problems combined. In fact, there was a 70
percent increase of drug and alcohol problems that were diagnosed by doctors
between the years 2001 and 2009.
There
were two national surveys that were done recently on the number of doctor
visits that involved alcohol or drug abuse or addiction. In this survey
it showed that there was an increase from 10.6 million between 2001 to 2003 to
18 million between 2007 and 2009.
Over
the same time period, the number of visits including diagnosis of opioid
painkiller abuse, there was an increase from 772,000 to 4.4 million.
Unfortunately this is an ever-growing trend. An estimated 14,800
Americans died from opioid overdose in 2008. That is 3 times amount of
overdose deaths that we had in America 20 years prior.
Specifically,
the number of medicines prescribed to treat drug or alcohol problems during
doctors' visits increased by about as much as the number of visits related to
opioid abuse.
Those
medicines were prescribed to 643,000 people between 2001 and 2003. Between 2007
and 2009, that number grew to 3.9 million people.
Why
Do People Use Drugs
There
are a number of reasons that people do drugs that contribute daily to the rise
of drug abuse in the United States. And unfortunately these days, drugs
are easy to come by. Painkillers are one of the gateway to many other
harder drugs. Some of the reasons that people take drugs:
-To
escape from their problems, their life, reality, etc. To them it is a fast
“solution”.
-Young
kids do it to try to “fit in”, to be “cool”, or to “experiment”.
-Others
do it because they want to change something about their life.
-Then
there are the physical injuries. They take painkillers to relieve their
pain, but then become addicted and cannot stop taking the painkillers even when
there is no pain present. The painkillers give them a false “high” in
life.
-They
think drugs are the solution, but really the drugs become the problem.
Abuse
of prescription drugs has become more and more of
a problem. They have become more severe than street drugs. There
would be painkillers, sleeping pills, antidepressants, etc. People think
that these are “safe” drugs as they were prescribed and approved by a doctor; but
in truth, these drugs as just as addictive as street drugs such as cocaine and heroin.
The prescriptions affect the body the same way as cocaine and heroin.
These lead to addiction and when one tries to withdrawal, it is very painful
for them.
Painkillers
are used as a solution for physical pain, but unfortunately most painkillers
are addicting and then the dwindling spiral starts with the addiction to the
much harder and addicting drugs.
Fortunately
there are solutions out there to handle addiction. There are groups to
help people recognize that they have a drug problem and that they need
help. There are also drug rehabilitation centers that offer programs that
get people off drugs successfully without using more drugs.
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