Prescription Drug Addiction

Michael Jackson: Anorexia, over-medication, and heart failure

I have to say how sad I am at the death of MJ. I have one of his CDs in my car CD player right now and I work out to at least 3 of his songs.

Can you get addicted to your prescription medications?

When people think of substance abuse, they automatically think of alcohol and illegal drugs or street dugs, such as cocaine and heroin. What most people are not going to think about are the drugs that are given to people with the permission of their doctor. When people abuse a substance, it is not always something that is illegal. It can be prescription drugs that people, even teenagers, sometimes abuse. In fact, studies show that while pain medication is one of the most abused substances in North America, medications such as cough syrup are often abused by young adults.

Prescription Drug Abuse and Misuse: An Epidemic?

A recent article in the New York Times said that the rate of deaths caused by prescription and other legal drugs (in Florida) was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined!

Do you think there is a prescription drug abuse epidemic? Is it happening in your community or elsewhere? What can we do about keeping our medicine and other drugs (including alcohol) out of the hands of the mis-users?

Have your or a loved one had a problem with addiction to any prescription or non-prescription drugs? What helped you overcome this?

Pill Pandemic

I have recently lost a good friend due to prescription drug abuse. She was age 40, she stood 5 foot 10 and weighed 70 pounds. Yes, I said 70 pounds. Her drug of choice was pain medication. She hardly ate and drank beer with her pills.

In 2006, 16.2 million Americans age 12 and older had taken a prescription pain reliever, tranquilizer, stimulant, or sedative for nonmedical purposes at least once in the year prior to being surveyed according to www.drugabuse.org.

Every wonder if you're liking your pain medication too much?

So I had a bunch of teeth removed about 10 days ago. No fun.