Prescribed Medications and Drug Abuse

More and more people are now abusing prescribed medications. This is partly as a result of western medicine pushing pharmaceutical drugs onto everyone with any sort of health problem.

The use of prescribed medication can then easily become abuse, because these drugs do not treat the cause of the problem, only the symptoms. As such they often become ineffective rather quickly, as tolerance develops. People quite innocently then start taking more than they have been prescribed in an attempt to achieve the same effect. This can be dangerous, and can lead to overdose.

Before long people can be abusing prescription drugs daily.

Many such people would never dream of using illegal drugs. As such they often feel incredibly ashamed of their drug abuse, and will often not be able to talk to anyone about it.

Another serious issue is that many prescribed medications have serious side-effects or withdrawal effects. The tranquilizer group of drugs, such as the Benzodiazepines, is particularly dangerous in this way. They include Valium, Temazepam, Nitrazepam, Librium, and all the various trade names by which these drugs are often known.

Suddenly quitting such drugs from a regular higher-than-prescribed dosage can be fatal.

Other types of drugs, such as the stronger pain-killers (analgesics), are often opiate based (meaning that they work in the same way as Heroin). Again these come in a variety of trade names, but all of them work in a similar way and have a similar capacity for abuse.

Stimulants are also commonly abused - such as Dexedrine and Ritalin. The abuse of these can lead to dangerously fast or irregular heart beat, high blood pressure and raised body temperatures. Eventually they can lead to heart attacks or seizures. Then of course there are the mental health effects too - paranoia, depression and anger management problems.

However, the treatment for addiction to prescribed drugs is not substantially different. The same principles apply, and online counselling has been shown to be very effective in allowing people to find solutions which work for them.

Stimulant Drug trade names: Adderall, Concerta, Cylert, Desoxyn, DextroStat, Focalin, Metadate, Provigil, Methylin.

Benzodiazepine trade names: Xanax, Diazepam, Mogadon, Lexotan, Librium, Tropium, Frisium, Rivotril, Tranxene, Ativan, Halcion, Serenid, Rohypnol, Alprazolam, Frisium, Tranxene, Somnol.

Opiate Pain Killer trade names: OxyContin, Darvon, Vicodin, Dilaudid, Demerol, Lomotil, Palladone, Talwin, Percodan, Norco, Duragesic, Actiq, Oramorph, Hycodan, Sublimaze, Dolophine, Adolonta, Tiparol, Tramal, Ultram, Ultracet.