Prescription Drug Addictions

What is the Difference Between a Healthy Prescription and a Prescription Drug Addiction?

Not much. The only difference between the two is your body's tolerance to the prescribed medication. Most opiate based prescriptions like OxyContin and Vicodin start out healthy. They are intended to ease your pain, whether it's constant or injury specific. Unfortunately, the human body builds up a natural tolerance, needing a higher dose of the prescription in order to achieve the same, original effects of pain relief.

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How Does Prescription Drug Addiction Happen?

Many individuals become free of pain by embarking on a prescription drug regimen that is open ended. Though treating pain is a positive step, often the ultimate result is not. An open ended prescription means that tolerance to the drug will soon develop, resulting in higher and higher doses. Eventually, these doses are enough that your body comes to expect their presence in your blood stream and begins to regulate things like pain perception based on the assumption that a certain level of the opiate will be in your system. Should the expected level be lower than usual, you will not only experience the pain more intensely but you may also experience withdrawal symptoms.

How Can I Tell If I Have a Prescription Drug Addiction?

If you or a loved one begin to experience illness or withdrawal symptoms when you miss a dose of your medication or well before it's time to take your next dose according to your prescription, you may have a prescription drug addiction. Withdrawal symptoms are the defining characteristic of drug addiction.

Additionally, a subtle or not-so-subtle change in your mental disposition such that your thoughts, actions and desires focus primarily upon your medication, the next time you will take it, buying extra pills illegally or by using additional doctors to procure more of the drug. These changes in your primary focus are indicative of addiction.

How Is a Prescription Drug Addiction Treated?

Prescription drug addiction can be treated in a number of ways. Inpatient residential treatment facilities provide a place away from home where you can eliminate your stresses and access to the addictive substance and detox of the drug. Unfortunately, many who are addicted to pain pills became so because they have a number of commitments: career, family, community. These responsibilities serve to create the addiction and prevent its treatment at the same time.

How Can Meditox Help?

Meditox has a unique outpatient drug treatment program that allows you the benefit of medical guidance as you break your dependency on prescription pain killer addiction without requiring more than a single afternoon of your time. In just one appointment, you will undergo a complete evaluation to ascertain the appropriateness of the program for your lifestyle and then develop a treatment plan for you to carry out when you return home. If you are interested in breaking your addiction to prescription drugs in a defined time period, then call 888-MEDITOX for more details.

If you feel that Meditox might be the right solution for you or your loved one, please call us for a toll-free and private consultation:

Additional Resources

National Institute on Drug Abuse: Prescription Drugs Abuse and Addiction
U.S. Department of Justice National Drug Intelligence Center Information Brief: Prescription Drug Abuse and Youth

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Mother, Real Estate Agent, 49
August 11, 2006

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