Whether you’re a student or employee, the pressures of whatever tasks and responsibilities that fill your plate can be a lot. No matter how much you love what you’re doing, life gets incredibly stressful when you can hardly find time to sleep between long hours of work and social obligations.
When things become too much to handle or when you feel the pressure from peers or coworkers, some may turn to other methods to help better perform. It may seem harmless to take a few pills every now and then, but this is a slippery slope, especially when use is not directed by a medical professional.
For some, prescription drugs seem a lot less hardcore than alternatives such as cocaine, meth, heroin, and more. However, when used or sourced improperly, the dangers of prescription medication know no bounds. In fact, 52% of abused prescriptions are obtained through a family member or friend, you don’t have to know a drug dealer to access them, only about 5% of prescription drug misuse is sourced from drug dealers.
People reported they often turn to these substances to relieve pain or stress, achieve a high feeling, or just relax. They also often believe that these drugs are a one-time use that can be stopped at any point in time. While some may use prescription medication in this way, they can be much more dangerous than commonly believed. When prescribed by a doctor and carefully monitored, these drugs are beneficial and even essential to a patient’s health and recovery. However, when they’re used without any medical knowledge or context, they can have opposite effects.
Everyone in school may be taking Adderall, but that doesn’t make it any safer. Maybe it’s taken solely to get a paper done before the fast-approaching 8:00 a.m. deadline, but it can still have lasting impacts on your physical well being. Taking drugs to enhance performance and fulfill deadlines, especially for impressionable adolescents, is like playing with fire. One time can quickly turn into a routine habit, especially if those around you are doing it as well. The added energy and focus you get also comes along with compounding side effects – high blood pressure, increased heart rate, and shortness of breath to name a few.
The side effects of prescription drugs are very real and even more prevalent when the drugs are used more frequently than intended.
It’s no surprise that drugs can have lasting and harmful effects on users. But still, countless people often turn to prescription drugs to pull them out of stressful situations. In desperate circumstances, any knowledge of these dangers is forgotten or undermined by the need to meet a certain deadline or demand in a given time frame.
It’s up to those closest to you to intervene when necessary. Identifying a drug addiction is no easy task, but it’s easier from an outside perspective. The first step to identifying a problem is knowing the signs to look for.
Friends and family members are integral to stopping prescription drug abuse, especially knowing that they are the access source majority of the time. It’s highly probable that they don’t know there’s a problem. They may offer their prescriptions to a friend in need of a stronger pain medication unknowing that the friend is abusing the medications.
It’s even harder to get through to the friend once a problem has been identified. It’s frustrating when close friends can’t help their companion out of a difficult time, but drugs change people. Their brain is altered to a state where they no longer hold a conversation and think rationally like they used to.
Professional treatment is often needed to overcome prescription drug addiction. Taking pills may seem like a harmless way to survive, but it is a very serious problem that requires experienced attention to overcome.