Serious addicts have history of getting high before taking Rx opioids

To The Daily Sun,

High dosage pain killers increase the potential of becoming seriously addicted to opioids. One of the root causes of this contemporary drug crisis, America’s most recent surge of addiction, is the increase in the potency of "traditional" drugs that have been widely prescribed for more than 50 years. Its pretty well-known by now that large pharmaceutical companies have put a great deal of energy, money and other resources into marketing supposedly new pain relieving medicines that are supposed to be more convenient to use but less likely to be habit-forming. Those patients who had no predisposition to abuse mood-altering substances and used these oxycodone-based drugs often came through medical treatment okay and did not develop an addiction. Those who may not have reached the point of active or chronic addiction, but had a tendency to use mood altering substances for leisure, recreation or relaxation were and are far more likely to become addicted to the powerful pill form, morphine derivatives that were introduced to the market in the late 90s.

Studies have consistently shown that those who became seriously debilitated and addicted to prescription pain killers had a history of enjoying "getting high or catching a buzz" before they started taking their legally prescribed and very high dosage pain pills. During the 70s and 80s and up through the early nineties, oxycodone and hydrocodone medicines came in 5- or 10-mg dosages. The newer timed-released pain pills that hit the market later on came in one pill dosages as high as 160-mg. Some drug abusers were not using the medicines according to doctors orders. If these pills were crushed and sniffed, chewed or injected, people often overdosed. The 160-mg dose pain pills were discontinued and dosages of 10-, 40- and 80-mg remained available.

Some people developed a dependence after their first or second refill, which often developed into a life-long addiction. High dosage pain killers are sometimes necessary and it isn’t easy to predict who will become addicted or who will simply use the drug as needed and stop after they recover from their medical treatment. As many as three out of four opioid addicts who are now battling street fentanyl and heroin addiction got started with pain pills that some believe were far too high in milligram dosage. It can be easier to put down habit forming substances if they have not been used consistently in high amounts and many people who abuse alcohol, cannabis and other drugs may not have been drawn down into desperate levels of drug dependence if they were not introduced to highly powerful therapeutic pain meds.

The availability of addictive drugs, whether they are street drugs or medically prescribed, does indeed play a part in how seriously someone becomes addicted as well as how someone may recover from their addiction.

Michael Tensel

MS-A&D Recovery Counseling

Laconia