Why Prescription Drugs

Doctors are prescribing more drugs, pharmacies are making it easier to get prescription drugs and our society as a whole is taking more prescription medication than ever before. As a result we now have a drug abuse and addiction problem that is affecting adults and teens and continues to grow as the amount of medications being developed increase. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an estimated 48 million people aged 12 and older have used prescription medication for nonmedical reasons in their lifetimes. That's 20 percent of the U.S population. How can this be?

Prescription Drug Addiction -- The Question Of Why

What's driving this alarmingly rapid increase of prescription drug abuse in adults and teens? Experts are befuddled as to what's driving this abuse. What they do know is that there are factors that contribute to this problem like:

• Accessibility -- From the overabundance of prescriptions being written for everything and anything, to pharmacies making it easier to get prescription medicine to the surplus of medications not used at home and then left available for kids to access.
• Online Pharmacies -- Some internet companies will sell medications without a prescription or necessary identity verification making it easier for anyone to purchase some of these deadly and highly addictive medications.
• Personal Distribution and theft -- People giving their own medications to friends or selling them and pharmacies and doctors' offices being robbed provide yet another way these pills can be circulated.

A False Sense of Security in Prescription Drugs

If a doctor says it's okay to take a drug then how bad can it be right? That's where most people fool themselves into believing that the drugs are safe and that there's less of a chance of becoming addicted. What they fail to realize is that sense of security can be their ultimate downfall. The chemical dependence created by some of these medications makes it very difficult for some people to stop taking them well after prescription is no longer required.

Unfortunately a good majority of prescription drug users have no intent of becoming addicts when the first start taking the medication. It's a cycle that becomes hard to break without the proper help and support. Mark D. Houston can help you or you loved take to first steps to recovery.