Prescription medication can be addictive and dangerous

Any drug, taken over a period of time, and that time will vary for everyone, has the potential for us to become addicted to that drug as our body becomes tolerant to it.  The majority of people are fully aware of the dangers and risk of addiction from the use of drugs such as Cannabis, Cocaine, Heroin, Ecstasy, and other drugs that can be bought illegally. Few are aware of the dangers of prescription medication. Some prescription drugs are more difficult to stop taking than heroin.

There is a significantly increasing addiction problem with prescription medication. It stems from the use of the internet by people to get medications sent to their home address.  These drugs are not the recognised recreational drugs, but medications that may have previously been prescribed to them by a GP, and when the prescription has not been renewed on health care grounds, then the individual has turned to the internet to continue getting a regular supply. Alternatively, some addictions to prescription medications begin when someone is offered them to try by a ‘friend’, associate or dealer.

The problem is, in part, a mental one, stemming from the belief that the medication has been or can be prescribed. It is therefore considered safe to use.  But, like all prescription medications, they are usually only prescribed for short term use and we start to think that we are not going to cope or manage when that prescription is not renewed. That is when we will usually turn to the easiest option available to us, to find the medication “on line”  and get it delivered to our home address. The problem with medicines bought online is that they may contain no active ingredient, too much or too little of an active ingredient or the wrong ingredients altogether.  There is no way that the source of the medication can be authenticated and there is no quality control with counterfeit drugs, even those bearing a remarkable similarity to the tablets we were originally prescribed, leading to the medication purchased from sources on the internet to usually be of a poor quality.

Negative impacts of addiction to prescription medication

Abusing prescription drugs will lead to the start of  side effects that will affect our physical, mental and emotional health.   Prescription drug addiction is a recognised illness and disorder.  The reason that the drug was prescribed in the first place has long gone and the continued use has led to the body becoming tolerant  to a daily consumption and this has led to an increase in dosage to try and get the same effect and the brain has become chemically and structurally altered to compulsively need more.  This leads to depressive episodes and anxiety as there becomes an imbalance in the brain’s chemistry.  These feelings do not plateau out but continue to intensify and can lead to suicidal thoughts as the addictive thinking and behaviour starts to fully impact on all our life areas of work, social, financial and relationships.

At this stage, an individual will usually try and reduce down the daily consumption but after prolonged use of any medication they will experience feelings of withdrawal. These can be very intense – worse than coming off heroin for some prescription medication – and the only way to stop the withdrawal and the intense cravings is to take the higher dose of the medication again.  Therefore, trying to cut back or reduce down is almost impossible within the home environment.  There may also be the case where there has been a continuation of a prescription renewal, by the GP, that has gone on far longer than was originally intended.  There could be cases and some issues associated with staffing at medical centres during and following the pandemics but the NHS has now put in place much firmer clinical guidelines for the duration that medications can safely be prescribed for. 

How to stop using prescription medication

Therefore, anyone that knows that their life has now gone full circle and they are in a worse condition than before they started on a course of prescribed medication and wants to finally do something about it will find that their options for help are extremely limited. Firstly, the GP is unable to help if medication off the internet has been purchased and consumed as it was not prescribed by them.  If it is the case that a prescription has been inadvertently renewed for an excessively long period of time, and the individual has developed an addiction, then the GP would potentially have a duty of care to help. They will usually write out a reducing prescription to help come off the medication slowly by titrating down daily  but again that would be in the home environment and is usually unsuccessful.  The option with the most chance of success is to be admitted to a residential addictions treatment unit or detox clinic.  For example, at The Haynes Clinic, you would  be under the daily care of the clinic’s consultant psychiatrist and the professional therapy team for a medically assisted detoxification which is accomplished in a controlled environment supervised around the clock. 

Medications that can cause addiction problems

A commonly prescribed medication that causes addiction problems and often requires a medical detoxification is diazepam (also known as Valium). Other benzodiazepines such as Librium, Xanax and Lorazepam can also be addictive and difficult to stop taking. These medications are prescription tranquilisers that act on the central nervous system. They help with anxiety and panic attacks and they also slow down heart rate and help people get to sleep. Benzodiazepines have similar withdrawal effects to an opiate withdrawal. Withdrawal symptoms in both cases can be severe but the main difference is that an opiate detox takes just two weeks to complete whereas a Benzodiazepine detox can take considerably longer depending on the amount and duration of use. 

People recognise Heroin as an opiate and are rightly wary of it.  They may be less aware of the dangers of short term pain relief such as Co-Codamol which can be purchased over the counter. This is also an opiate. The withdrawal symptoms from Co-Codamol – and hence the detox – will be exactly the same as for a heroin user.

Another medication that can be addictive and difficult to stop taking is Pregabalin. This is generally prescribed to treat epilepsy, anxiety but more commonly some types of pain.  The recommended maximum dose can be as high as 600 mg per day in divided doses.  This medication probably requires the longest time to detox from it. A pregabalin detox can take months rather than weeks. Gabapentin is a similar medication to Pregabalin, with the same addictive properties and a gabapentin detox. Can also be lengthy.

Finding out why the addiction to prescription medication has occurred

If it is necessary to admit to the safe and supportive environment of a residential addictions unit to medically detox, there will also be an opportunity to examine why the addiction has developed in the first place.  What were the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that the medication was used to escape from?  What changes need to be made to our thinking and behaviour in order to make the necessary changes to live a life free from addiction in the future?