Legal Substances May Require Addiction Treatment
Legal substances, approved by law for sale over the counter or by doctor’s prescription, include caffeine, alcoholic beverages, nicotine, and inhalants (nail polish, glue, inhalers, gasoline) can lead the possibility of problems that can lead to addiction treatment. Prescription drugs such as tranquilizers, amphetamines, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, steroids, and analgesics can be improperly prescribed or otherwise abused. In many cases, new drugs prescribed in good conscience by physicians turn out to be problematic later. For example, Valium was widely prescribed in the ’60s and ’70s before its potential for serious addiction was recognized. In the 1990s, sales of Prozac helped create a $3 billion anti-depressant market in the United States, leading many physicians to criticize what they saw as the creation a culture that discouraged people from learning to deal with their problems in ways other than through medications. At the same time, unregulated herbal medicines have become popular throughout the country; many of these are psychoactive to some degree, even if they are being used to treat psychosomatic issues, raising questions of quality and necessity. Prescription drugs are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration, though some herbal medicines are developed through questionable sources.
A Drug Treatment Program Has Answers
Prescription drugs are considered illegal when used improperly or without the expressed prescription of a doctor. Some individuals will shop until they find a doctor who writes prescriptions for medications that they like to abuse. Medications are sometimes stolen from laboratories, clinics, hospitals or pharmacies. Morphine, a strictly controlled opiate, and synthetic opiates, such as fentanyl, are often abused by people in the medical profession such as nurses, who have easier access to these drugs. Some nurses and doctors who have problems with medication issues seek help at a drug treatment program so that they are able to continue their work.
People Need Addiction Therapy For Different Reasons
People take drugs for many reasons: peer pressure, relief of stress, increased energy, to relax, to relieve pain, to escape reality, to feel more self-esteem, and for recreation. They may take stimulants to keep alert, or cocaine for the feeling of excitement it produces. Athletes and bodybuilders may take anabolic steroids to increase muscle mass. Addiction therapy seeks to treat the reasons for why individuals take substances and helps to find solutions for them.
