“Are you on pills,” a guy asked me the other day.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what he meant.
“These ladies (as he pointed to the ladies sitting next to him) want to know if you are on pills,” he said.
I look at the ladies trying to register in my mind what the man is saying. “You are so friendly and upbeat, we thought maybe you were on pills,” one lady says.
All of a sudden it dawns on me…pills? Oh those kind of pills. “No. This is au naturale. I naturally have a lot of energy. I even try to stay away from caffeine. I didn’t even know what you were talking about when you asked me that, if that gives you any indication that I’m not on them,” I said knowing how naïve I must sound.
With addiction to painkillers now considered a national crisis, “pill popping” is no more a taboo subject. “Prescription drugs are the second most commonly abused category of drugs, behind marijuana and ahead of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs,” according to presciption-drug-abuse.org.
Although “Prescription drug abuse surged 400 percent in the past decade,” according to csmonitor.com, it isn’t as widely discussed as alcohol or other drug abuse. This type of addiction may be seen as safer than other types of drug use, but like recent celebrity deaths, Michael Jackson or Anny Nichole Smith, it can have just as fatal consequences.
Prescription pill addiction tends to not have the same stigma associated with it that their counterpart addicted drugs too.
Think of the image you have when you think of someone addicted to meth or heroin. You might see someone strung out, with rotted teeth or lesions on her face. Prescription pill abuse is easier to hide to the outsider. She might be a stay-at-home mom that lives next door to you, who wears those cute pink trendy sweat suits and always looks so stylish. She isn’t the strung out rooted teeth woman. And she doesn’t see herself that way either.
She never intended to get addicted. She was having back pain after a car wreck. She started taking the pills to alleviate that suffering. Then three months passed. Another six months passed. She is still taking them, but now she is taking them more often because the effects don’t last as long. In a few more months she will take more of them at once. Soon, she will take even more of them and more often.
These prescription drugs are more accessible than other drugs too. All she has to do is go back to her doctor to get more. She makes an appointment, just like everyone else, to her family care practitioner. She doesn’t have to go to a drug dealer. Her doctor gives them to her legally. In her mind, it’s not the same.
And how will all of this affect her kids? Will they start having to be the mom in the house or will they want to try the pills themselves? If parents lead by example, then those are just a few questions this stay-at-home mom will have to answer and resolve within herself.
In the meantime, there are plenty of places where she can get the help she needs. If she does it for herself, her kids, her spouse, or her future…whatever the reason, she just needs to take that step and start somewhere to get back to who she used to be. Because being addicted to pills is not the person she is or wants to be. It’s never too late!
You can always look online for resources or start with www.prescription-drug-abuse.org/ for more information.
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