While prescription medications can be effective, they can also be dangerous if you aren’t careful. Painkillers, especially opioid-based ones, are highly addictive. Therefore, it’s helpful to know who tends to have the highest risk of prescription addiction. That way, you can see if it’s better to look for alternatives…
Prescription Addiction: Key Factors
Injury recovery
A large portion of those who develop a prescription addiction are those who are recovering from an injury or surgery. Usually, what happens is their doctor will prescribe them painkillers to help manage the pain. At first, they’ll take them according to their prescription. Over time, though, they’ll begin to take more and more until an addiction forms.
However, doctors have become more aware of this in recent times. As a result, they’ll try to first explore other, less-risky methods of pain management. When they do give out prescriptions, they’ll help you monitor your intake, so it doesn’t become an issue.
Previous addiction
People dealing with or recovering from a previous addiction are also at a higher risk of developing a prescription addiction. Those who struggled with other drugs, such as alcohol, are much more likely to develop another one. This is true even though the two drugs are seemingly different at first glance. The thing is, when your body has already developed one addiction, it’s a lot easier for it to find a “substitute” with something else.
In this situation, it’s probably safest to avoid taking these kinds of medications. Still, you should definitely make sure you talk to your doctors before doing anything. That way, you can see what other sort of options you can pursue.
Age
A person’s age can actually play a role in their prescription addiction chances. In fact, 12% of those ages 18-25 have claimed to take these sorts of pills for non-medical reasons. Even those who do take them properly are at more of a risk for developing an addiction than other age groups.
The main reason is due to how younger adults are more likely to experiment with things such as drugs. It could be the case that they don’t understand the risks, or thing that they won’t get addicted for some reason. Others may take them to try and help them with work or studying, not realizing the dangers they present.
