NEWS

Addiction to Prescriptions

Painkiller addictions are becoming more and more of a problem in Britain, with the high profile case of Ant McPartlin bringing the issue to light recently.

Patients are being prescribed perfectly legal drugs for injuries, but many are becoming dependent on them even after fully recovering.

Rose (not her real name) was in a car accident in November last year and dislocated her shoulder. She was prescribed codeine as a painkiller.

“It was a way to ease my pain and help me sleep.”

“I eventually started using it just to get to sleep because it make you comatose. It was just an easy way to get to sleep.”

She that the accident traumatised her to the point where the drug was the only way for her to get to sleep.

Rose told UOGLive: “I developed a bit of insomnia because I could still imagine the accident and I had flashbacks of it. I couldn’t sleep because my dreams of it were so vivid. So I thought if I start taking this it’ll knock me out and I wouldn’t have to think about it so much.”

“I was drinking whilst on codeine which you shouldn’t do and I was also smoking cannabis. When I was taking codeine alone I used to overdose on how much I took, so instead of taking one tablet I’d take four, and it made me feel like I was coming out of my body, and by mixing it with other things I was getting an increased high because I was getting dizzy and light headed.”

However, the addiction began to affect her to the point where her mental and physical health began to deteriorate.

“Mentally I wasn’t fully there. I was quite aloof, I wasn’t as sociable as I used to be because I was always kind of drugged up. It actually made me lose a bit of weight, and because I was mixing with other substances that made me lose weight quicker.”

Director of charity Drugwise, Harry Shapiro, told Sky News that “It’s a public health crisis that’s been growing for a number of years.”

Click here for more information and help about addictions.

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