There used to be a time when you could open up your medicine cabinet and not worry about anything. Nowadays, however, parents are more concerned than ever about what they will or won t find when they open up their medicine cabinets. Many young children are becoming hooked or addicted to prescription medication than ever before. Additionally, it isn t limited to youth; rather, prescription medication addiction seems to span all generations. Just look at the death of actor, Heath Ledger who lost his life due to prescription medication abuse. Who do we blame for this? The media certainly is a place to start pointing the finger.
Every time you turn on the television and there is a commercial on, nine times out of ten the commercial is for some sort of prescription medication. Do you have X, Y and Z symptoms? If so, you may need a certain prescription medication to help you out with what may or may not be ailing you. Look around at all of the children who have been diagnosed with ADD, who are on Ritalin. And let s not forget about all of the depressed Americans who can t seem to function on a day to day basis without a little help from Prozac and Xanax...and the doctors keep prescribing...and people keep abusing these prescribed drugs. Quite frankly, it s a little frightening.
I can very clearly remember my first encounter with medication abuse. One of my (then) friends in high school was talking to some of my other friends about how if you took a certain over the counter medication used for the common cold how it would make you feel like you were high. She then went on to joke about how if you wanted an even higher feeling of euphoria, you could down the pills with a couple of swigs of hard liquor. While this may have seemed harmless to her back then, it is actually a serious problem among many today but how much (if any) is the media playing into this new addiction? Could it be that there are people who don t really have anything wrong with them but then think twice about it once they see one of those prescription medication commercials? Even I have been caught a few times thinking twice about my health because of the numerous health commercials on television. It s enough to drive a person crazy!
One way to avoid problems with prescription medication abuse is to talk openly about the dangers and the side effects. There is a lot of speculation floating around that doctors and insurance companies are simply trying to make money off of unsuspecting people who, in reality, don t really have anything wrong with them. In some cases, this may be true, but it is still hearsay at this point. Parents need to sit down with their kids and talk about the dangers that lie in prescription medication. Similarly, doctors need to advise their patients that medication may not always solve a problem such as depression or anxiety but rather, sometimes a change in mindset will suffice.
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