When You Hear The Words Drug Addict You Think Of Desensitizing

Throughout our culture, stigma against people with drug addiction is present. Instead of being treated as people with mental illnesses, drug addicts are simply regarded as criminals. Addicts are often so overwhelmed with shame that they don’t seek treatment. These are just a few examples of how stigma perpetuates our culture and how it is detrimental to those who are addicted. It is imperative that we destigmatize addiction by treating it as what it truly is- a mental illness and allowing addicts to be open about their addiction and treatment.

“Addiction is a choice not a disease”, is a common phrase that stigmatizes drug addiction in our everyday language. The lack of public knowledge about this social problem causes widespread stigmatization and discrimination of the ill. As a result, many individuals who seriously need professional help feel isolated and hopeless, making it harder for them to recover.

As we see the further progression of the opioid epidemic within the United States, pharmacists become the frontlines to recognizing and providing care for these patients. It is however difficult to provide care for a patient when even the professionals within the medical community have an associated stigma attached to the use of these drugs. Patients who have a need for these painkillers recognize this stigma, and by doing so decide to avoid consulting their doctors and do not seek the care which they need. They do this to avoid the discriminatory treatment they receive both within and on the outside of the healthcare system, and to avoid the legal repercussions associated with the misuse and abuse of these products1. It is therefore the pharmacists' job to avoid the stigmatization of these people and respect those who use these treatments for legitimate medical purposes.

With assistance from local educators such as Dr. Fagan and government policies could help bring awareness to opioid addiction to reduce and limit opportunities for misuse. Communicating this problem among healthcare physicians, providers, health departments can provide the public with information to help those with recovery and prevent further exposure. With effective communication, healthcare providers can spread knowledge, stories, break the stigma surrounding opioid use, and bring more discussion. “Children who learn about the dangers of drugs at home are up to 50 percent less likely to use drugs.”Therefore, we must start a conversation to break the stigma that affects individuals and families throughout our communities. Within the environment, some individuals may feel stigmatized by substance abuse which can be a barrier for those to seek help and contributes to poor mental and physical health ultimately increasing rates of relapse, delay recovery and increase involvement in risky

Drug abuse and addiction remain large and persistent problems. Nationally, addiction and abuse of all substances costs the economy an estimated $600 billion dollars annually. Indeed, over the past decade, illicit drug use appears to be steady or rising (2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health; DHHS). From this we see that prescription and non-prescription opioid use is particularly problematic. For example, prescription pain reliever misuse has remained consistently high for most of the last decade and makes up the largest portion of misuse of prescription drugs (Figure 1). In addition people who report using heroin within the last year has increased by over 50% since 2001 (Figure 2).

Since the 19th century the United States has struggled with the control of opioids and how to properly treat the people who become dependent on them. By the 1980s studied revealed that the potential of drug dependence, also known as iatrogenic addiction, was relatively low for patients who were prescribed opiates for treatment (Beauchamp, 2014, p. 2023) - In the mid 1990s, Perdue Pharma introduced OxyContin, a Schedule II prescription opioid analgesic, to the pharmaceutical market (Boerner, 2016, p. 20). Since the release of OxyContin, a substantial number of Americans have been prescribed opiates for medical treatment. Society’s view on prescription opiate use has slowly shifted from being a normative treatment method recommended by healthcare professionals, to being viewed as deviant. Prescription opioids have played a large role in increased rates of incarceration, fatal and non-fatal opiate overdose, transitions to illicit drugs and HIV infection in the United States (Boerner, 2016, p. 21). Prescription opiate use is seen as deviant when the drug is misused for non-medical purposes.

This article is about the cost of prescription opioid being abused, dependent on and being misused by individuals in the United States. The authors believed that the cost of prescription opioid abuse has become a burden for the United States as a society. Furthermore, the authors believe that the realms of health care, criminal justice and lost workplace productivity are faced with the most challenges of the burden caused by opioid abuse (Birnbaum, White, Schiller, Waldman, Cleveland, & Roland, 2011). The authors assumed to lessen the economic burden of prescription opioid abuse, there is a continuous need of effort from academic researchers, industry, health care providers, and government to implement appropriate actions (Birnbaum, White et

2.1 Million people in the United States suffer from a disorder relating back to the abuse of opiates. (America’s Addiction to Opioids: Heroin and Prescription Drug Abuse, Volkow). Opiates build a wall around your thoughts and every wall of your life. When this happens, their lack of communication is cut off leaving them alone and making them make difficult decisions on their own. (How Does it Feel to be Addicted to Opiates, Donnelly). The substance takes everything from you including your money, family, and sanity. Without these things in their life, most abusers believe they have nothing left to rely on (How Does it Feel to be Addicted to Opiates, Donnelly). When people become addicted, they worry that they will never be back to normal. The substance had such a strong effect on them that they forget how life was before the abuse (How Does it Feel to be Addicted to Opiates,

The consequences of addiction are important to understand and they should be communicated in a way that is relatable, but prevention is more complicated than that. Healthy2Fitness attempts to describe the processes of the brain as they relate to addiction, explaining why substance addiction is so challenging to manage. This video makes sense of the inner struggle those with addiction experience, and why they often continue to use despite being faced with repeated consequences. Substance abuse professionals, under the education model, could apply the information relayed in this video as part of their prevention program. At the very least, it would be helpful for prevention programs to include the neurological processes involved in addiction. As Healthy2Fitness eloquently said, “Understanding the science of addiction can help you and the one you love”

The Unites States is at an epidemic status with substance use disorder patients. There are many reasons to why we all should be concerned as a nation; however, this very problem is an essential topic globally. 230 million drug users are found worldwide and 19.9 million of those are Americans that have used illicit drugs in the year 2007 alone (as cited in Michael’s House, n.d); Furthermore, America makes up 4 percent of the global population and our nation manages to occupy two-third of the illegal drug use worldwide (as cited in Buggle, 2013).

The decades-old United States war on drugs has not been successful and very cost ineffective (Madden, 2008). Today, drug addiction continues to be an important public health problem in our nation. The U.S. spends more than $700 billion dollars annually in costs related to substance abuse (National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA], 2015). Drug-related costs include abuse of tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs, crime, lost work productivity, and health care (NIDA, 2015). And the costs corresponding to those whose lives are ruined or whose death is premature, are too immense to be measured. Collateral damage such as that of family members who have to endure witnessing these experiences is not just unfortunate; it is also priceless. Treatment programs for drug addiction are available, and psychosocial approaches have demonstrated to be better than no-treatment controls (Madden, 2008; Silverman, Roll, & Higgins, 2008). Unfortunately, currently available treatment programs are not effective in all individuals, and high relapse rates are typical (Silverman et al., 2008). Considering the immense impact drug addiction has on individuals as well as society, the development of a treatment program that produces long-term abstinence outcomes is of paramount importance.

What kind of person does society picture when they think of an addict? How are addictions and addictive behaviors viewed as a whole? Whether it be drugs, actions, or behaviors, addictions can tear lives, families, and friendships apart and are never positive. But is it really the addict’s fault? Could it be a genetic flaw that fuels the addiction? Or are these addicts just lazy people with no self control? Along with others, these questions are important because addicts are not that different than non-addicts. The stereotypical “druggie” stigma is not always the case when it comes to

Drug abuse, or substance abuse, is a serious problem that many people mistakenly suffer from. It affects the abuser’s day-to-day life simply because the abuser needs their “fix”. Millions of illnesses and injuries are caused by drug abuse each year, and because of that many lose their lives. There are many drugs that are abused today, but the mains ones such as cocaine, hallucinogens, heroin, meth and even prescription drugs are what is plaguing the streets and the homes of millions of Americans.

44 percent of Americans say they by and by know somebody who has been dependent on medicine painkillers. Of these individuals, 26 percent said the individual they knew was an associate, while 21 percent said it was a dear companion and 20 percent said it was a relative. Two percent said they had been dependent on painkillers themselves. 58 percent of respondents likewise said they trust absence of access to habit treatment is a noteworthy issue. What's more, 61 percent said they were worried in regards to absence of treatment. Individuals see heroin as a more basic issue than remedy painkillers, despite the fact that far less amazing heroin overdoses than from medicine opioids. 35 percent of individuals see heroin manhandle as an amazingly

Drug addiction is one major problem in today’s society. Really, every country faces such issues today. A ton of measures are taken to battle against medication misuse, and, certainly, a few improvements are obvious. Nonetheless, this issue is not dispensed with and, maybe, will never be. Today, Americans are losing their employments, families, and even their lives over the misuse. There are a considerable measure of legal drugs that Americans are dependent on, yet there are additionally a great deal of Americans who are dependent on street drugs. In any case, drug abuse is drug abuse.