1) One in ten high school seniors in the United States has admitted to misusing prescription painkillers.
2) Prescription painkiller addiction costs our society an estimated $484 billion annually. This includes the cost of rehabilitation programs, lost productivity at work, and accidents caused by persons impaired by painkillers.
3) The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 10 to 22 percent of car crashes involve drivers who have been using some type of drugs, both prescription and street drugs.
4) Nearly two-thirds of people in prescription drug rehabilitation programs say they were physically or sexually abused as children. Studies are finding more and more people who are suffering from painkiller addiction are actually using these drugs to numb a "different" kind of pain, that of emotional turmoil.
5) In 2006, over 10 million people 12 or older reported driving under the influence of illicit drugs during the past year.
6) Of the seven million-plus people ages 12 and older who reported using prescription drugs non-medically, 5.2 million of those people used pain killers.
7) Prescription drug use has been linked to over half of the major crimes committed in our country - these crimes include assault, rape, and murder.
8) Prescription pain killers, when mixed with alcohol and other depressants such as sleeping aids, can be deadly. In fact, many coroners for prescription drug fatalities report several drugs in their autopsy reports, stating that a mix of drugs magnified the effects of all the drugs.
9) While there is a certain stigma associated with street drugs, many of the people who abuse prescription drugs and develop addictions are working professionals who never intended to abuse drugs. Their addiction started out as getting a simple prescription or two written up by a doctor and progressed from there.
10) The withdrawal side effects from oxycodone and other prescription drugs can be just as debilitating as those coming off heroin or crystal meth highs. In many cases, those withdrawing from prescription painkillers actually need medical treatment to monitor their bodies rid the drug from their systems. They also need medical support to alleviate the symptoms of withdrawal.
11) There are over 250 self-help recovery groups nation-wide modeled after the Alcoholics Anonymous famous "Twelve Step Program." This does not include residential drug treatment programs and medical detox programs.
12) As pain pill clinics around the country continue to get busted by law enforcement, emergency rooms around the country are receiving an influx of patients who have nothing physically wrong with them but are suffering physically from prescription painkiller addiction.
Do you or does a loved one need Tampa Prescription Drug Abuse treatment? True Path Recovery offers Tampa Residential Drug Treatment and outpatient treatment programs.
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