The telephone rings with hospital personnel or the police on the other end.
Your family member is unresponsive, near death, they say. Drugs were involved. Your mind spins. How did your loved one succumb to an overdose when all you knew was that they were taking drugs prescribed by a physician? You have questions and you’re are looking for answers, some of which may be found in a tragic link between prescription painkillers and heroin.
One American dies every 19 minutes of a prescription drug overdose, an “epidemic” the Center for Disease Control says. In 2009, more people died from prescription drug overdoses than motor vehicle accidents, and more people die in the U.S. from prescription drug overdoses each year than from heroin and cocaine combined.
For some, it starts all too simply. Some individuals start taking painkillers because they had an on-the-job injury or were involved in a car wreck. Too often such an innocent beginning leads to a tragic end because a doctor prescribes painkillers as the initial course of treatment.
For some, the pain is initially relieved but later returns, causing that patient to go back to the doctor for more meds. Because of the addictive nature of the drugs themselves, people who never dreamed of abusing drugs find themselves addicted, and later, either succumb to overdoses and pass away or have their lives destroyed. In either event, their families are left to pick up the pieces.