The Painkiller Heroin Connection

As a Narconon graduate I personally have had experience with the connection between taking painkillers and moving onto heroin. I became addicted to the pain pill Vicodin after a dental surgery. Within a few weeks I was taking the drug every day and soon ran out of my legal prescription.

In order to feed by abuse, I moved onto a stronger painkiller called Oxycontin. When the drugs became too expensive and difficult to find I started taking heroin. Now 10 years clean I was one of the newer users that fell into a trend that has grown over the last decade and is now a major problem throughout the country.

Now with 10 years off drugs I have seen news article after news article that report that young adults are using painkillers as a gateway drug to heroin. The latest comes from MSNBC that states that there is a very close connection between those abusing painkillers and then moving onto illicit drugs like heroin. The statistics pertaining to this indicate that that the use of heroin has gone up 80% among those 12 to 17 just in the last 10 years.

What’s worse than this is the growing death rate connected to this use as over 10 years the number of people who lost their lives from heroin use doubled.

Many people don’t think that their son, daughter, brother, sister or other loved one would ever use a drug like heroin.  There are also some that think that the use is targeted toward a specific demographic or location. The reality is that this isn’t the case.

Parents and other loved ones need to be aware of this growing trend and help those addicted through treatment. This is a problem that is affecting the younger generation all throughout the country.

For more information on substance abuse treatment through Vista Bay contact us today.