Rock Bottom: From prescription pills to heroin
The abuse of prescription pills is leading many individuals to heroin. Why? Heroin is a cheap alternative to a very expensive prescription pill habit. Prescription pills can range from 20 to 60 dollars a pill while heroin runs from 3 to 20 dollars a bag.
Unfortunately for the person has found themselves addicted to prescription pills and can no longer afford them or find them, the next best alternative is heroin. Once someone is addicted to prescription pills their problems have only begun. Someone who is addicted to prescription pills may find themselves lying to their doctors or forging prescriptions to get more pills. When this becomes too much many people consider doing something they said they would absolutely never do but yet they find themselves doing just that: heroin. This can lead many addicts to hit rock bottom much sooner than expected. When addicts are buying heroin on the street there is no denying there is some kind of problem going on. While an addict is still getting prescription pills they can keep up the lie that they need the medication. Prescription pills when they lead to heroin are merely the progression of addiction. When an addict begins using heroin they usually start of snorting it and then very shortly find themselves injecting it. Once an addict begins using heroin it can easily lead to more criminal activity. Such as more burglaries, more shoplifting, more prostitution, more robberies and more driving high while on drugs. And most people addicted to heroin have the same story; it started with prescription pills.
Once an addict has gone from prescription pills to heroin and has found themselves in the grips of their addiction they have hit rock bottom. Rock bottom defines an intense emotional pain that addicts feel when they are using. Rock bottom is usually what makes most addicts decide that they want to get clean. Unfortunately when addicts hit rock bottom they are so far addicted to heroin that they will need some kind of medical intervention to get clean and stay clean. A medical intervention would consist of a medically supervised medical detox. This is because prescription pills can cause severe withdrawal symptoms which is part of the reason the addict begins using heroin to begin with instead of just quitting the drugs. The addict doesn’t want to go through withdrawal and is desperate to find anything to take care of the withdrawal symptoms and decides getting a street drug such as heroin since they either cant get or afford prescription pills is a good idea. Luckily with a medically supervised detox from heroin the withdrawal symptoms can be managed either with maintenance drugs that are slowly tapered off or other medical comforts.
This can be the beginning of a new life for the addict. Rock bottom is usually the end of using and the beginning of a new life in sobriety. Maybe it isn’t necessarily a bad thing that the switch from prescription pills to heroin leads so many addicts to hit rock bottom, because most of them then want help. Unfortunately this sometimes will never happen or will take a very long time to happen.
