Studies suggest that up to 50% of patients receiving opioid treatment have developed some level of dependence. This indicates that potentially half of people struggling with opioid use disorder initially assessed opioid medication via a prescription.
Addiction to prescription medication can sometimes go undetected. This is because using prescription medicine is perhaps more ‘socially acceptable,’ and therefore, may not be as associated with clandestine activity in comparison to the obtaining of illegal drugs. But this type of addiction is still very serious. Signs of prescription medication addiction include:
visiting several doctor’s surgeries
visiting several pharmacies
filling in repeat prescriptions regularly
regularly needing replacement medicine due to loss, theft, or otherwise absent prescriptions
emphasising symptoms to obtain more medicine
being secretive about the use of medication
taking more medication than is recommended (both in terms of dose and frequency)
attempting to use or share the medication of people you know