Is Someone You Know Abusing Their Medication?

Home and personal use of prescription medication is now a matter of public health concern. The abuse and mismanagement of prescription dosages and pharmaceutical instructions is becoming a widespread but unhappy fact of life. Do you know someone who is depressed? Depression is treated and caused by excess of prescription medications. You may not consider yourself your brother's keeper, but in case of an emergency you'll wish you had stepped forward.

Recent celebrity deaths, accidental overdoses, and bizarre pharmaceutical and drug-related events in the news should be a wake up call. Look around and pinpoint the concerns of individuals managing their own prescription medication and multiple prescription dosages at home. Listen to the comments and remarks of someone you know using prescription medications. See what danger signs are present. Is there a safety net for their prescription medicine use?

As seen in the news, depressed people are not the best administrators of their own prescription medication. The personal reorganization of how they take their prescriptions may have become an habit. Obtaining, abusing, or forging prescriptions under false pretenses is a crime. But depressed people are not clear about what they are doing. Small observations could mean huge indications of prescription medication abuse through error, neglect, forgetfulness or sheer carelessness. Watch for the signs. Depression can be a deadly disease when paired with private access to prescriptions of varying medicinal use.

If you see or hear some of the following signs of medical use or abuse of prescriptions, do something. I you have cause for concern about a prescription medication use, consider whether it might be appropriate to direct the incident to a physician, website, bulletin board, or phone assistance line for help. Get yourself and them information about prescription drugs and clinical depression. Drop an anonymous flier in their mailbox or give their phone number to a help or support group. Be advised you may be dealing with a clinically depressed person.

1. Mixing Medications

The abuse and mismanagement of prescription dosages and pharmaceutical instructions is becoming a widespread but unhappy fact of life.

Credit: Boštjan Traven

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