Over-the-counter teen dependency
Rita Kasha
Mesa Legend
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Photo illustration by Casey Ferguson Mesa Legend
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At an early age, teenagers are given prescribed medications and growing up to be dependent on them. This powerful dependency has been taken lighter then it really should, and is affecting higher amounts of people ever year.
Various prescribed drugs have become dependencies for many young teenagers. Teenagers are dealing with drugs for treating Attention Deficit Disorder, depression, and sleeping disorders, which all can turn into drug dependencies.
Teenagers who are dependent on a drug always have to have their pills to get through the day. Sometimes the patient will take more than prescribed and lie about the amount taken. Forgetfulness and mood swings, when off the drug, can also be a sign. The person will often neglect responsibilities because of the medication. Feeling worries and guilt about taking the medication is another sign.
The addiction can become very lethal and fatal if not taken care of. The powerful disease involves a very complex recovery, because of its control over a person. Personal, interpersonal, and lifestyle changes are necessary for the road to recovery. Recovery can be a life long process.
A medically dependent person has no control over what’s going on with their body. One can stop for a period of time but will almost always go back to the drug without treatment.
Denial is part of the package with drug dependencies. A dependent person cannot get help without admitting their problem first.
Lisa Fausk, 21, said, “I knew a boy in high school who took a medication for ADD. He would come to school calm, but almost in a “high” kind of state. When he was off it, he was kind of moody and it was scary. He would complain about forgetting to take his pills. I don’t know too much about the disorder, but it’s something to be taken very seriously.”
Ritalin is a well known medication to treat ADD. But a lot of controversy sits around the pill. ADD is known by some as the “faux disease”. Some psychologists think that the diseases like ADD, ADHD, and depression cannot be treated by medication. Some psychologists see it as psychological and nothing more. And a few believe the pills are to make the ADD patients “down” and the depressed “high”.
Not all people get to experience first hand the powerful dependency like Fausk. Few are exposed to the disorder, and even if a person is around someone who is suffering with the disorder, it is hard to recognize. Unless the person is a close friend or a family member, it is hard to figure out who has the disorder.
Jessica Pastel, 22, said, “I’m not too familiar with the disorder, but I have taken sleeping pills. I wasn’t able to sleep for a while and I would stay up until 5:00 a.m., and it got out of control. I took sleeping pills for most of the summer. Now that I look back, it was pretty bad. But I don’t think I’m dependent on them, honestly.”
But sometimes people like Pastel think a summer full of sleeping pills isn’t a big deal. If stopped, but returned once a year, then the pills are becoming a dependency.
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