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NEWS RELEASE
INCREASING NUMBERS OF PATIENTS ARE CHECKING INTO A BETTER TOMORROW WITH ADDICTIONS TO PRESCRIPTION PAINKILLERS, INCLUDING VICODIN, LORTAB, LORCET AND PERCOCET
The local incidence is prescription painkiller abuse reflects national trends
Nearly 15 million people, or 6.1 percent of Americans, took prescription drugs for non-medical purposes in 2004, according to a national study by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
MURRIETA, Calif., Feb. 8, 2007 – When Jerrod Menz co-founded A Better Tomorrow two years ago, he figured the clinic would focus primarily on providing treatment for people suffering from addiction to alcohol and illegal drugs.
But while the majority of his patients do fall into these categories, there is another type of addiction Menz and his staff are seeing with increasing frequency – patients with addictions to legal medications prescribed by their doctors.
A Better Tomorrow is not alone in this regard. According to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 6.1 percent of Americans took prescription drugs for non-medical purposes in 2004, with radio talkshow host Rush Limbaugh and the late Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist being among the better-known individuals suffering from this type of addiction.
“We had one patient who was involved in a car accident,” Menz explained. “She complained of back pain and her doctor started her on vicodin. But she subsequently became addicted to vicodin and had to go through a detox and recovery program to wean herself off this medication and move on with her life.”
Menz, in fact, says that A Better Tomorrow is seeing so many patients with addictions prescription painkillers prescribed by their doctors that the company has hired a specialist in pain medications to help these people through the recovery process.
The specialist, Jim Fent, a physical therapist with 20 years of experience, says the growing incidence of addiction to pain medications is fueled on two fronts. On the one hand, the medical community is taking pain more seriously than it has in the past. In fact, incidence of pain is now being recorded as a vital sign, along with temperature and blood pressure, when a patient checks into a hospital.
On the other hand, doctors have no idea of knowing which patients face the highest risk of becoming addicted to prescription painkillers, particularly vicodin, lortab, lorcet, norco and percocet.
“Americans are obsessed with tests,” Fent said. “But at this point in time, there is no test to find out if you’re going to be an addict. The problem, of course, is that once they become addicted you now have to treat the addiction as well as the original problem that caused the pain in the first place.”
Fent said the problem is difficult to unravel. Physicians can be sued for failing to adequately manage their patients’ pain. But there is no commonly recognized threshold for addiction. Some people, in fact, can take prescription painkillers for a long time and never become addicted to them. Others, however, can become addicted after only a few weeks.
Fent added that the patients themselves often do not realize that they are becoming addicted to their medications. “If you have become addicted or dependent on the drug, as you stop taking it, you can experience withdrawal symptoms, which can include everything from body aches to nausea,” he said. “So people think they have to start taking their pills again to treat continuing pain when in reality they’ve actually developed a dependency on the medication.”
Fent said it’s also common for prescription painkiller addicts to deny the fact that they’re abusing these medications. “Most of them say, ‘I’m not an addict. I’m not buying illegal drugs. I’m just following my doctor’s program,’” he said.
But Menz said many of these addicts are finding their way into treatment programs, either as a result of intervention by their families or when they finally realize that they’re no longer taking these medications as initially prescribed. “They know they’re addicted,” Menz said, “when their prescription runs out and they find themselves trying to purchase these medications on the Internet or by trying to purchase them in Mexico.”
A Better Tomorrow provides treatment for individuals suffering from drug, alcohol and gambling addictions. The Murrieta-based clinic is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), placing it in the top 5 percent of drug and alcohol treatment clinics in California. For more information about A Better Tomorrow or to arrange interviews with professional staffers and consenting patients, please contact Jerrod Menz at (800) 757-9867. Additional information is available on the company’s websites at www.abttc.com.
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