What To Do If A Loved One Is Abusing Prescription Drugs?

Abusing prescription drugs means taking medications recommended by a doctor or other healthcare provider, not as the professional intended. Establishing if a loved one is misusing prescription drugs can be challenging. This is because they’re legal, and you might only notice the medications providing the intended benefits.

Some commonly abused prescription drugs are opioids for pain relief. Others are hypnotics, sedatives, and anti-anxiety medicines for treating sleeping and anxiety disorders. Many people abuse stimulants prescribed to people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or to those who need to increase alertness, energy, or mood.

Monitoring your loved one will help you identify signs of prescription drug abuse. Some things to watch out for are suspicious behaviors such as claiming to lose their medications severally. Others are seeing multiple healthcare providers for the same concern, being extra energetic, having money problems, stealing, drowsiness, or experiencing difficulties at work. If you suspect that your loved one is struggling with prescription drug abuse in West Covina, it’s important to seek professional help from a reputable rehab West Covina center. These facilities offer personalized treatment plans, including detoxification, counseling, and aftercare support to help individuals overcome addiction and achieve long-term recovery.

If you’ve noticed any of these issues with a loved one, it’s time to step in and help them before abuse of these drugs becomes an addiction. Below are some things you should do:

1. Address The Issue

First, you shouldn’t ignore the prescription drug misuse issue, hoping your loved one will change soon. Instead, you must address your concerns to your loved one. This is an effective first step to prevent misuse from becoming an addiction.

Find a quiet and private place to meet. Mention the suspicious behaviors you’ve noticed recently and express that you’re worried. Also, notify your loved one that you’re willing and ready to help them. Ask them to make an appointment with their doctor to address the misuse of prescription drugs and accompany them to offer moral support. Moreover, you can suggest going to Cornerstone Healing Center or choosing other treatment options like counseling or joining a support group.

2. Don’t Give Up On Them

After you’ve addressed your concerns to your loved one, accompanied them to their doctor, and suggested treatment options, they might not be responsive. If you don’t see them making progress, be patient but persistent. In most cases, helping someone with a substance abuse problem takes a while.

Rather than giving up on them, provide more support. Push them towards considering treatment. While doing so, avoid shaming or blaming them. This might only increase the urge to use, to numb their insecurities. Instead, approach them with love and concern.

It’s possible not to see any progress despite taking the steps above. If so, you can stage an intervention. In this case, you, family members, and friends plan a gathering to confront your loved one about their prescription drug abuse problem. Additionally, you convince them of the importance of seeking treatment.

You can have an expert with you at the meeting. This can be a doctor, licensed counselor, or religious leader. These professionals are vital if you and others in the intervention find it challenging to get through to the loved one you’re trying to help.

3. Avoid Enabling Behaviors

It’s essential to encourage recovery throughout your loved one’s journey. Therefore, ensure you don’t enable them in any way. This means you shouldn’t give them money to buy drugs, lie to other people to cover up their behavior or make excuses for them.

Regardless of your love for them, you may do more harm by enabling them. You’ll offer a temporary fix but make it hard for your loved one to overcome abuse. Rather than doing so, stress the importance of treatment, learn to say no, don’t reward bad habits, and support the recovery efforts your loved one is making.

4. Keep The Temptation Away

Keeping prescription drugs away from an abuser is a great way to eliminate temptation. Therefore, take over control of your loved one’s medications. This means you should be the one to give them their drugs as prescribed to prevent abuse.

Even so, you should only take this step if you agree with your loved one. If you haven’t, they may look for other ways to access the prescription drugs. Your efforts to help will ultimately be futile.

Besides that, you should safely store other prescription drugs in your home. Ensure they aren’t accessible to your loved one or anyone else who doesn’t need them. If they must take the medications, take control of their dosage. You could talk to your loved one’s doctor to provide an alternative to the opioid, anti-anxiety, sleeping, or other addictive prescription medications they may be taking.

Final Thoughts

Some commonly abused prescription drugs are stimulants, anti-anxiety medications, sedatives, pain relievers, and hypnotics. Establishing if your loved one is abusing prescription drugs can be challenging because these drugs are legal. And you might only notice how the drugs are helping. However, some suspicious habits can tell your loved one is abusing prescription drugs. It may be seeing several doctors for the same condition, claiming to have lost medication, or getting early refills.

If you notice these or other suspicious behaviors from your loved one, this article provides some steps you should take to help them. As advised, you should address these issues, be patient and persistent, avoid enabling habits, and keep temptation away from them. Taking these steps can help prevent addiction right away!