OxyContin: Why It’s So Addictive and How to Get Help

oxycontin addiction

No individual wants to live with pain, especially if that pain is severe enough to interrupt their ability to live life normally. Ideally, the individual would be able to address the underlying source of their pain and fully resolve it, but in some cases, an individual is suffering from pain for a reason that cannot be so easily handled. This could be true where an individual is recovering from a major surgery or injury, and would actually be better able to heal fully if they could experience enough pain relief to rest fully. And so they may turn to their doctor for help.

There may be few things more upsetting than turning to a trusted medical professional for help with moderate to severe and chronic pain only to be given a solution that is much worse: an addictive drug substance. Unfortunately, that is precisely what many individuals discover has happened when they are prescribed OxyContin, a highly addictive narcotic painkiller, and currently the most frequently prescribed painkiller in the country.

How Addictive is OxyContin

OxyContin is viewed by many health professionals and addiction specialists as just as addictive as heroin, which is understandable since both drugs are opium derivatives and opium is widely considered to be one of, if not the most potent and addictive drug substances currently in existence. OxyContin pills are time-release versions of oxycodone, which is the main active ingredient in other pain relievers such as Percodan and Percocet. OxyContin was designed, with its time-release mechanism, as a way to help individuals manage their moderate to severe and chronic pain for several hours without having to take pills continuously. However, individuals who are driven to OxyContin abuse due to the tolerance and cravings created by the use of this drug have discovered that crushing the pills destroys the time-release mechanism, allowing for a better opiate high. This is especially true if the individual injects or snorts the powder, and thereby experiences an intense euphoric high that is not too different from the high produced by heroin. In fact, it is not unusual for individuals who fall into the trap of OxyContin addiction to switch over to heroin use, largely because heroin is often easier and less expensive to obtain.

Getting Help

As is the case with other opiate narcotic painkillers, OxyContin tolerance and addiction can occur even when the individual takes this drug exactly the way they have been instructed to by a trusted medical professional. Getting help begins with recognizing the symptoms of OxyContin addiction, which include:

  • Cravings for the drug
  • Anxiety
  • Confusion
  • Fatigue
  • Weakness
  • Dizziness
  • Apathy
  • Nausea
  • Vomiting
  • Depressed respiration

An individual who is suffering from OxyContin addiction should never try to come off this drug on their own and without medical supervision or the help of a trained addiction specialist. Like other opiate drugs, OxyContin causes severe withdrawal symptoms, including insomnia, tremors, anxiety, restlessness, aching muscles, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, nausea, chills, elevated blood pressure, increased heart rate, seizures and convulsions.

In fact, even those individuals who are desperate to be free from opiate use will often find withdrawal symptoms to be severe and unpleasant enough to drive them back into opiate use. Fortunately, an individual who is suffering from OxyContin addiction can successfully take back their life from this substance when they address and resolve all of the physical, mental, and emotional causes and effects of OxyContin use. This requires a full drug rehabilitation treatment program, and it is highly recommended for the individual to participate in a residential program that will remove them from the pressures and patterns of their normal living environments.

For information about how to come off OxyContin safely and as comfortably as possible and start on the road to full recovery, contact Narconon Arrowhead today at (877) 508-8151.

AUTHOR

Erica

NARCONON ARROWHEAD

DRUG EDUCATION AND REHABILITATION