Pill-popping, unhealthy lifestyle not the answer to dealing with stress

Abuse of prescription drugs or prescriptions taken in error such as narcotics like oxycodone are part of the growing number of deaths. Changing attitudes about painkillers has lead to multiple prescriptions taken at once. Sleeping pills, anxiety drugs and a multitude of others play a significant role in the increase.

By MICK SEVERIN
The Trucker News Services

8/20/2008

Deaths from taking or mixing the wrong medications at home increased from around 1,130 deaths in 1983 to more than 12,000 in 2004. So over the past two decades the people who have died from medication mistakes has increased over seven fold.

These findings were based on 50 million U.S. death certificates and were published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Of the 50 million deaths, 224,000 were the result of medication errors such as mixing medications with other meds and/or alcohol and overdoses.

The greatest increase in these deaths was with mixing of alcohol or so-called “street” drugs with medications. You may be thinking “those stupid kids,” but the numbers were the largest in the “baby boomer” category, ages 40 to 60.

Most medical professionals agree that we are overmedicated and yet a lot of medical professionals are writing these prescriptions. As one doctor put it, “We are sort of drug happy; we have this general attitude that drugs can fix everything.”

Dr. Jeffery Jentzen, director of autopsies at the University of Michigan, stated that more autopsies are beginning to include toxicology tests than they were 25 years ago and they are seeing a real increase in “mixed drug” overdoses.

According to the study not only are a lot more of us dying from these potent drugs, we are sharing the danger. The study pointed out that 23 percent of people say they have given their medications to someone else and over 27 percent say they have taken someone else’s prescription medications.

There are differing opinions on the causes of the increase of medication deaths. These include lack of information and education from the physician and the pharmacist to the patient; increased mixing of prescriptions and painkillers; and/or being naive to their extreme potency.

We have also seen drugs, over the years that have become commonly prescribed and approved of by the FDA, only to be pulled from the market because recent findings show they are a very high risk for death or health complications.

The moral of the story is that you need to be very aware of the potency, contraindications, risks and then the benefits of every medication you ingest.

We, as a society, have become pill poppers. I remember when that phrase pertained to certain individuals in the ’60s and ’70s who were taking pills like they were M&M’s.

My own observations as to why we are a “drugged” society are the same observations as to why we are an obese, diabetic society.

We are an obese, diabetic, chronically ill, over-medicated and drug dependent society because we are “stressed” to the max. We try to find our own “out” by foods, unhealthy practices and drugs.

We all need to take a “time out,” sit on a park bench and be realistic about “the Master we serve.”

In my line of work I have the opportunity to see very healthy people, people who are very ill with disease and individuals who just choose not to be healthy.

It seems to me the person who strives to be healthy is the master of his own destiny with God’s help. The diseased individual asks God in His infinite mercy to be the Master, but the one who chooses to lead an unhealthy life … I can’t say I’m sure who the master is.

God Bless you and yours, Mick.