Drug and Alcohol Abuse

When does social drinking become alcohol abuse? When does abuse become dependence? When is it time to seek help?

Many people do not know the difference between responsible drinking and abuse, between “taking a little extra” medication and the start of an addiction. It is doubtful if anyone starts out to become addicted to drugs or alcohol, but it is all too easy to cross that invisible line between acceptable use and abuse.

Any time a prescription drug is used for nonmedical purposes it is abuse. Any time someone takes prescription medication in greater doses or for longer than recommended it is abuse. Any time someone crushes a pill and sniffs or injects the resultant powder, it is abuse. And given the highly addictive nature of the type of drugs prone to this abuse, sometimes all it takes to become addicted is two or three such incidents. Sometimes only one.

Binge drinking is alcohol abuse. Taking more than four drinks a day is classed as heavy drinking.  Abuse is accompanied by a lack of responsibility, a careless disregard for warnings, for the responsibilities of work, school, family or daily life, and the sense that “What does it hurt?” But it does hurt, when popping a pill to get through the day makes you miss an important meeting, or stopping by the local bar on the way home makes you miss your child’s school play. That is abuse, even if you are not thinking about pills or booze morning, noon, and night.

When the pills or the bottle become an obsession; when a person cannot avoid reaching for them, or make it through the day without them, that is dependency, and it is all too frequent an occurrence in modern America.

Alcohol is the #1 most abused substance in the United States. It is followed by a pharmacy’s worth of drugs both legal and otherwise, from heroin and cocaine to methamphetamine, marijuana, and such innocent-sounding “aids” as Ambien, Xanax, Oxycontin, and Vicodin. Accidental addiction comes slowly, as the body builds tolerance to the drugs or the alcohol and it takes more and more to gain the desired feeling of relaxation or pleasure. It is a terrible fact about addiction that certain drugs alter the way the brain functions, creating a chemical dependency that goes hand-in-hand with emotional dependency. People who expect victims of drug and alcohol abuse to kick the habit on willpower alone fail to understand this simple, inexorable fact of nature.

Seek help if a loved one keeps finding excuses to renew prescriptions, experiences withdrawal symptoms a few hours or a day after the last drink or the last pill, or shows other signs of alcohol or drug abuse or dependency such as mood swings, secretive behavior, confusion, or unexplained sleepiness. Don’t wait for a mild habit to become a full-blown addiction.