Drug misuse and substance abuse disorders affect millions of people every year and the negative affects that addiction causes is a reduced quality of life, increasing motor vehicle crashes, crimes, injuries, impaired health, and far too many deaths.
However, drug addiction is misunderstood and view addicts as bad people making bad choices and that they should be able to just stop anytime and it will be okay when this is not the case at all.
Many addicts that have experienced this disease, will tell you that majority of the time, it started from a prescription from the doctor and they were hooked. These "bad people" are your loved ones, Lawyers, Doctors, Teachers, etc.
DRUG ADDICTION DOES NOT DISCRIMMATE and it isn't prejudice, It CAN and it WILL affect any person and it can happen to you. We must stop this stigma of drug addictions being a choice by lowlife bad people because most people that struggle with this disease are normal people, like myself. A straight A student in college, a sister, daughter, friend, athlete, honors student and it happened to me.
This is a BAD DISEASE and we must be open-minded and willing to understand the problem at hand because unless you have been through or seen someone close to you experience this, you have no idea what it's like. Don't wait to find out because now more then ever before, drug addiction is one of the leading causes in deaths in Americans and if we don't educate, provide resources, and prevention programs this problem will only get worse.
These changes represent new opportunities to create policies and practices that are more evidence-informed to address health and social problems related to substance misuse.
Policy changes, particularly at the state level, are needed to better integrate care for substance use disorders with the rest of health care. States have substantial power to shape the nature of care within these programs.
Is substance abuse disorder a healthcare issue?
On one side, people believe addiction is an uncontrollable illness that requires medical treatment.
These disorders involve impaired control over substance use that results from disruption of specific brain circuits.
Expanding access to effective, evidence-based treatments for those with addiction and also less severe substance" use disorders is critical, but broader prevention programs and policies are also essential to reduce substance misuse and the pervasive health and social problems caused by it.
Although they cannot address the chronic, severe impairments common among individuals with substance use disorders, education, regular monitoring, and even modest legal sanctions may significantly reduce substance misuse in the wider population.
On the other side, people believe addiction is a result of poor choices – and those choices have created a state of dependency that could be easily broken. The people in opposition, do not think that drug addiction is a disease and do not think that it should be treated as a healthcare issue.
They believe that it is bad people making bad decisions and that the government shouldn't help fund prevention programs because people with addictions should be able to just "stop using" and be fine... until its them or someone they love that becomes addicted.
WE CAN AND DO RECOVER.
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If you need resources for help if you believe that you or a loved
one is addicted to drugs or alcohol-
PLEASE REACH OUT TO THIS NUMBER, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Sacks, J. J., Gonzales, K. R., Bouchery, E. E., Tomedi, L. E., & Brewer, R. D. (2015). 2010 national and state costs of excessive alcohol consumption. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 49(5), e73-e79.