News headlines across the country announce that heroin addiction is growing and causing a wave of tragic overdoses. Law enforcement has struggled to control the heroin crisis. Families wonder how heroin addiction starts after being robbed of friends or family.
How did all of this trouble get started, and how do people get into this dangerous drug? There are many factors that lead to heroin addiction. Recently, experts have identified a number of trends.
Learn about recovery from heroin abuse at the heroin detox center in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
Prescription Drugs: a Gateway to Heroin Abuse
Even if you have never done heroin, you are probably aware of the drug’s reputation as being a dangerous and extremely addictive drug. Images of people injecting the drug can be stomach-churning. Why would anyone ever experiment with this horrible drug?
How heroin addiction starts is innocent enough. In fact, most people don’t start with heroin. They usually start with a gateway drug legally prescribed by their doctor. They are initiated into the world of opiates with something completely legal: prescription painkillers.
Whether they have prescriptions from their doctors, or whether they buy them on the black market, the majority of heroin abusers first become addicted to pain pills. And it’s a steady downward path from there.
Prescription Opiates: Not Safe After All
Prescription pills are the number one source of heroin addiction. Common prescription opiates include:
- Vicodin
- OxyContin
- Percocet
- Percodan
- Lortab
These drugs are in the same chemical family (known as opiates) as heroin and cause similar effects. However, prescription pills are much more expensive than heroin per dose. Once users develop addictions to the prescription versions, the need to use is stronger than the repulsion of heroin.
A person will continue abusing prescription painkillers until they are cut off by their doctor. If they can’t find a way to get more from a different doctor or other means, they find another way to feed their opiate addiction. Once a person exhausts all ways to get prescription pills, they turn to heroin.
The abuse of heroin is no longer limited to one demographic or region. People from all over the country and from every different background are becoming hooked on the drug. However, teens and young people have been hit especially hard in recent years.
Who’s to Blame for How Heroin Addiction Starts
Some have blamed pharmaceutical companies for flooding the country with the pills that eventually led users to heroin. Others have blamed the government for only fighting prescription pill abuse, and not setting up a system to fight heroin abuse.
However, while the finger-pointing continues regarding who is to blame for the crisis, the solution to addiction in any individual’s life remains clear. Professional opioid addiction treatment in Florida is the best way to keep you or your loved one safe from a heroin overdose.
Heroin Addiction Treatment
Serenity House Detox & Recovery provides shelter from the dangerous world of addiction. Contact us to get drugs and alcohol out of your system in a healthy way so that you can go on to have a successful recovery.
Multiple locations provide the following detox options from any substance:
- Inpatient drug detox in Jupiter
- Partial hospitalization
- Men’s and women’s detox program in FL
- Addiction counseling
- Chronic relapse treatment in FL
Knowing how heroin addiction starts, don’t continue to put yourself in danger. Call Serenity House Detox & Recovery at 866.294.5306 for treatment options and to learn about insurance coverage today.