The Lure of Prescription Drugs

Humans act. Unless they’re psycho, they act to increase their pleasure or reduce their pain. Their body..your body…will try to make adjustments to support the way you act.

We generally seem to be much more motivated to remove pain than to seek pleasure. To remove that pain, we have lots of different strategies. Either we can meet the problem head on and try to fix it. Or we can try another coping mechanism:

• Ignore the problem

• Scroll on our phones

• Turn to alcohol

• Turn to illicit drugs

• Eat way too much

• Gamble

• Pray

Many of these coping mechanisms have consequences. We know that. Drugs, gambling and alcohol can be highly addictive. And destructive.

Don’t get me started on food or phone scrolling.

I purposely left one very important coping mechanism off this list - prescription drugs. Nobody really talks about the consequences of prescription drugs.

Got a problem? We have a pill for that. These drugs are made by experts, tested by another set of experts, and prescribed by experts.

What could possibly go wrong? Having all those experts on your team almost guarantees a resolution of your problem. Right?

Not so much.

The truth is, prescription drugs are just another coping strategy like everything else. They numb the pain. They don’t really fix your problem. Sort of like the list of other coping mechanisms above.

The difference is that we’ve been led to believe that there are no consequences to prescription drugs.

Doing heroine or cocaine is evil.

Prescription drugs are the right thing to do.

You’re being responsible by taking them. Especially if you have a contagious condition. Then prescription drugs or vaccines (also prescription drugs) are not only helping you. They’re helping others as well.

And just like the other coping mechanisms, if they’re not working, it must mean you need a higher dose.

Alcohol not helping you handle problems with work, family etc? Addicts think the solution is to drink more. Oh but you’re a bad or weak person for turning to alcohol.

Prescription drug not working? Take a higher dose. Or increase to two or three times a day. However, this time an expert told you to make the adjustment. So you’re just sick and need help. Bless you.

The truth is our bodies are made for homeostasis. That’s the scientific term for when your body’s out of whack, it tries to put you back into whack. It’s an amazing machine.

Prescription drugs and those other coping mechanisms actively put your body out of whack. They increase or decrease certain substances in your body to compensate for the unusual condition.

In many cases, you just need to give your body the fuel (diet, exercise, rest etc) to be able to do move back to homeostasis.

We’ll always need coping mechanisms. You may need prescription drugs. I’m guilty of using coping mechanisms as well. However, you should recognize ALL of them -whether from experts or not, and treat them all the same.

Use them as little as possible. When you do use them recognize it. And try some natural strategies to wean yourself off the coping mechanism as soon as possible. Don’t let the ‘expert’ narrative get to you.