My professional history leading to becoming board certified in addiction medicine.
Why have I chosen addiction medicine? Why choose to spend 10 years training in a field in order to help patients with substance use disorders, opioid dependence, methamphetamine addiction? How about gambling, sex, internet addiction? Here are a few stats to ponder. Keep in mind that people suffering from this disease are YOUR family members that have kept it hidden for years, your coworkers your friends. You won’t see it until you are called to their funerals!
–ABOUT 40,000 DEAD BODIES/ YEAR
Who are these 40,000 dead bodies? Pretty normal people, mothers fathers brothers sisters. Normal people in your life that started taking pain killers for some ankle sprain and then continued taking them because they helped their depression.
–20,000 dead bodies from pain killers (the percocet you get from your doctor) another 20,000 from heroin and other illicit narcotics.
-Of the 20.5 million Americans 12 or older that had a substance use disorder in 2015, 2 million had a substance use disorder involving prescription pain relievers and 591,000 had a substance use disorder involving heroin
-If you try Heroin there is a 23% chance you will become addicted.
-Most folks that get addicted to pain killers switch over to heroin because its cheaper!!!.
-Heroin deaths have tripled over the past few years
-Women are more likely to die from overdose of narcotic pain medications than men