The Effects of Pain Pill Addiction
What's In This Article?
Prescription pain pills, heroin, and synthetics. Opioids come in many forms with many avenues of availability. Some are far worse than others but they’re all very addictive and they’re often just as deadly as they are addictive when misused and abused. Whether it’s someone with a history of substance abuse or a first timer, opioid addiction gets everyone the same way. Pain pill addiction can be devastating or deadly.
Since opioid addiction doesn’t discriminate against race, nationality, or social class, everyone is at risk of falling victim to its grappling effects. A few well-known cases of pain pill addiction and abuse have been well documented and made headlines dozens of times in the case of famous people.
This usually happens when they die by overdose. But there are a few celebrities who struggled with pain pill addiction who might not have gotten breaking news media coverage.
1 – Rush Limbaugh
Radio personality and political commentator Rush Limbaugh has previously battled pain pill addiction in the form of oxycodone and hydrocodone. In October of 2003 Limbaugh was under criminal investigation of illegally obtaining the aforementioned opioid painkillers.
In that same month of that same year, Limbaugh went live on his radio show and admitted he was in fact addicted to opioids.
Following that testimony Limbaugh stated that he would go into inpatient treatment for 30 days. Limbaugh claims that his addiction started when he was prescribed opioid painkillers to aid with his severe back pain which was worsened by botched surgery on his back. After a legally imposed therapy regiment in 2009, Limbaugh has been clean of drug charges and usage.
2 – The Weeknd
Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, during his teen years had a rampant drug addiction. It’s hard to nail down an exact runtime of his drug addiction but it’s been stated that he started smoking marijuana at the age of 11.
And as he got older he moved onto to harder drugs, including oxycodone, a well known and highly addictive opioid. The Weeknd claimed that the drugs and pain pill addiction were a crutch that he learned on to help with the creative element of his music.
3 – Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis, also known as “The Scream Queen”, is an actress who needs no real introduction. She very rapidly achieved claim and prestige in the film industry starting with her very first role in John Carpenter’s legendary *Halloween*. Having a 40-year career span, and counting, Curtis has been in the public eye for a very long time putting a great deal of her personal life out.
But what many people may not know is that the actress was previously had a pain pill addiction. On top of the opioid addiction, she was also an alcoholic. She has been in recovery from both for over 19 years after going sober in 1999. She often makes the claim that despite all of her success, beating her addiction to opioids is so far her greatest achievement.
4 – Macklemore
One of the most controversial and fastest growing Hip-Hop artist to surface in the past few years, Macklemore has been extremely open about his previous pain pill addiction to the drugs OxyContin and Percocet. There’s a documentary in which he discusses it, he’s open about it in interviews and even went so far as to take to the music studio and record a song titled “Drug Dealer” about his experiences.
In August of 2008, he admitted himself into rehab for opioid addiction and alcoholism. Sadly, after three years of being sober, he relapsed in 2011, details of which he included in his song titled “Starting Over”. He has been winning his battle since then and in 2016 he appeared on President Barack Obama’s weekly address to share his story and talk about the dangers of opioid addiction.
On September 29th, 2018, Macklemore headlined for the Recovery Fest concert which takes place in Rhode-Island. Recovery Fest is a drug and alcohol-free charity concert that raises money and brings awareness to opioid addiction.
In Conclusion
There’s still a lot of unknown information and misinformation about substance abuse causes and there’s an equal amount of social stigma in how we treat substance abusers and more specifically, pain pill addiction.
Looking back and really taking the opioid epidemic for what it is, it can be looked at from the perspective that’s there’s something underlyingly wrong collectively that leads so many individuals down a path of addiction.
Statistically speaking opioid addiction and substance abuse in general touches far too many demographics to be nailed down to classifying and predicting an “addict”. All of our brains are primarily built the same.
What is good for me is also good for you and that same rule applies to what is bad. Instead of seeking out individuals who struggle with opioid addiction to condemn, maybe we should seek them out in the hopes that we can help.