To understand opioid addiction, we must first understand opioids. Opioids can be either naturally derived, also known as opiates, or synthetically synthesized medications prescribed for pain relief. They cause addiction by blocking pain signals by interfering with the Central Nervous System (CNS).
Addiction is relatively uncommon among people prescribed opioids. The percentage of patients who become addicted to opioids after taking them for chronic pain ranges from 1% to 8%. These estimates are typically skewed towards the lower end, especially when removing individuals at risk (due to a history of substance abuse or concurrent mental illness) from the sample.
People who abuse pills are rarely new to drugs. For example, the federal government’s 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health revealed that more than three-fourths of misusers had used non-prescribed benzodiazepines, such as Valium or Xanax, or inhalants. A study of OxyContin users in treatment found that they “were not naive individuals with accidental addictions who were introduced to painkillers by their doctors as reported by the media; instead, they had extensive drug use histories.
