Meet Karen…she is stay at home mom of three young children. On the way home from the gym one morning Karen got in a terrible car accident. She thanks God everyday her children were not present. She sustained a few injuries, one being her shoulder.
Karen sought medical assistance to help her deal with the pain of her shoulder and her busy life with her children. The doctor prescribed her Percocet. Karen did not realize that a medication prescribed by a medical professional could become addictive. She did not know this medication was an opioid. She didn’t know opioids were a legal pill form of heroine.
The medication helped with the pain and also seemed to help ease the stress of raising 3 children all with busy schedules. Karen started taking more medication than was prescribed to her and found her self buying it illegally through a friend. She began depleting her family bank accounts. Her kids would dump her pills down the toilet and she would go into a rage. The fam-ily unit was struggling right along with her addiction.
With the support and encouragement of her family she got into a Medically Assisted Treatment program and remains sober still. Opioid addiction is a disease. Let’s start treating it like one.
