• When your doctor prescribes drugs for your condition, follow your prescription to the letter – don’t stop short of the prescribed period or take the drugs for a longer period of time. If you feel your condition has not improved, talk to your doctor again and ask for their opinion.
• Don’t use drugs left over from someone else’s prescriptions; if you take the wrong kind of medication, you could fall seriously ill and even die; or if you swallow painkillers you find when you’re in the smallest amount of pain, you could end up becoming addicted to them.
• Remember that when you take drugs without a prescription and combine them with alcohol or other prescription medicine, you could suffer adverse reactions that could affect your health in the short and long term and also cause complications and bring about chronic conditions.
• OTC drugs may be available without a prescription, but that does not automatically make them safe. So no matter how good cough syrups and other OTC drugs make you feel, no matter how relaxing they may seem to be, don’t waste your money on these drugs. Prolonged usage not only makes you dependent on them, it also wreaks havoc on your health and wellbeing.
• An increasing addiction to prescription drugs is the first step to serious drug addiction; sooner or later, the highs you receive from cough syrups and painkillers is not going be enough and you’re going to gravitate to harder stuff. This leads to further complications and before you realize it, you’re a full-blown addict.

The first sign of addiction is denial; so if you find yourself reassuring yourself that you’re not an addict and that you can stop anytime, it’s time to seek help and start getting out of the rut before you dig yourself into too deep a hole.

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Paul Hench, he writes on the topic of masters in public health . He welcomes your comments at his email id: paul.23hench[@]gmail[.]com.

We decided to buy a small house on a large lot together and ‘flip’ it in 12-15 months to a developer after I had obtained the permits. As she was younger than I, we took the mortgage out in her name.

We did this for speed of application, as we wished to pursue our ‘plans’ as quickly as possible. After all , we were only going to be living there a relatively short time.

Within 9-months of moving in she became ill with clinical depression and was placed on anti-depressives, which as time went on became increasingly stronger. She then began to drink alcohol in secret and her resulting behavior patterns started to create all sorts of problems in our previously fantastic relationship.

I had to suspend applying for the Planning permits because it became apparent that her health was not going to be able to deal with any move from, or sale of, our property. As the years rolled on she became worse, she left her job on sick-leave. I started to care for her on an almost 24/7 basis, which nearly destroyed my own working life.

She was still taking anti-depressants , sleeping tablets, tranquillizers and having clandestine alcohol binges at fairly regular intervals. I tried to stop her drinking, she promised to stop drinking but the binges still occurred until they were at just 10 day intervals.

We used a few Librium based detox programs but after each one she went back to alcohol abuse within a short time. She had started collapsing in the street whilst out walking and was admitted to A&E by paramedics-medics as a result many times.

Then, one evening, as it became apparent that she’d begun another binge, she suddenly collapsed at home. She died three days later in Intensive Care of a cerebral aneurysm (stroke) aged just 49.

I immediately realized she had not made a will, but did not know that owing to her condition she had omitted to renew the ‘death’ cover on the mortgage insurance for our home, Or complete the nomination for myself under her own death insurance. As a result,at age 61 I lost everything.

I loved her very much, and she loved me perhaps even more, but in the face of the terrible combination of alcohol and prescribed drugs our once wonderful lives, with a great future, were plunged into a tragic conclusion that I never expected, or had any warning of.

If you are the partner/relative of anyone who is suffering a similar condition, always make sure that your own position within your relationship, as to important matters of finance and legalities is taken care of. Only in that way can you can face up to their difficult day-to-day existence and perhaps unexpected developments, with some element of security and safeguard. Don’t end up like myself.

- All-Alone