Painkillers: 7 Warning Signs of Addiction
3. You’re “doctor shopping.”
Do you go to more than one doctor for the same prescription?
Once you stop working with your doctor and try to find someone else who will write you another prescription, something may have shifted.
Your goal may be to boost your supply of painkillers so you have as much as you need. But if it’s not in line with what your doctor ordered, that's reason for concern.
Do you seek out doctors who are known for overprescribing, or “pill mills”? Have you lied and said you lost your prescription? “If we are telling different doctors different things to get medication, that’s a real red flag,” Schrank says.
4. You get painkillers from other sources.
You feel like you don’t have enough medication to ease your pain, so you try to get more. These ways of stocking up signal the possibility of addiction:
- Ordering drugs over the Internet.
- Stealing other people’s leftover or long-forgotten prescription drugs from their medicine cabinets.
- Stealing drugs from a sick relative.
- Buying other people’s prescription drugs.
- Stealing prescription pads from doctor’s offices and illegally writing your own prescriptions.
- Hurting yourself so you can go to a hospital emergency room and get a new prescription.
- Buying drugs on the street.
5. You’ve been using painkillers for a long time.
You probably started taking pain medication because something hurt. If you’re still using narcotic painkillers long after the pain should have gone away, Schrank says it may be time to ask for help.
Maybe you’re taking them because you like the way they make you feel, instead of to relieve pain. Or maybe you’ve started to have physical cravings. Both are signs of an issue.
“Pain medication is intended to bridge a gap or get you through a rough patch,” Schrank says. “It’s not really meant to be a way to maintain or manage chronic pain.”
6. You feel angry if someone talks to you about it.
Have your friends or family tried to talk to you about how you’re using your medication? If you feel defensive or irritated when they approach you, you may be getting in too deep, Schrank says.