Slow down America, you’re moving too fast. For many its the lure of making big bucks in a capitalist society and disregarding the harm being done to our minds and bodies. The need to succeed is greater than worrying about receiving another blow to the head. Concussions are just part of the game, right?
Well there is a dark side to success
Painkillers are driving more and more Americans to suicide, about 50,000 a year according to an article in The Guardian.
Its not only former NFL players with injuries so severe they have to swallow two dozen pills in order to get out of bed each morning, and repeat the cycle at night so they may gain a few hours of shuteye.
Opiates like OxyContin, Vercocet and vicodin are well known painkiller drugs prescribed by doctors, but are regularly abused by lawyers, doctors and wall street finance bigwigs just to name a few fields of offenders. Please don’t forget homemakers, they too are regular riders on the bandwagon.
The pain has nothing to do with bodily injury
Young people between the ages of 18-25 are the biggest abusers of prescription drugs, including anti-anxiety heavyweights like valium, xanax and klonopin. In order to get a prescription just tell your primary care you’re having problems sleeping and you need something extra to settle your nerves. Who needs Anacin and Bayer when you can have the best. Remember, this is the good ole USA. Don’t settle for nothing less than the best. The hell with shutting down the tv in order to walk around the block, or your apartment complex for thirty minutes, which may induce fatigue and promote healthy sleep habits.
And if your anti-anxiety medication is not knocking you off your feet, hey doc, i’ve been feeling a little depressed lately, it may have something to do with all that pollen in the air. Go ahead and write me up for some Zoloft, Prozac and don’t forget about effexor, and away goes depression down the drain.
For many Americans this is easily achievable.
Sounds a bit far-fetched? Not at all. It’s all LEGAL and it’s happening across America every day. In most cases the pain is in the mind and not the body. What i mean by that is the abusers are not football or softball players nor hardcore construction workers, who are accustomed to heavy lifting and contact sports.
They are average Americans trying to stay above water and earn a few extra bucks in order to keep the lights on, or if an emergency pops up, they don’t end up living on the streets. You see them everyday, bank tellers who can’t cope with the added pressure of not opening enough money market and saving accounts. As if she doesn’t have enough problems at home being a single mother raising a couple of kids alone. Or the husband and father working two jobs, dashing from one end of the city to the other with barely enough gas money, knowing both jobs are without health coverage and both paychecks are not enough to support his family.
When all hell is about to break loose and you can’t keep the pace in this marathon rat race, you look for some relief to soften the fall. In many cases the next step is heroin and prescription drug addiction.
According to drugabuse.gov, a property of opioid drugs is a tendency to induce tolerance. This occurs when the person no longer responds to the drug as strongly as he or she did at first, culminating in a higher dose to get the same effect. This leads to a higher risk of overdosing.
When prescription drugs have run its course and the users are immune to its intended effects, the next step is illegal drug and that’s where heroin steps up to the plate. Heroin is one of the most familiar, addictive and lethal drugs in the world. And it may be ingested from smoking, snorting or shooting up. Recently there has been an upsurge in deaths from heroin overdose.
One way to slow this fast pace society down is to create better paying jobs and provide medicare coverage for every citizen. This in turn will eleviate many of the social problems hampering our society and will be a boost to our economy.
hubiejones.com 
I concur.
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