Arlington Heights Healthcare Professionals Facing Their Own Addiction Challenges

Having to deal with a battle with drug addiction may seem extreme, but it’s a common fight for many who work inside hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies.  Though it would seem unlikely that such employees at jobs like that would also be drug addicts, it is actually quite common for this to occur in Arlington Heights and in the Chicago area in general.  Some studies suggest as many as 10% of those in the healthcare field are actually and in fact using drugs or battling some level of addiction, a rate similar to that in other white-collar jobs.  One would think that those who deal with addicts a lot would be less likely to abuse drugs, but in the Chicago area, the opposite is instead that grim yet very, very true case. This is exactly why there is now a drug rehab Arlington Heights available for individuals specifically in the job field of helping others. Since they are the reason that many individuals are alive today, they can sign up at any free drug rehab in Chicago to get the same treatment as anyone else.

What makes doctors and other medical professionals unique and actually more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol than other white collar individuals is in fact their constant, never-ending, every day exposure to drugs and substance for use and for the abuse of them.  This is the sad truth, but it is the truth nonetheless.

Studies show that the biggest problems doctors and nurses have with dealing with addiction and with being around addiction all the time is that they think they can handle it because of their knowledge and experience in the area.  This is not the case though, and it never is.  No matter how intelligent or experienced an Arlington Heights doctor, clinic staff, nurse, addicitonologist, or pharmacist is, he or she is still a human being and will become addicted just as easily as anyone else would.

Addiction in Healthcare

The biggest drug of choice amongst doctors and clinicians and pharmacists is of course prescription drugs.  This is pretty gruesome and severe as, in Arlington Heights specifically, not only are prescription drugs the ones that are abused the most, they are also the ones that cause the most trouble and the biggest addictions by far.

For a look at the deadliest drug of them all that is easily causing the most harm in Arlington Heights, prescription drugs surprisingly enough takes the lead.  Here is a type of drug that is very legal.  It is touted as being safe and beneficial and sometimes lifesaving to the health of those who take them yet more Americans die from prescription drugs than any other drug and in fact all drugs combined.  For example, from the years 2001 to 2013 there was a 2.5-fold increase in the total number of deaths from prescription drugs.  In the year 2010, over twenty-two thousand Americans died from prescription drug overdoses, more than triple the deaths caused from heroin overdoses.  Finally, in the year 2014, more than twenty-five thousand died.  While those are all nationwide statistics, the problem still hits very, very, very close to home in Arlington Heights.

To respond to this, it will be necessary to help those white collar professionals who are addicted as much as is possible.  The best way to do this is by fully utilizing an inpatient, residential, drug and alcohol addiction and dependence treatment center, detox facility, and recovery organization at the drug rehabilitation Arlington Heights.

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