Substance Abuse Case Study Essay

In case study 3 a 35-year-old female is struggling with her substance addiction to prescription pain medication. Her family is concern she has had a relapse from a previous addiction four years ago in which she received treatment at a residential center for 30 days. The patient felt she was better after the 30 day stay and did not need to attend any type of continuous treatment that was recommended to her, nor did her family attend meetings. Pressure from life, family, and work has lead Katie to turn to prescription drugs once again. Katie is now in need of an intervention and to determine what is the next step in helping Katie get better. Prescription drug abuse and addiction such as in case study 3 has been on the rise since 2007. Women in particular have been dying at a higher rate then men since 2007, due to overdosing from prescription painkillers. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in 2010 “more than 6,600 women died from a prescription painkiller overdose, this is about 18 women a day” (CDC, 2013). Emergency departments also in that same year saw over 200,000 visits from women who were abusing painkillers. Although men are also affected by prescription drug abuse and addiction the number of women are much …show more content…
The cost of health care of substance abuse is high. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA], “many of America 's top medical problems can be directly linked to drug abuse” (NIDA, n.d.). For example, cancer, heart disease, and HIV/AIDS. There is also the financial impact it has on companies who have employees that miss work, or end up getting fire due to their abuse of drugs. There is also a great cost on communities due to the crimes and accidents that can happen when drug abuse is present. In Katie’s case there is fear of job loss which could lead to homelessness as