Popping a pill or two on a daily basis can end up leading down a slippery slope, writes Andrea Smith.
I preferred the soluble kind; they would effervesce and quickly give me a safe, fizzy feeling
Centre stage: Stefanie Preissner author and star of the play, 'Solpadeine Is My Boyfriend', has confronted her problems with the painkiller and dramatised them in her successful one-woman showWHEN she told me that lots of her work colleagues take antihistamines at night to help them sleep, my friend didn't bat an eyelid. And why would she, when she takes them too? Another woman I know pops tablets designed to relieve pain on a daily basis. There's nothing physically wrong with her, but they keep her calm when the stresses of juggling her part-time job in sales and three children threaten to overwhelm her.
They're just OTC medications, so no harm, these people reason – it's not like they're shooting up in the street, or buying regular lines of cocaine, is it? Wrong!
Every year in Ireland, a surprising number of people are admitted to hospital for OTC opiate addiction, and despite efforts to create awareness in recent years, it remains one of society's hidden little secrets. In addition, between 1998 and 2007, codeine was implicated in the cause of 90 fatal poisonings in Ireland, either alone or in conjunction with another drug.
Source: Andrea Smith, Irish Independent, 14/05/13
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