Drug abuse is indeed a tough topic to discuss, but in this post, I will focus on sharing my experience with someone who falls victim to drugs. Whenever you take both legal and illegal drugs in an excessive manner, you are simply abusing drugs, and it can be very harmful to your health. There are reasons people abuse drugs, and there are also well-packaged negative effects of the actions. It becomes important that we are aware of this negative effect and stick to doctors prescriptions while consuming drugs.
In many societies today, drug abuse has become a significant problem with severe negative impacts both to the physical health of the people and to the communities at large. In my community, for example, we have had a case of two young guys who are into consuming illegal drugs with the intention of being so high and committing crimes. The likes of cocaine and marijuana were what they were caught consuming. Before then, there had been reports of rape and stealing in our community, which were being closely investigated until they were caught. Packing your car outside the gate till daybreak usually results in the missing of some important parts of the car. And many other robberies we experienced until our community hired well-armed security men. Overall, it was discovered that these young guys who have been tormenting our community were drug addicts. However, they were arrested and jailed till date. Indeed, Drug addictions create more crime, which is obviously a social problem.
I have witnessed someone fall victim to drugs when I was living in Abuja after I graduated from the university. The man was our neighbor, who lived with his wife and his children. According to the wife, he complained of insomnia badly but later visited the hospital to see a doctor. The doctor then prescribed a drug to help him get enough sleep and warned him not to ever go beyond the prescribed dosage. He started taking the drugs and felt better. He was sleeping well, unlike before, and of course was happy with the result. At a point, when he just feels like sleeping, he will take the drugs and take extra tablet so he can fall asleep almost immediately. This was where he started abusing the drugs seriously against doctors advice.
It got to a point that he became addicted to the drug and even started taking illegal drugs until his health started to deteriorate. He was rushed to the hospital for treatment. His physical look was quite unpleasant, and even mentally, he wasn't alright like before. The wife suffered, including the children, as all their finances were going down the drain trying to save the life of the husband. People helped them financially, but yet the problem didn't go away. The wife lost her job since she can't leave the husband alone in the hospital. I left Abuja when I was set to get married, so I didn't know if the Man later survived the health implications caused by abusing the drugs or not, but while I experienced the whole thing, it wasn't looking great.
From what I witnessed, the negative effect of the drug abuse on the man didn't only affect his health but also affected his family and his loved ones.
Last three months, I wanted to replace my son's routine drugs which was given to us at the teaching hospital, but unfortunately, all the pharmacy stores I visited around me didn't have the drug. I was curious about how the big pharmacy here selling wholesale doesn't have the drug I wanted. I called my brother, who lives in the northern part and who is into medicine. He visited some pharmacy store, and they told him that the drug is a control drug and no pharmacist will sell it without a doctor's prescription. To cut the story short, I created time to revisit the hospital and got the drugs replaced. Now, I am wondering if all these illegal drugs can be controlled just like other drugs so that the rate of drug abuse issues can be reduced.
It's sad to see people suffering the negative implications of abusing drugs, and yet new people still go into it due to reasons like peer pressure and also the availability of these drugs. It's indeed a growing concern and an issue in our society.
This post was inspired by the #inleo community and my entry to the #septemberinleo monthly topic Day 26 .Please check out the prompt to get involved.