Addiction to any drug can be quite serious, but because pain relief medications are prescription, many people think they come with little risk. While most people are convinced that addiction occurs only if certain emotional factors are apparent, that is not always the case. Anything that your body becomes chemically dependent on can be addicting. The part that most people don't understand is just how easy it is to get addicted to a substance. Pain pills are used both for genuine health issues but now have become a popular drug to use for an emotional state of elevation.

As previously mentioned, just about any drug that has a significant enough effect on the body, and is regularly used can become an addiction. It doesn't help that pain relief drugs have been known to be used as a means of getting a state of euphoria. Drugs such as opium and morphine have been used to help people fight pain for hundreds of years. Both have been recognized as dangerous, addictive drugs. Some opiates, like heroin, have also been used by addicts. Cocaine can also be used as a pain relief drug, although how much of this is quality has been preserved in crack after being diluted can differ from sample to sample. In the news we've read about pain pill addiction to oxycontin that troubled Rush Limbaugh, Courtney Love and Lindsey Lohan.

Dependence should not be mistaken for tolerance. Tolerance happens when the body adjusts to the continued presence of the drug within your body. While this may or may not occur in everyone who uses a certain substance, there is a risk that anyone can develop it. Basically, someone who is tolerant to a drug has adapted to the effects of the drug at a given dose. For prescription and pain meds, this means that it can't numb the pain as well as it did before. Typically, with the supervision of a medical professional, the dosage can be increased in order to obtain the same effect as before the tolerance occurred. However, this can escalate and become very dangerous.

Legal medications for injuries or accidents that relieve pain must be closely monitored to assure proper compliance. For those using these drugs illegally for psychological comfort, it is far better to instead seek counseling and if necessary get medication to treat depression or anxiety that is not addictive.