The Lost Battle

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: If they have the power to heal, they have the power to harm more. As they get embedded into your psyche and system, you are caught in an endless trap. It’s an addiction of a very different kind and intensity; you succumb to it with or without reason and at times, it is fatal. As the Michael Jackson tragedy unfolds, and even as investigations are underway, the writing is clear on the wall — ‘prescribed drugs’ did it for MJ. An addiction, sources say, that began in 1984 when Jackson got accidentally burnt while filming a Pepsi commercial. Or was it 1993, the year he had another accident during his rehearsals that made him dependent on the prescribed painkiller Demerol? Valium, Xanas, Ativan and Diprivan … the list of drugs that he seems to have been addicted to appears to be neither complete, nor final. The two bags of pills recovered from the King of Pop’s rented Holmby Hills home may just add to the kitty of ‘prescribed drugs’ that MJ was on and draw our attention to the cardinal issue of the use and misuse of such drugs.

Dependency factor

Most drugs which provide relief to the individual from pain, anxiety, sleep related disorders are addictive. According to Dr Samir Parikh, Consultant Psychiatrist, Department of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences, Max Healthcare, there is also a probability that the same amount of the drug becomes inefficient in helping with the same problem and over a period of time increasing doses of the medication are required.

“It is definitely a common problem. However, it is erroneous to term it as addiction. Technically, it is termed drug dependency,” says Dr Sushum Sharma, Head of Department, Preventive Healthcare at Max Healthcare. The dependency, he says, manifests either as psychological or physical dependency. While in the former case it is the mind craving for certain medicines, in the latter it is the body that plays a significant role. “It’s quite similar to smoking and drinking. It starts with psychological dependency and goes on to become physical dependency,” adds Dr Sharma. Right from painkillers, anti-anxiety tablets, anti-depressants to muscle relaxants, just about everything comes under the scanner.