Will I Become Addicted To The Depression Medication?
The one major concern for many patients who take these medications for years is the fear that they are addicted to the depression medication. Addiction is a complicated and controversial issue that bears some explaining. Form a medical standpoint, addiction is defined as pursuit of a substance in such a manner that the pursuit and use of it consumer so much time and energy for the person to the exclusion of the majority of, if not all of, important activities in that person’s life.
Therefore, anything that gives pleasure causing one to pursue it with abandon is potentially addictive – from gambling to sex to drugs and all variation on those themes. By that simple definition, no antidepressant has proven to be addictive, and very few psychiatric medications have shown to be addictive as well.
Many people do, however, become dependent on various prescription medications, and this is where confusion reigns. Dependency is defined medically by the fact that physiologically measurable changes occur in the body after repeated administration of a drug. The most obvious drug that people think about in term of dependency includes most of the prescription pain medication that are called opiates.
Everyone who takes these medications on a regular basis will become dependent on them. Then confusion between dependency comes withdrawal when the drug is removed abruptly from the body, which can lead to craving for the drug. Because a drug like an opiate can make one high is often pursued with abandon, and dose cause dependency, people often mistake dependency for addiction.
Dependency and addiction may or may not be linked depending on the drug. For example, most anticonvulsant medications, many antihypertensive medications, all steroid medications cause dependency, but no one would ever consider these drugs addictive. In stark contrast, many hallucinogens and stimulants do not cause any measurable physiologic changes in the body that one could absolutely label dependency, and nevertheless know to human.
Where do antidepressants and other psychiatric medications fit on this continuum? Most antidepressants cause some level of physiological dependency. Some mood stabilizers and antipsychotic medications also cause some physiologic dependency. Any drug, whether prescription medication or street drug, that cause dependency, must be tapered over time, or one risks developing withdrawal.
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