Lots of people can’t understand why people need help to quit taking pain killer medicines. They frequently ask: “Can’t they just stop?”

If these medications are used for a long time, they will finally modify the brain in essential ways. They take over the normal enjoyment and motivational systems of the brain - pushing the need for medications up to the highest priority. The necessity for medications therefore supersedes all of the person's preceding motivations, behaviors and drives. This is the dominant pressure to find and take medicines, and what is called addiction.

Once addicted to medicines, people pretend sickness and appointment doctor to get prescriptions. Besides they may also buy drugs on the street, lie and even steal to achieve their fixed idea. You have to understand that this is not a personality choice – it is a medical need or craving, caused by the influence that the chemical has imposed on the brain.

What Happens in Rehab?

It seems that celebrities go into rehabilitation with frightening regularity. Rehab is a place where people are medically controlled to move away from their addiction, trying to lessen or avoid withdrawal signs. The addiction can be to pain killers, recreational drugs or alcohol.

The client is medically detoxified - which indicates that medicines may be prescribed to help them during the withdrawal phase. Detoxification is not a cure for addiction - it simply take away the addictive stuff from the person's system so that they can begin to think clearly again. Detox is usually followed by counseling and behavioral therapy to try and assist the client to avoid returning to the addiction.

Look through several celebrity people and their alleged pain killer addictions:
- Daniel Baldwin – pain killers originally for a back problem
- Kathleen Turner – pain killers and alcohol
- Anna Nicole Smith – vicodin
- Matthew Perry – vicodin.