Health Topic

Prescription Drug Misuse

Prescription drug misuse happens if you take a medicine in a way that is different from what the doctor prescribed. Misusing some drugs can lead to addiction.

Reviewed Reviewed by a registered pharmacistGeneral information

Also called: Prescription Drug Abuse

Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About Prescription Drug Misuse

If you take a medicine in a different way than your health care provider prescribed, it's called prescription drug misuse. It could be:

  • Taking medicine prescribed for someone else.
  • Taking a larger dose than you are supposed to.
  • Taking the medicine in a different way than you are supposed to. For example, instead of swallowing your tablets, you might crush them and then snort or inject them.
  • Using the medicine for another purpose, such as getting high.

Misusing some prescription drugs can lead to addiction. These include opioids, sedatives, tranquilizers, and stimulants. Drug addiction is a chronic brain disease. It causes a person to take drugs repeatedly despite the harm they cause.

Prescription drug misuse can affect anyone at any age, including teenagers and older adults. It can happen if you need certain medicines to treat a medical condition, reduce pain after an injury or surgery, or for chronic pain.

Risk factors can include:

  • A lack of knowledge about the prescription drug and possible risks
  • A previous addiction to other substances, including alcohol and tobacco
  • Certain mental health conditions

Prescription drug misuse can have serious medical consequences. Every medicine has some risk of side effects, which providers think about when prescribing medicines. People who misuse these drugs may not know the risks. Some medicines may not be safe for them, especially at higher doses or when taken with other medicines.

Treatment for prescription drug misuse often includes medicines and counseling, but it depends on the type of drug and your needs.

The counseling may be individual, family, and/or group therapy. It can help you:

  • Understand why prescription drug misuse began
  • Learn how to change unhealthy patterns of thinking and behavior
  • Manage personal problems and develop positive relationships
  • Learn how to manage cravings and avoid situations that could lead to a relapse

Stopping or cutting back on prescription drugs used for a while, may cause different symptoms for different drugs. This is called withdrawal. Your provider will work with you to manage the symptoms as your body gets used to being taken off the medicine.

Providers and pharmacists play a role in preventing or reducing prescription drug misuse, but you can also take steps to reduce your risk.

A few ways to help reduce your risk and make sure that you are using any prescription medicines correctly include:

  • Talk to your provider about any other prescription medicines, over-the-counter-medicines, and supplements that you're taking to see if it is safe to take the prescription drug with them.
  • Follow the directions carefully and take medicine as prescribed. If you're taking prescription drugs for pain and it isn't working, don't stop or change the amount you're taking without talking to your provider.
  • If your provider prescribes opioids, ask about the risks and benefits of taking the medicine, and if another medicine with less risk of addiction could be used.

It sits within Substance Use and Disorders.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on Prescription Drug Misuse

194 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Research already completed

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

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Diagnosis and Tests

Treatments and Therapies

Prevention and Risk Factors

Statistics and Research

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Drug Prescriptions, Substance-Related Disorders, Prescription Drug Overuse. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Prescription Drug Misuse, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.