Experts have revealed the devastating toll of opioid addiction after murder suspect Alex Murdaugh claimed to be a 60-pill-a-day addict.
Murdaugh, 54, said he initially became addicted to oxycodone after being given the painkiller following surgery for a football injury.
He continued to abuse the drugs for decades, and he claims he was spending $60,000 a week on opioids at the height of his addiction.
Many social media users doubted that anyone could actually consume 60 pills a day and still function as a powerful advocate.
But dr. Tildabeth Doscher, a specialist in addiction medicine at the University at Buffalo, told DailyMail.com, “Tolerance is more important than quantity” when it comes to opioids. You or I would die if I took ten because my opioid receptors have no experience.’
Research shows that severe opioid addiction causes emotional swings, unprovoked outbursts, paranoia, and depression, as well as crippling withdrawal symptoms.
Paul, Alex, Maggie and Buster at a Gamecocks basketball game in January 2019. Murdaugh is accused of shooting Paul and Maggie dead on the night of June 7, 2021
Dr. Doscher said that as his abuse continued, Mr Murdaugh probably had to slowly increase the number of pills he needed each day to get to his fix and avoid withdrawal.
Mr Murdaugh is currently on trial for the 2021 murder of his wife Maggie and son Paul.
Oxycodone is highly addictive and people using it for treatment have been known to become dependent on it.
People who suffer from this type of addiction often have trouble regulating their emotions, often feel numb or experience intense outbursts.
This is due to the effects that the drugs themselves have on a person’s mood regulation.
Opioids, in particular, give a person a euphoric feeling, but also affect a person’s ability to regulate their mood.
An addict is prone to lose control of his emotions and sometimes act what others consider strange.
Drug addiction is also associated with mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression.
This is because the addiction can cause feelings of sadness and hopelessness when a person cannot get their fix.
Spending large sums of money on the pills can also be stressful as it drains resources from the rest of one’s livelihood. This reinforces feelings of hopelessness.
People who already suffer from these conditions are also already at increased risk for development and addiction.
Paranoia is another common side effect of addiction. Mr Murdaugh blamed the paranoia caused by his drug use for his inconsistent behavior in the wake of the murder of his wife and son.
Over time, a person will need more and more of the drug to balance themselves and avoid withdrawal symptoms, experts say.
“Tolerance develops,” Dr. Doscher told DailyMail.com.
‘There are opioid receptors in the brain. Opioids hit that. You or I would die if I took ten because my opioid receptors have no experience.
“Tolerance is more important than quantity.”
Murdaugh’s use of opioids dates back to the early 2000s when he was a member of the South Carolina Gamecocks college football team.
He was prescribed the drug by a doctor to help treat a knee injury.
Oxycodone is a pain-relieving opioid sold under several brand names. While it has clinical uses, it is also known to be widely abused.
The drug is usually prescribed by doctors to relieve long-term pain in patients.
It is usually taken as a capsule or tablet, and there are regular and extended-release varieties. It can also be administered as an intravenous solution to patients in hospitals.
The drug is detectable in a person’s system for up to three days and has a half-life of three to six hours — which is the amount of time it takes for the body to get rid of half of its prevalence in a person’s system.
However, it is easy to quickly build a dependency on the drug. Doctors say that those who prescribe it should use it despite these risks because the benefits outweigh the harms.
It was developed in 1996 by Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Connecticut, and entered the US market in 2000.
Purdue was founded and owned by the Sackler family, which has been controversially linked to the US opioid crisis.
The family has been described as one of the most evil in America for its role in the crisis and has faced dozens of lawsuits from individuals and local governments across the country.
Oxycodone is a highly addictive opioid used for long-term treatment of pain. It was first marketed in 2000
This means that his tolerance to the drugs has likely been built up over the last 20 years. The disgraced legal scion says the pills have “made everything better” for him.
‘Opiates gave me energy. Whatever I did made it more interesting. It made me want to do it longer,” he told jurors on Friday.
Opioid drugs, including oxycodone, heroin, and fentanyl, work by binding to opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord, and other parts of the body.
The drugs induce a feeling of euphoria and pleasure and can take away feelings of pain in a user.
These drugs are known to be addictive, as the body craves the euphoria they produce.
Over time, however, the receptors lose their sensitivity to the drug. This means that a person needs more opiates to achieve the same feeling.
A person will slowly need more and more to achieve that feeling, and the body can experience withdrawal symptoms if these cravings are not met.
“More and more is needed to counter the withdrawal, because once those opioid receptors are full, they start to empty and cause withdrawal symptoms,” DrDoscher said.
Dr. Tildabeth Doscher, of the University at Buffalo, said it’s definitely possible for a person to develop a tolerance to oxycodone when they can take more than 60 pills a day.
“People keep using and using and using because they’re trying to avoid the withdrawal symptoms.”
Many people turn to more dangerous, street versions of the drug to get their fix once their addiction reaches a far enough point.
For Mr. Murdaugh, a wealthy man who reportedly can afford to spend $60,000 a day on the pills, he was able to sustain this dangerous addiction for over a decade.
It escalates and escalates,” he told the court. He said he has visited a detox center three times, the first in December 2017.
“Opiate withdrawal is, phew, it’s hard,” Murdaugh said. He described how “you have to throw up.” You have terrible diarrhea. You sweat like you’re running a marathon. You can’t keep your legs still.’
At that point, he probably wasn’t using the pills every day to get high, but to avoid withdrawal symptoms.
“It sounds like what happened to this person is they used more and more and more to kill someone who is opioid naive,” Doscher said.
“And if someone uses that much, he’s not very disturbed. They use it to feel normal.’
“Doses mean nothing, literally nothing, when looking at someone with an opioid use disorder. This could have killed him five years ago, but not now. What he swallowed sounds like retention,” she continued.
“I’m never surprised to hear that they took that and felt normal. I imagine when you take that much you’re still trying to get the euphoria, the dissociative effects.
“So if he always takes 50 pills and one day 70, he’s going to feel different. There is a stabilizing dose versus too high a dose.’
Dr. However, Docher does not believe Mr Murdaugh’s alleged violent crimes were caused by the opioids themselves.
She says it’s not the type of drugs that lead to these violent outbursts.
“As for violence, no. People will do things they never would have done otherwise, but kill someone? No. It’s not like PCP or other drugs that make people more prone to violence,” she explained.
