A few years back, a unique episode of Intervention aired: Elena was a 63 year old woman living in Fortuna, California with a substance use disorder problem: she snorted crystal meth and popped painkillers endlessly. As an LGBTQ-identified woman, she’d grown up in the 50’s with endless stigma for being too “boy-like,” and far more so when once she’d chosen a female partner. When her partner died, she turned to substances for relief, the effect of which (meth and opioids) turned her into a loopy, stumbling mess: falling, hurting herself, and most of all, her children and grandchildren who loved her dearly, and couldn’t stand to watch the grandparent they adored hurt herself so drastically.

This is just one example of elderly drub abuse, an issue not often discussed (and the first example of its kind on the acclaimed Intervention). We might choose to view our elderly population through rose-colored lenses, as a sea of loving grandparents or tending caregivers. But this really isn’t a fair assessment of the segments of the elderly population who are on a fixed income, who struggle with physical and mental disabilities, and who cannot afford or take their medication on a regular basis, or as prescribed.

Shifting metabolisms might break down the composition of prescription drugs in different ways for an elderly individual, lending to an increased risk for substance misuse and abuse, especially when paired with other symptoms of aging, such as weakened cognition and physical ailments, or paired with other substances, like alcohol, and even supplements. If an elderly person who is prescribed a strong medication like an opiate for pain and cannot afford it, they might choose to take someone else’s prescribed medicine, and fall into a pattern of abuse. For only thirteen percent of the population, seniors spend one-third of all outpatient costs on prescription drugs, meaning they need all the prevention they can get when it comes to learning about and preventing prescription misuse and abuse.