BOSTON (Reuters) - When Patrick Gallagher first began nodding off at dinner, his family thought it was a symptom of old age. Their fears grew as it worsened. Withdrawing from the world at age 64, Gallagher was addicted to a cocktail of alcohol and prescription painkillers.
"My whole life was centered around making sure I had an adequate supply of drugs and alcohol," said the former instructor at the University of Miami.
Gallagher, of Jensen Beach, Florida, is an elderly substance abuser, a fast-growing group in the United States as baby boomers age.
A government survey estimates that the number of adults aged 50 or older with substance abuse problems will double to 5 million in 2020 from 2.5 million in 1999, in large part due to their comfort with prescription drugs.
"There is a huge concern that what we're going to be seeing is a tidal wave of seriously affected substance abusers in later life," said Frederic Blow, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School who specializes in geriatric substance abuse.
Unlike their predecessors, the Woodstock generation is comfortable taking medications for a wide range of problems, including pain, insomnia, depression and anxiety. As a result, they are more vulnerable to substance abuse in later life, experts say.
Rush Limbaugh, the politically conservative, 55-year-old talk show host, who was charged last month with prescription drug fraud in connection with his addiction to painkillers, is representative of the new kind of patient showing up in treatment centers and emergency rooms, experts say.
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