There must be a huge amount of painkillers that when taken in conjunction with alcohol are at least damaging or potentially fatal - paracetamol being one such drug readily available over the counter. What has always bothered me is why GP's dish out 100 tablet packs of strong painkillers when in reality people need no more than an average 4-6 a day - and unless patients have a long term problem then most go to the GP and only will take the medication for 3-5 days until what ever pain they have subsides. Do GP's precribe large quantities of tablets to curb future visits/repeat prescription requests? Similarly, I couldn't believe how many 100's of painkillers - co-proxamol and co-codamol hydrowhatsit (the really strong one that floats your brain away and turns your intestine into stone!) I was made to take in hospital (even when I wasn't in pain) and then posted home with after having a caesarean. I finally chucked out all 196 tablets the other day - I only had four once I returned home - mainly because I was so unnerved at how strong they were. I noticed that my 5 day old baby was very constipated too from ingesting the drug via my breast milk. I stuck it out and realised that nurofen was just as effective without the feeling of being out of control. You can't stop people from trying to or indeed killing themselves but I do think painkillers in certain circumstances are possibly over-prescribed.