How Mother Found Her Helper

As a person who has been on both sides of the issue, prescribed anti-anxiety drugs and an abuser of anti-anxiety drugs, there is a very easy analogy to make. There are people who do not understand the relief a person who really needs these medications get, but I bet you all at one time have had a prescription for pain medication. Pain medication is also abused regularly, however when you took it because you had a legitmate medical reason, did you get "high" from your Vicodin? No! It simply made your pain easier to bear and made you feel more like yourself before the pain. It's exactly the same with people who need anti-anxiety medication.

I don't think all these drugs should be painted with the same broad brush. Paxil, for example, honestly saved my life when I was suffering from severe clinical depression. It is NOT a pill you can just pop anytime you are stressed, but rather is taken once a day. Pills like valium and xanax are a different story because they can be abused based on the "take as needed for stress" prescription. So some people treat them like a street drug for that reason.

However, for people who genuine panic attacks, these drugs are very necessary. Anyone who has ever had or witnessed a true panic attack knows it is absolutely horrifying and no person should be made to suffer like that if there is a way to control them.

Let's be careful about condemning all these drugs for all uses, and calling them all "anit-anxiety" drugs.

I would not be here today if it were not for Paxil.

Wow, I never knew this before now. And I only saw this because I have just recently become a user of anti-anxiety drugs. I can say, however, that mine is of a true nature as I have always dealt with acute panic attacks, to the point of literally not being able to speak in certain situations. It has impaired my ability to perform many tasks that I am highly qualified to do otherwise, and for that I am grateful. But I must say I am one who believes that the rate of diagnosis for autism is also one of excess. What defines autism? What defines anxiety? It is tough because of course there are those that are looking to use something to their "recreational" advantage, while others are simply looking to cure an impairment. It makes me sick to think that there are those who try to take advantage of these kinds of opportunities. I was offered Xanax and Valium and said 'hell no' as my high school days taught me that these were rarely used for good purposes. Then again, we all saw how some a-holes tried to claim insurance benefits on fictitional 9/11 deaths.

Despite Ms. Tone's efforts to take a even-handed approach to this issue, Tony Dokoupil repeatedly refers to tranquilizers as "lifestyle drugs." Why do doctors repair a broken leg? Merely so the patient can continue living the same lifestyle he had? So he can't walk; accidents are a part of life, right? Lots of people can't walk. That break in his leg is part of who he is, and, by the way, years later when the whole thing is behind him, he has no business using a cane --just as people who suffer traumas should get the hell over it already. Dokoupil, you owe readers an apology. Newsweek, there was a time I expected better from you.

I would use Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as an example. The lower on the scale the drugs help to person to attain and/or maintain the functions they level off at, the less of a "lifestyle drug" it is. Drugs are being prescribed to even ward off minor symptoms of another. It is very hard though with limited signs vs symptoms to know what drugs would be appropriate which can cause extra time and money to both patient and provider, but nonetheless I do agree there has to be a line drawn between popping a pill to keep your sanity legally, or having no insurance and doing something more dangerous. That line has been crossed by the conitnued closing of mental health clinics and opting for more medicating of patients more preferable to counseling when both compliment the other. I think the way the pharmaceutical companies tend to sell there drug as completely changing your life should be mandated more....because popping a pill is never going to do that.

While I don't deny that these drugs are essential to the normal functioning of a few select individuals, they are way overprescribed and for too long of a duration. I know people who were put on ant anxiety and anti depressents after tragic circumstances in their life, years later when such event are sure to have faded some what out of their thoughts they ae still dependent on drugs. Anxiety is a part o life and if you can cope another way it should be enforced.
I find it disgusting that smoking a joint can land you in prison, but a six year old can be put on ridilin at the drop of a hat.

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There may be a lot of people who are taking these drugs illegaly. But, from what I can see they are obtaining them illegaly as well. I suffered for many years, not knowing that I could have felt mostly normal if I would have been on medication. I had panic attacks, severe post partem depression, social anxiiety and times when I was so detached that I couldn't funtion. I'm sure it cost me many relationships and jobs over the years. I finally was diagnosed at the age of 51 as being bi-polar. I had been awake for five days and was suicidal when I finally got help. I had never slept normally in my entire life. Never slept more than 4 or 5 hours a night and many nights not at all. I would pray all night sometimes for God to please let me sleep or feel normal. Now I take Depakote and Serequel and I sleep normally and I haven't felt detached since I started the medication. I wasted so many years when I could have been normal because I refused to take any meds the doctors wanted to prescribe. So, if people are having these feelings by all means they should try the meds. It may take several trys beford you hit on the right medication. But, you shouldn't suffer for over 30 years like I did. If you start persecuting doctors for prescribing these meds then they won't do it when they should and lots of people will suffer needlessly.

Comprehensive mental health care is no longer available, thanks to the insurance companies. Many people receive psychotropic drugs from their PCPs....no referral to a psychiatrist, let alone counseling sessions to determine if the problem should be addressed w/o drugs, with a short term course of drugs, or long-term/permanent drug treatment.

Anti-Anxiety drugs a bad thing? I got so I couldn't go to the mailbox because I was afraid Republican Guard/Iraqi militia would shoot me if I did. Also had a fear of helicopers crashing on or near me. Kept having horrible thoughts of getting hit with an RPG. It took Paxil to get me back to reality, and once I was on it for a while, I was able to come off it. It gave me control of my life, so say what you want about ???em, just keep making them!

If you do not need it, you cannot understand. Feel lucky, not judgemental.

As a GAD sufferer, Alprozolam is essential to allow me to function and be productive. Benzodiazepine is to people with GAD and panic disorder what insulin is to a diabetic. These afflictions are not "in your mind." They are real physiological disprders that need to be treated like any other disease. When I use Alprozolam I do not feel "high." I feel normal.

This article made me realize just how much of a stigma has been attached to medicine that calms a hyper-worried mind. This is sad and should not be the case. People are needlessly suffering from intense anxiety (or worse- because they aren't given anxiety drugs they are "calming their nerves" with bonafide abusive substances like alcohol which make the sufferer's anxiety much, much worse).

I just pray that there are compassionate doctors out there who understand this is a complex issue. For every social conservative who would scoff at my post and smugly ask "why do you think like that? why don't you just stop having anxious thoughts whenever you had panic attacks?", I simply have this to say:

If you are asking this question, you have experienced intense anxiety or a panic attack. Your suggestion is like asking tribal-dweller to describe the NY City skyline. You do not understand the anxiety suffered by GAD and other anxiety patients. And you most certainly should not be making (or stigmatizing/prohibiting) the solution.

It is entirely true indeed, that were it not for my anti-anxiety prescription, I would have not graduated from college, I would not be in the position I am today (probably would not even have a job), and I certainly would not have been able to enjoy the normal life that, luckily (and thanks to a doctor who understood that Alprozolam cured my6 ail 100% and DID NOT cause dependency or tolerance-induced dosage issues) I have been able to enjoy).

Please take the time to read and consider my words carefully. I would not take the time to write this if I was merely trumpeting the "horn of anti-anxiety drug abuse". I genuinely care about people who are in the same position I was and I hope they receive the proper treatment.

Shame on the doctors who do not give their patients reprieve from GAD and other panic disorders. It's easy to jump on the stigmatization bandwagon, or simply reject benzodiazipine drugs out of hand for fear of being labeled a "street pharmacist doctor". This notion that mild tranquilizers like those in the benzo class do not help anxiety patients (or do more harm than good) needs to be dispelled at once (where are the other GAD sufferers/survivors- I can almost guarantee 99/100 would back my claims).

This is wholesale fraud and abuse; I certainly hope that the stigma of anti-anxiety pills being nothing more than street drugs for kids to abuse ends immediately. More research needs to be done- I am anxiety free, having done nothing but treat the physical symptoms with Alprozolam and let time heal the imbalance in my brain that randomly triggered the panic attacks. No lifestyle changes, NO SSRS bullcrap, no therapy whasoever.

Anti-anxiety drugs certainly have their uses (and are probably being underutilized in favor of drugs that have unintended side effects we are just finding out about (prozac suicides). Now I could go the rest of my life without ever needing another pill to calm me down (and I hope that is the case); but to think that for many others who are suffering from that debilitating disorder (GAD)- it pains me to know that the medical community is collectively turning their back on these people. For what? To validate some doctor's research article in AMJ? To reward the drug companies for the ever-changing and new SSRS drugs they seem to push on people who don't even need them?

I took my prescription (.25mg 2x a day of Alprtazolam- a benzodiazipine generic drug name for "Xanax"), and it cleared up my symptoms 100%- zero side effects. Because the consensus in the medical community is that anti-anxiety drugs should be "used sparingly" due to fears of dependence, I was never- not a single solitary time, dependent on the medication. It cleared my anxiety up completely, but if I did not have the medication (if I was at work without my Rx and experienced a panic attack or on a trip without my prescription), I simply had to endure the overwhelming and altogether interference of anxiety (I was diagnosed with GAD- common in many Americans and people throughout the world).