By Dwight Bain

Have you noticed that growth of the pharmaceutical companies recently? I sure have and am stunned that no one is shouting from the roof tops that we are increasingly becoming a nation of drug users. In my neighborhood there are at least a dozen different pharmacies within a five mile radius. Several of these drug stores are only a few months old, yet already have long lines of people waiting to buy drugs. Not the kind you get in the alley for twenty bucks in a ziplock bag either. No, it seems more and more that people in the United States are looking to prescription drugs to solve their emotional problems. What is going on?

Here's a quick observation on what I believe to be the problem. Let's say that life isn't going the way that you want and you think that you may have depression. What to do? Evaluate your life, journal your stresses, check your options, email your mom to pray for you, go exercise, phone a friend, visit your pastor for advice? No, just call a doctor and start on meds. You may not even have to see the doctor either. Just let his assistant call you in a prescription for something that will make it all better. Can't get to the doc? Call a friend, since the likelihood is that someone you know right now has a medicine cabinet jam packed full of SSRI antidepressants and would be glad to fix you up. Now, remember, there are countless horror stories of how these emotional "feel good" meds have ruined people's lives, but don't worry about that, since it could never happen to you. Or could it?

If you have a tendency to get upset and panic stricken, good news, there is a pill to make your problems go away. If anxiety is holding you back in social situations, take some meds to make the shyness just disappear. Stressed? Don't worry, you can fix that with a tiny pill that will help you to relax and enjoy life again. Angry? No problem. Just pop a pill to make your rage melt away like the morning dew. Moody, insecure, jealous, whiney, or just plain mean-spirited? Relax! Lighten up ... besides, there is likely a psychologist nearby that will tell you that it's not your problem anyway. Blame it on your mother and take a pill to make the pain go away. It seems that if you have an emotional problem, and a prescription card, your friendly neighborhood psychiatrist can fix you up to solve anything. Doesn't this sort of sound like a really bad infomercial that you might just laugh at as you surfed past that channel on your way to find something better to watch on television?

By the way, the list of "instant cures" for emotional problems is a rather long one, and, it's more common than you would think. Words like, Prozac, Xanex, Zoloft, Adderall, Celexa, Ativan, Ritlin, Toprol, Valium, Haldol, Thorozine and hundreds of others have invaded our language. Think of it! If you just arrived in this country and were trying to learn the language, watch out! Those words wouldn't be in your English translation dictionary, much less make any sense to you. However, if you get stressed out trying to figure out why the people of this country are standing in long lines to spend sacks full of money to buy controlled substances to make themselves feel better, don't worry. One of them is likely to have a small bottle of "miracle cure" to make your worries about it, or anything else, to just drift away.

I never grew up with popping a medication for emotional stress as a "normal" part of daily life. Most likely you had to learn to deal with your life like I did. One bump in the road at a time. You probably came to see that sometimes life would be hard and you would fall down and get hurt. Bad people would do bad things and sometimes the good guys would finish last. Believe it or not, there was a time that "men were men" to quote Archie Bunker's infamous song. You had to face issues and figure it out, instead of find some psychiatrist to give you something to make it go away. Rather, somehow you had to deal with your life, straight up, no guts, no glory. It was a bottom line kind of world. It was hard, but it made for stronger people. Back then, if your uncle drank every day, you would have called him an alcoholic. So, what would you call your aunt, if she was dependent on prescription drugs every day? Is it too far fetched to call her a drug addict? A pharmacy junkie?

Florida Governor Jeb Bush recently had to bail his own daughter out of jail for passing a fake prescription to get more drugs. He went on television to describe how the secret life of a prescription drug addict is a bigger problem than you could ever realize. He cried as he talked about how his daughter had struggled with prescription drug addiction for years, and how helpless he felt as a father. At that moment, he wasn't the Governor of one of the most influential states in the country. No, at that moment, he was a hurting father, grieving over how prescription drugs had hurt his little girl. Legalized drugs are a bigger problem than you think.

Enough already! I have seen thousands of patients in the various mental health clinics and hospitals that I have served in through the years. I can tell you that there often wasn't any balance between the words "medication" and "meditation". One is about a pill to make you feel better, and the other is about quiet time of personal reflection to deal with the emotional and spiritual issues that may be overwhelming your day. Sadly, all too often, any benefit from a medication for emotional issues is lost since there isn't the all important balance of personal therapy, accountability with peers or sponsors, close friends or family, healthy coping skills, personal faith, or a dozen other things that become part of helping you to really feel better. Medication without therapy is a curse. It is masking the real issue with drugs to avoid the deeper issues of the soul that may have caused many, if not most of the symptoms in that persons life. Symptoms that could point to the truth of what needs to change to get better results in life, that is, unless someone takes a pill to stop the thoughts of having to figure out what really matters in life. Symptoms could be your greatest resource to find out what is really wrong, if you could only really study them, instead of masking them over.

Bottom line: Medication can help sometimes, no doubt about that. Medication, along with life supports, counseling, a healing environment, a house of faith and a healthy outlook on life can be a powerful way to get through a difficult season in life. But when pharmaceutical companies can make billions of dollars in a single year with a single medication which is sold to solve emotional problems, I wonder if they might have something to gain by keeping people stressed and panic stricken. I don't believe in conspiracies, but it makes you wonder where all that money goes, and why no one is shouting that something is very, very wrong with the drug "cure."

Well, no longer. As for me, I'm shouting. How about you?




E-mail Dwight Bain co-host of Culture Shock: tdigirolamo@cultureshocktv.com