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Problem
with prescription drugs is that
you can get hooked on them most easily
By John Welter
Reprinted with permission
(Editor's Note: Today many people find problems
with their medication. Novelist John Welter, a friend of ours, recently
wrote of this in the Herald-Sun, where he lives in Durham, N.C.
By the way, a recent book of his is "I Want to Buy a Vowel."---eeb)
AUG. 13, 2002 -- Without wanting to, I've been conducting a science
experiment with prescription medicine that makes me want to pull
my brain out of my head and throw it away.
I've endured the remarkable agonies of Xanax withdrawal for 15
days so far. This places me in the category of lawful and unwilling
drug addicts who use medicine for anxiety for a few months, find
out it isn't as effective as they'd like it to be, and then discover
that when they stop taking Xanax and try a different medicine, they've
become so habituated to the medicine that their brains swiftly and
violently rebel against the absence of Xanax, resulting in such
symptoms as:
- Severe and relentless headaches, an endless sense of pressure
in the front of the brain-as if the brain is building up enough
force to explode through the skull.
- Auditory hallucinations early on that sound like voices in a
nearby room.
- A frightening and exhausting inability to sleep.
- Cold sweats, hot flashes, chills, trembling hands, the inability
to think clearly.
- An overwhelming fear that the brain is rapidly deteriorating
during a race toward insanity.
- And an occasional desire to yank the brain out and hurl it toward
a wall.
My doctor told me not to discard my brain. I might still need it.
The maddening thing about Xanax withdrawal, aside from misery,
is that Xanax is supposed to help you, not become a chemical demon
slashing its way through your brain. Although I and countless other
Americans are grateful for the victories of modern pharmacology,
a lot of those medicines are treacherously addictive. Once you've
decided to quit using them, and you're attacked by your own brain,
you can't, as I thought of, put your brain in one room while
you relax in a different room.
My girlfriend would say, "John. Why is your brain in the refrigerator?"
"So it can't find me."
I'm now taking a new drug for anxiety, and also to weakly counteract
the withdrawal. It's similar to fighting bourbon withdrawal by drinking
gin.
And when my Xanax addiction is finally defeated, I'll be addicted
to the Klonopin medicine. (The generic name is clonazepam.)
I called Joe Graedon, from the People's Pharmacy, and asked what
I could
do about Xanax withdrawal.
"One thing you could do is suffer," Joe suggested.
"OK. I'll write that down," I said. "Can I be a
guest on your radio show and start moaning, trembling, sweating,
gagging in an educational way, and put a microphone against my head
so people can hear my auditory hallucinations?"
"You have auditory hallucinations?" Joe said in a worried
tone.
"Not now. I only had them during the first two days of withdrawal."
"What did it sound like?"
"It sounded like five or six people talking in a nearby room."
"What were they saying?"
"Well I tried not to eavesdrop. I think even in a hallucination,
people have a right to privacy. Can you think of anything I can
do to feel better?"
"Pass out. You don't feel anything when you're unconscious."
"Is passing out a home remedy?"
"It is if you pass out at home."
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Number
2.36, Aug. 13, 2002
