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Pills and America's Pursuit of Happiness
WASHINGTON – Of all the bitter pills Americans are swallowing nowadays, from joblessness to home foreclosures to runaway national debt, it might come as no surprise that a pill of another sort is flying off the shelves at a recession-defying pace – the antidepressant.
(flickr photo by Antanith used and adapted under Creative Commons license) It's an easy jump to conclude that hard times are turning the country comfortably numb, as the Washington Post suggested in a weekend report on the sales of the drug Cymbalta, up 14 per cent since the summer of 2008 and now among America's most popular happy pills.
Drill deeper and you will find that the U.S., though far and away a world leader with its $10-billion-a-year antidepressant habit, is not alone.
Over the summer, British politicians fretted over the impact of recession on mental health amid data showing a spike of 2.1 million antidepressant prescriptions last year, when the downturn took its first precipitous dive.
Same in India, where pharmaceutical firms reported a 20 per cent expansion of the antidepressant market in the year ending December 2008. And in New Zealand, where the global plunge was linked to reports of a near doubling in antidepressant prescriptions between 2002 and 2008.
But drill down deeper still and the story behind the flurry of cause-and-effect headlines is far more nuanced.
While many researchers acknowledge there is likely an uptick in med sales as a consequence of the poor economy, most say it is driven as much or more by trends decades in the making.
There is no question America loves its happy pills, but consumption was skyrocketing long before the Dow melted down.
The real story, in fact, may be that the link between recession and mental health points in precisely the opposite direction – the possibility that people in the most dire straits today are also the most likely to be suffering depression but without access to any medical help.
That is what Dr. Craig Pollack of the University of Pennsylvania discovered during a study of 250 Philadelphia homeowners on the brink of foreclosure. Pollack's findings, published last month, showed 37 per cent of the distressed homeowners suffered from major clinical depression. But nearly half of his study group said they were too poor to buy prescription drugs.
"Clearly for some, poor health leads to foreclosure. And for others, foreclosure may be leading to poor health," Pollack said.
Dr. Ronald Dworkin, a Maryland anaesthesiologist and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, warns that to make too much of the recession's role in prescription drug-taking is to wildly underplay the larger story of how the country has swarmed toward the pill bottle every since the 1970s, when Valium hit the scene.
"America is all about the gratification of pleasure. We are the kings of pleasure and proud of it," said Dworkin, author of Artificial Unhappiness: The Dark Side of the New Happy Class.
"But the other side of it is that we're not very good at preparing for or dealing with unhappiness, which of course is an inevitable part of life. And what we've done since the '70s is to transform into a culture that treats unhappiness as a disease."
Dworkin says primary-care doctors wrote about 75 per cent of the more than 164 million antidepressant prescriptions dispensed in 2008 in the U.S., a fact he says gainsays the notion that psychiatrists and big pharma are to blame.
But however one tracks the evolution, Dworkin contends the practice of "stupefying ourselves to cure everyday unhappiness" treats the symptom, not the cause.
And that is a bigger problem today than it used to be, given the surfeit of unhappiness associated with recession.
"There is a paradox: taking antidepressants makes people feel better, thereby reducing their interest in actually doing something about the things in their life that cause the unhappiness," he said.
"Research indicates that people in bad dept or a bad relationship stay where they are on the medication. The urgency of change fades away."
55 Comments so far
Show AllDamn! Now we have an Income Gap.
The only health care reform you will see from Obama is more corporate welfare for the insurance and pharma industries.
Buy stock in insurance and pharma if you want to benefit from Obamacare
After Obama's backstabbing of 60 million voters and his abysmal presidency, I'm not surprised by the increase of antidepressant sales. Wait until Sarah Palin wins in 2012, then Americans will really get hooked.
Palin decided to give up on holding public office when she realized that she could make $50,000 a pop giving speeches to the faithful, which is a whole lot better money than salaries elected officials get.
There is another reason behind the increase in prescriptions for anti-depressants: marketing. In the US commercials constantly crop up on television pushing antidepressants and all sorts of medicinal remedies for many illnesses ill-defined or not easily diagnosed. Outside the US, I suspect pharma is equally adroit at marketing drugs though they cannot do so directly through television.
Now, the prevailing view is that anti-depressants are the first thing to try, not as a part of a general program designed to fight depression, but as a "cure." A pill is the answer. Forget exercise, therapy, proper diet, involvement in social activities, meditation, or other therapies known to help. Pharma has done a terrific job in strengthening the widely held conviction that we cannot overcome depression without medication. Yet another reason to point to the ethical vacuum in which our economic system operates.
Sioux Rose
DROSERA: You may not like the analogy but it fits like a glove. Mankind is in the cross currents of a vast age transition moving collective consciousness from Pisces, which happens to be the sign of: hospitals, mental institutions, pharmaceutical drugs, prisons, deception, escapist behaviors, and "self-undoing"... to than of Aquarius, which requires genuine honesty, a collective respect for Truth, and that fearless moral inventory that recovering addicts must undergo. Pisces is in fact, the sign of addictions, and it also happens to "rule" oil. I am amazed at the cosmic congruence, seeing that industries so directly related to this sign are THE ONES made most profitable and running the national agenda at this particular marked interval. Because the dis-information campaigns have been so "successful," and when not able to keep populations tamed, confused, numb, or bamboozled, they readily pull out their own drug cartels, the necessity of creating a massive cognitive "groundswell," that which would signify a collective awakening that would lift enough human beings to another level of consciousness, is undermined.
Events emerge from consciousness. It takes awakened minds to act like open seeds, those which function in gifting humanity with a new or different harvest. No one knew about electricity until a few minds like Edison's began to recognize this invisible force and what it could mean for life on earth. Inventions occur at intervals that are not random if one studies the "As above, so below" equation. Humanity is due for another one. Our beliefs tend to stem from what was true yesterday, and this propensity for always looking backwards for answers thwarts the forward momentum. Still, the quantum leap humanity is fast approaching is composed of the stuff that even slumbering souls will find themselves jarred into acknowledging. Transitions R'us!
the opiate of the masses is opium? makes sense to me.
for those that can afford it!
I'll shoot to that!
"Research indicates that people in bad dept or a bad relationship stay where they are on the medication. The urgency of change fades away."
bad relationships often involve bad debt...bad debt often keeps people in bad relationships...private property rears dat ugly head again...
throw some marijuana seeds out there...mother earth's best remedy, eager to grow everywhere for you...oh, wait, they'll confiscate all your property and jail you if you do...why is that, again?
I am the living embodiment of the earth and sky combined...
Sure you're happy. In terms of effects on the neurobiology, how is weed any different than Valium? Both are indicative of empty lives, devoid of any meaning but me, me, me. Go build a playground for neighborhood kids. Go clean up a beach. Active people are happy people, if that activity involves giving to others or giving to the planet. Swacked out people, on Valium, opium or weed, are only swacked out.
MichaelC
you know, buddy, you don't know me at all, and your opinion of me is, therefore, totally devoid of validity...I happen to, personally, clean up as much garbage as I can tolerate every time I go to my local beach...other people's garbage...fuck off...assholes like you that want to run everyone else's life are a huge part of our problem...
how is weed different from Valium? are you serious?
dubet September 2nd, 2009 12:11 pm..............Great retort....pass that doobie!
How many people have OD'd on Valium?...How many on smoke? End of conversation!
Well-said! Now puff-puff-GIVE bro! :D
Sioux Rose
MICHAEL: Please consider that both approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I know persons DEPENDENT on pot who are too focused on getting, having, and using the drug; however, even these people are incredibly creative and provide much in the way of help to others. Their financial lives/priorities leave much to be desired, a fact that might not be the case were pot made legal.
I have found that on occasion if I share a joint with someone, that it opens me creatively and I do some very profound writing. In some instances I have had a little grass when out kayaking or hiking and I believe it opens the heart to the incredible balance of nature, the living poetry all around us. In my view it hinges on the individual's state, balanced or otherwise? I know two very smart men who are likely clinically bi-polar and without pot they'd be dangerous. True, they are dependent on the pot as they recognize on some visceral level that their moods become unmanageable without it; but a plant like this, placed on the earth as MEDICINE cannot be compared to something as destructive as fomented sugar/alcohol, or tobacco (given the boosted nicotine levels), or any number of heinous toxic chemicals poured onto the produce we eat to keep bugs away, made into weapons, that are carried airborne from sea to shining sea, etc. What a warrior society off-balance defines as legal or otherwise is worthy of intense scrutiny. A little perspective might be in order.
Sioux Rose - You just keep getting better and better! Keep it coming! Thanks for being here.
Sioux Rose
BERAD: I find this forum VERY invigorating. So it's easy to return to it! And thanks for the compliment.
To FARM GIRL and those who are proponents of anti-depressant drugs, you make use of anecdotes drawn from your personal circle. IF the numbers on these prescriptions made sense, I'd be ON your side. The medical-pharmaceutical field has become its own version of "Disaster Capitalism" in inventing dis-eases to cure or maintain via some long-term treatment program (= $).
Sherill Sellman, author of "Hormone Heresy" presented a lecture I attended some years back where she quite powerfully related the FACT that EVERY state of a woman's natural life was now perceived as a pathology by the boys' club, a/k/a MDeity. There were drugs to alleviate menstrual cramps, drugs to turn off fertility (birth control), and then expensive measures to turn it back on (modalities used on "infertile" couples), and of course menopause drugs. It's been estimated that 50% of American women over 50 are either prescribed or advised to receive a hysterectomy, as if half of our inner parts are faulty!
As a child, a pinprick in any one of my like-new teeth was considered a cavity and the drilling process rendered half the teeth in my mouth virtual moon craters carrying a heavy toxic load.
Medicine is a very primitive means for negotiating health. Admittedly there have been some amazing advances, but the profligate use of antibiotics has largely rendered the vast majority ineffective. Viruses and bacteria have a way of adapting, and therefore dosages and chemical combinations must continuously alter to combat the adaptive powers of these pathogens.
The holistic field works WITH the body homeostatically, as opposed to treating the body like some kind of theater of war in which all form of chemical poisons, cutting instruments, and everything short of a bomb is used to purportedly "heal" it.
In a nexus such as the one MY examples depict, any approach to treating depression in numbers that move well into the millions MUST be regarded with due skepticism.
MichaelC. Your sweeping negative generalizations are ridiculous. Some of the most hardworking, productive, GIVING, and dude-NON JUDGEMENTAL, people in our city get high.
Some questions, if you gotta ask, you'll never comprehend the answer, "What's da diff batwene Marijuana and Mother's Little Helper?" Would be a good ex.
Try mushrooms, now thats a good way to learn to appreciate ones existence ;)
I mostly agree with your statement. But somehow, you come off sounding like a self-satisfied ass.
With depression the urgency of change has already faded. Disillusionment and disappointment with life is the problem. We are led to believe in fairy tales instead of reality. We are conned by competition, and hide our hearts for fear of ridicule.
Just maybe these folks on meds. are suffering from a guilty conscience because subconsciously they realize how horrible their gov. is and what it is doing to humane beings around the world--It's weird isn't it, when they throw a man into prison for dog-fighting, yet the war criminals get medals, and pensions??
yet the war criminals get medals, pensions and a seat on every talk show.
and $50,000 a pop for giving speeches to the faithful.
The urgency of change is deliberately meant to "fade away." That's the whole point of this system. Big Pharma and the medical establishment are merely playing their parts. Stupefying the nation is what our "health care" system is largely about, certainly where anti-depressants are concerned.
Look at cable TV for a day and you'll be subjected to countless ads for these "happy" pills, each of them rife with instruction on how unhappiness is indeed a disease, never an accurate response to one's actual situation. Depressed over losing your job? Take Cymbalta! Feeling bad that Obama is an utter fraud? Try Zoloft! Frustrated that we can't get out of Iraq or Afghanistan, and perpetual war is our only real product? Ask your doctor about Pristiq!
But by no means try to organize to change anything. It's all just YOUR problem, and Eli Lilly can help you there. Maybe you'll go broke buying their pills because your insurance or lack of any doesn't cover the costs, but at least you'll FEEL GOOD! Never mind those pernicious side effects; we have plenty more pills to take care of that.
Sioux Rose
EPHRAIM: You made the same points I would have. The collective social engineering of a population's "communal psyche" through the USE of numbing chemicals just when the leaders are guilty of numerous illegal acts, some treasonous, is hardly a matter of mere coincidence.
I noticed these trends beginning in the early l990's. It seemed that at that time, anti-depressants were the preferred way to have busy women deal with the many insidious assaults against (their) reason and sensibilities. When I read statistics citing upwards of 30 million taking these "mother's little helpers" I began crafting a cognitive tool, that for many would provide an organic path to alleviating stress. It is based on the cycles of the moon, a very powerful influence over women's moods. The moon is associated with the sign of Cancer, and how we digest food and assimilate nutrients. I am utterly convinced that the lack of genuine NOURISHMENT in our society, from what we eat (empty calories) to what is regularly consumed as "food for thought" in the form of idiot "entertainment," both factor in when it comes to creating an off-balanced population. Without balance, moods swing as if perched on a chemical roller coaster, and the vast majority wish to recover some semblance of inner peace. Desperate for a mastery of the self unearned, they turn to the omnipresent "Dr. Feel-goods," staple of every era and generation, although their costumes (and remedies) alter.
Years ago I tried to sell a cartoon where a man was in a psychiatrist's office. Visibly upset by his stock broker's poor decisions, the cartoon asked if he ought to trade in appointments with his shrink for sessions with a better accountant. In other words, he didn't need to be given anti-depressants, he needed sound realistic advice and direction!
The net impact of this form of social engineering is beyond insidious. Plus consider how hypocritical it looks to the eyes of the young when they are constantly reminded to "just say no to drugs" when everywhere drugs are being promoted, as if street corner barkers graduated to a sophisticated MSM and were once again positioned to sell a new form of snake oil. And the names of these products, well they simulate states of Greek satori and such: Elantra, Lunestra, Viagra, Allegra, etc. Don't think some high paid ph.D in psychology isn't cooking up these words... they make one want to dance off into the land of the purple pill and live happily ever after. What a recipe when one's nation is in the hands of criminals, thieves, and murderous liars. When TV and sports don't work to do the trick of manufacturing a somnambulistic citizeny, as new opiate of the peoples, then by all means bring on the drugs!
Sioux Rose, you continue to impress with your wisdom. I had exactly the same response to this article. Simply stated, it does come down to "you are what you eat." And the process of reclaiming the integrity of your body and mind through making conscious nutritional choices will make you feel so much better at all levels. We are a nation of addicts. I was certainly among those who tried mightily to numb the feelings of despair by daily ingesting large quantities of pot and tobacco and coffee and sugar and fat and meat and alcohol and fast food and porn, and drama. What changed for me was physical and emotional pain. I hit a "bottom" and my body sent me signals that were too loud and clear to ignore. Now on a path of regeneration, I find the inner strength to resist indulging in despair, and choose creative action instead.
Sat Chit Ananda!
Sioux Rose
CPADDOCK: One powerful meditation I took part in at a Buddhist monastery in Nepal was contemplating my own death. We exist, this spark of consciousness that each of us identifies with "as a self," as partially immortal and partially all too mortal, aware that our bodies slowly (for most) approach a definite "expiration date." I just visited Puerto Rico where I lived from l976-l986 and found that one of the loves of my life had passed on. He emailed me about a year ago, cheery that the cancer that had been found seemed to be in remission. I did not hear back; and it was only when I got to the island that I learned the news. On a previous trip I found that a long-time client and friend had been gunned down (killed) in Mexico.
It may seem morbid but I now count more relatives/friends/lovers I've known who have passed over, than those remaining on the "physical plane." And it brings to mind that Buddhist meditation, that I am next to approach the abyss. It helps to believe in reincarnation; and yet the words of Bonnie Raitt," Life gets mighty precious, when there's less of it to waste," also come to mind. And with that closing adage, I salute the changes you've made, which are changes I seek to live by... that we might prolong our time on this complex, magical, and also all too poignant planet of the apes-in-evolution. And thank you for your kind acknowledgement. There are some wonderful people who post on this site!
I actually counted the number of commercials during one hour of television one night (cable.) There were 29 commercial ads, and a little over half of those were for one type of pharmaceutical preparation or another (including controlled substances such as Ambien and Lyrica.) It's also interesting to note the number of ads selling alcoholic beverages as a percentage of all advertisement. Good thing they banned ads for cigarettes eh?
SOMA.
It doesn't matter what drugs you buy, but whose'
But what do you really think?
Joe
We need to have large masses of people attend rallies. Then the airforce can fly over and fill the sky with opium smoke (the traditional Chinese method of chilling out) and all of our problems will disappear in the haze.
Reduce health care costs by growing your own anti-depressants.
(and if you have any extra, please send some to Glenn Beck....he really needs it.)
Quick...somebody give me the name of a 'happy pill' that really works. PLEEEEEEZE............I need it now.
i wonder what people in canada do to combat all this nastiness................
Jeevee
How about GENUINE spirituality??
Yes, there are some people who take antidepressants who really need psychotherapy or a 12-step program.
But ladies and gentlemen, this article is very one-sided. Many people has chemical imbalances that properly prescribed medicines (prescribed by a competent psychiatrist, that is) can help. Just because someone takes an antidepressant, Ritalin, Lithium, etc., does not mean that they are weak!
Take my husband's aunt, who has bipolar disorder. When she takes her meds, she does well. But when she chooses not to take her meds, she becomes verbally abusive toward my mother-in-law and at times, nearly suicidal. She tries to tell us, "I can control myself with diet, exercise, yoga" and then, two hours later, launches into a tirade about whatever slight she remembers that happened to her twenty years ago.
I'm fortunate that I have never needed to take psychotropic medication. (Some of you may disagree.) But I know that not everyone is so lucky. Let's not judge those who have brain disorders and seek out optimal treatment.
I was prescribed an anti-depressant once and then realized that I didn't want to be addicted to a drug the rest of my life...legal or otherwise.
Besides that, insurance companies will deny you coverage if you are taking "steps to control depression". So to all who think a little pill will fix all....just remember, if you lose your current health care provider, you lose your health care or will have to pay three times as much for coverage.
Tom Cruise says all you have to do is give your life to Scientology. ;-)
How accurate is it to call them "happy pills"? Do any of these prescription medications actually produce, not just a lessening of one's level of depression, but an actual feeling of happiness?
Anti-depressants are not "happy" pills. Properly prescribed they can help people who despair. For some they can obviate the need for suicide.
Life is good here in the United States of Amnesia.
Depression is suppressed anger and we aren't allowed to be angry, no, no, must not show anger, it's disrespectful. You might look childish and we're sooo over the whole anger thing. We are beyond that now. Take a pill and forget your anger and depression. Our leaders have everything in control, so sit back, relax, and don't worry, everything is just fine, it's just fine, it's just fine.
Articles like this one are lazy and ignorant. Only someone with no firsthand experience with antidepressants, people taking antidepressants, or the existing literature on antidepressants could do something as stupid as calling them "happy pills." The author clearly didn't do the most basic fact checking, as it takes about 30 seconds to discover that Valium was introduced a decade earlier than the article claims. What "research" is Dworkin talking about when he says that people taking antidepressants are less likely to make positive life changes?
It's an asinine suggestion. The POINT is that depression drains all the energy and motivation that would be necessary for a person to change their circumstances. I hated my living situation for years and did nothing to change it, until I started taking an antidepressant. I used to wake up wanting to kill myself every day. That's no longer the case. Antidepressants have not made me "happy," but they've enabled me to make myself happier by getting rid of the lethargy that prevented anything from getting done.
Therapy and exercise do help some people as much as drugs do, but drugs are more effective than those things for people with chronic minor depression. This is a conclusion drawn from research by actual scientists working with depressed people, as opposed to anesthesiologists with no idea what they're talking about:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11310814
People with chronic minor depression kill themselves at a rate comparable to major depressives. Dysthymia is not as acutely severe as a major depressive episode, but its unrelenting nature causes people to give up hope.
Congratulations to all the smug people like Dworkin and Potter that don't actually need medication, but go out of their way to stigmatize those that do. They automatically have a deeper understanding of life's vicissitudes than anyone taking "happy pills," simply by virtue of not suffering from them as greatly. Insulting miserable people is truly bold and politically progressive. I'm glad that people like them are looking out for my interests.
To refer to antidepressants as "happy pills" in no way denigrates their use or their often severely depressed users. Severe mental depression is not to be taken lightly as I well know. I speak as the sister of a life-long sufferer from a bi-polar condition who has herself referred to her medication as her "happy pills."
My sister made an attempt to take her life again just this summer. This was not her first such attempt. She has a history of attempted suicides. This last incident happened when she was diagnosed with breast cancer after having just come off a prolonged high. The usual pattern is that she gets off her meds after a long period of apparent emotional stability, then after an exhilarating high when the whole world turns rosy and anything is possible, she crashes. She crashes hard.
This is the classic routine of a chronic manic depressant for whom the new drugs are life-savers. Not all people for whom these anti-depression drugs are being prescribed have these long term severe chronic conditions. As a matter-of-fact, half the people I know seem to be taking some kind of mood elevator. These are not by a long shot the best of times. Stress is a killer and these are indeed extremely stressful times, but does it need to produce such a culture whose best solution to life's problems is to go pop another pill?
Check this out
http://www.naturalnews.com/022723.html
Antidepressants are no more effective than placebos.
"Antidepressants are no more effective than placebos."
That's not what the article said. The article said that antidepressants were most effective in people who had severe depression.
I'm someone who practices yoga and takes vitamin supplements and fish oil. However, I'm skeptic of a great deal of the "natural products" industry. A lot of snake oil gets sold under the guise of being "holistic" and "natural." There are many, many charlatans in the natural products industry who are doing nothing more than trying to make a buck.
farmgirl in the city September 3rd, 2009 1:35 am.....And how do you know what you are taking is holistic and natutal? Do you grow it yourself?
We are presenting this upcoming generation with a disturbingly damaged earth and few opportunities for satisfying jobs. I am so worried about their future and feel that depression among younger people is an appropriate reaction to the brutal militarization and despoiling of their world.
What is the cure for depression? Jobs. Good jobs where you help people and make the world a better place. Jobs that stop the acidification of the oceans, that feed the poor, that cure the sick. Jobs that provide housing and energy without doing harm to the environment. Jobs that help families to plan for and care for their children.
There is nothing like helping people for turning depression into energy and determination.
Opportunities to work with others doing something worthwhile would cure a hell of a lot of personal psychological depression and address the national economic depression.
Joe