Benzodiazepines

As I mentioned in my last post, Benzodiazepines are another type of medication used to treat anxiety. They are a fast acting, taken as needed type of medication, that affects the neurotransmitter chemical, gamma-aminobutyric acid, to lower nerve activity in the brain.

 Some examples of Benzodiazepines include:

• alprazolam (Xanax)

• chlordiazepoxide (Librium)

• clonazepam (Klonopin)

• lorazapam (Ativan) 

• diazepam (Valium)

From personal experience I have learned that if a person is not taking the right dose or not taking them correctly, they can turn a person into a zombie. When my sister was taking them, she would become very lethargic, couldn't keep her eyes open for more than a few seconds, and couldn't complete a sentence without slurring her words and trailing off or passing out. This is one of the reasons Benzos are not prescribed as often as SSRIs are. It can be difficult for doctors to figure out the right dose on the first try and in addition users build up a tolerance so over time higher doses need to be taken to be effective. They have a high potential for addiction because the results are almost immediate and they can produce a euphoric high if too much is taken. Users can also experience severe withdrawals which is why it's recommended that users are weaned off the medication over time.

Benzodiazepines can be very effective at quickly stopping an anxiety or panic attack and can be used to treat other mental illnesses as well. The problem is though that they are often mis-used and have a high potential for addiction. They can be very dangerous if a user is not careful, but if they are used correctly and for a short amount of time they can be very helpful to people experiencing anxiety or panic attacks.

I have never personally taken Benzos, although I have spoken to my doctor about trying them for my panic attacks. But, after seeing the way my sister reacted to them, I am definitely weary about their potential for addiction and their harmful effects. It is nice to know though that there is another option other than taking an SSRI and for some people Benzodiazepines are definitely helpful. I do urge anyone who takes them or wants to take them, to just be careful and aware of the side affects and addiction potential and to use them with caution!!

DAE hate when people say alcohol isn't a drug?

"Oh I don't do drugs, I just drink"

What I can't stand is how someone can use caffeine to wake up every morning, aspirin and Ibuprofen for headaches, Zoloft for depression, Adderall for ADD, can have a drink to relax after work, and take sleeping pills at night but still be a "Drug-Free" American.Yet, on the other hand, someone who doesn't use any of those drugs that are socially accepted and has a problem because they smoke pot in moderation.

I've seen alcohol screw people up more than any other drug...and is probably the most dangerous drug to be on It’s also the most dangerous drugs to stop once you are addicted. It's one of the very few drugs that can kill you by trying to quit. Even heroin is safe to stop taking.

Alcohol abuse kills around 75,000 Americans each year and shortens the lives of these people by an average of 30 years. Extreme alcohol consumption is the third leading cause of avoidable death in the United States after tobacco use and poor eating and exercise habits.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which published the study, estimated that 34,833 people in 2001 died from cirrhosis of the liver, cancer and other diseases linked to drinking too much. Another 40,933 died from other mishaps caused by excessive alcohol use.

Alcohol has caused many to do more of any other drug than any other ever drug has, it's the worst gateway drug. You don't smoke a bunch of weed and suddenly think inhaling a copious amount of coke in a short space of time might be a fantastic idea, but if you’re drunk off your ass it seems like a truly brilliant plan.

I think the best way to deal with a problem is to educate yourself and others. The worst thing you can do with any problem is to turn refuse to hear the facts and just have faith that what you grew up hearing is right because that’s the way things always have been. 

Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness.

"Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person’s thoughts. Every waking moment—and even in our dreams—we struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness that we value." 
I took this from Sam Harris' blog titled Drugs and the Meaning of Life. 

Have you ever had that feeling like mind = blown and everything in life just seems to make complete and total sense to you now? Me neither, but reading this brought me pretty close, at least for understanding why people do drugs. I didn't read through the entire blog, (TLDR) so maybe his points differ from mine, but that doesn't matter, I just wanted to give him the credit he so rightfully deserves. 

"Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness." Some people smoke weed because they want to feel relaxed. Some like to trip on acid because this. (It's a BuzzFeed post with pictures showing what LSD feels like.) It's weird and bright and made me dizzy. It recommends you watch Alice in Wonderland instead because apparently it's the same. I never thought of drugs this way before. Humans have a constant desire to alter their consciousness. Some people like to read while others like to take acid. Everyone's different. 

I like how Sam Harris simplifies the idea of why people take drugs. "We struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness that we value." People do drugs to reach that euphoric feeling or the specific high that they enjoy. Some do drugs to feel nothing at all, and by nothing I mean no pain, physical or emotional. While I don't condemn altering your consciousness with drug use, I thank Sam Harris for helping me to understand why people do. 

Adderall will make me pass my classes, right?

I recently re-downloaded the app Yik-Yak back on my phone. Poor decision to do so, but it gave me inspiration for this blog post. I was on the app just scrolling through the posts, and I saw a good number of posts about how people were trying to buy Adderall, about people who were selling Adderall, and about people who were currently on Adderall. Why are there all these people “yaking” about Adderall? Well—its finals week. Finals week is one of the most stressful times for a college student. I’m in college too so I completely understand the complaints of cramming all night and day for final exams, but I don’t really understand needing a drug to be able to do it. 

An average college student is around the ages of 18-22 years old. And in a short amount of time they are going to be graduating and getting real jobs and living on their own. I procrastinate often, but I always get my stuff together and done before the due date. And that is usually only when I don’t have that many things due at once. If I know that I have a lot of assignments that are going to be due around the same time, get this, I manage my time wisely to make sure that I can get everything done. There are people who have work 30-40 hours a week on top of class, so I can understand literally not having the time to do work. But I still think that if you are going to do that you need to figure out a way to manage your time. And if you can’t, change what you’re doing. The students who use Adderall to stay up for a few days straight to get all of their stuff done are doing everything wrong. It is so unhealthy to take drugs, such as Adderall, when you do not need to take them. It can cause harm to your brain and the rest of your body if you take them when it is not needed. Not only is it unhealthy, but you’re almost out on your own. If you can’t even manage your time enough to be able to study without needing a drug to then how do you expect to get a real career and manage your time when you have that career? By using drugs the whole time? That will certainly go over well…

SSRIs to Treat Anxiety and Depression

            When I told my doctor I felt depressed and was having constant anxiety, she asked me a few questions. “How often do you feel anxious? How often do you feel depressed? Have you thought about committing suicide? Do you get panic attacks? How often? What happens to you when you think you’re having a panic attack?” After giving her some brief answers to these heavy questions, she prescribed me a low dose of Citalopram and sent me on my way. My mother and I have the same doctor, so she suggested Citalopram because it had worked to help my mom’s depression.

However she did not explain to me how this medication was meant to work or what it was. After doing my own research I learned that Citalopram is an SSRI, a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. They primarily affect the neurotransmitter serotonin to boost mood. It is an antidepressant that is taken daily, but some SSRIs can be taken weekly. While they do still have side effects, SSRI’s have shown to have less side effects than other medications that are used to treat depression and anxiety. In addition to this they are not an addictive medication because their intended results do not occur immediately after taking the drug, but work over time. Because they have less side effects SSRIs are very popular and often the first antidepressant doctors prescribe. 

Citalopram didn’t work for me, as each type of medication affects people differently, but I am on a different SSRI now that has lowered my anxiety and improved my mood in general. In addition to therapy this medication has helped me and I am thankful that I found a treatment that works for me. There are many other types of medication used to treat anxiety and depression, like Benzodiazepines, which I will talk about in my next post.

Mainstream Support

America has been close to legalizing marijuana many times during the last few decades, but never as close to mass acceptance of the drug as the nation is today. Since the mid 1900s, the United States has seen over the top funding of the war on drugs to a conclusion that the war had little effect on marijuana use.

Now, for the first time, marijuana legalization is winning mainstream support in public opinion surveys and a drug used by about 6 percent of Americans and one-third of the nation’s high school seniors is starting to shake its counterculture reputation. It is winning acceptance even from some police, prosecutors, and politicians.

But is this time really different? Why is the current campaign for legalization resonating when previous ones did not?

The leap toward legality is caused by the  financial worry of income low states, the Internet-driven uprising in how citizens learn about marijuana and its medicinal uses, and a rising libertarian feeling in which many liberals and conservatives alike have grown skeptical of government’s role in telling citizens how to medicate themselves. Americans have grown more libertarian in their views on their personal freedoms, the most anti marijuana generation has passed on, and people across the ideological spectrum have grown frustrated with the cost, both financial and social, of decades of arrests and imprisonments.The legalization drive is underway mainly in states facing tough budget problems.

Lean with it...

When it comes to “Drugs” and altering the state of a person’s mind, people are coming up with some ridiculous ways to do so.  One of the newest trends is called Lean.  Lean was created and first done in Houston, Texas and is a mixture of things that a person drinks in order to alter their state of mind.  The way people make it is by mixing Promethazine with Codeine cough syrup and adding Sprite soda and Jolly Rancher candies to it for flavor.  The mixture is then usually poured into a Styrofoam cup and drank.  “Lean” is often referred to as Purple Drank or Sizzurp.

The drink is referred to as Lean because of the effects the Codeine cough syrup causes when people drink it and make themselves stay up.  The Codeine causes a euphoric feeling in the user and the Promethazine in the drink is responsible for lethargy, extreme drowsiness, a severe impairment of motor skills, and a dissociative feeling from all other parts of the body, mainly the stomach and digestive system.  People who drink it tend to just sit around, not move very much, and literally lean against things in order to stand up because of a loss of motor skills.  It is referred to as “Purple Drank” because of the purple or dark purple color it gets from the cough syrup and it’s referred to as Sizzurp because of the syrup in it. 

To me, the crazy thing is no matter what the government decides to ban or make illegal, people are still going to find ways to get high or to alter their consciousness.  New things are being mixed together by people who most likely have no idea what they’re doing and when they do figure something out it spreads like crazy.  This is pretty dangerous and it’s kind of insane that it’s come down to kid drinking cough syrup to get high.  What will they think of next?