Lifestyle

Hey There Drug Nation, Put Down The Prescription

by Ashley Fern
Stocksy

It is no secret that America is over-medicated. Every time you turn on the television there are ads about newly discovered drugs intended to solve problems you most likely don’t have. Tired? Hungry? Energized? Don’t worry there’s a pill for that.

How many times have you heard this drug will cause side effects such as nausea, heartburn and headaches? These medications are just asking to be supplemented with further medication to eradicate their aftereffects.

Let’s discuss my once-favorite drug: Adderall. Not going to lie, without this magic little pill I would not have a college degree. When I arrived at school I did not have a prescription and was forced to buy it from friends for $5 a pop.

Realizing a significant amount of my money was going to drugs, and not the kinds I wanted, I decided I needed a prescription. However, the issue was I did not have ADD. I would just rather spend my Tuesday night throwing back mind erasers at a local bar than cooped up in a library cubicle.

So over Thanksgiving break I hit up my family shrink, let's be serious -- what Long Island born kid doesn’t have one? I thought it would be difficult convincing this intellectual doctor to write me a script, but I was wrong. When asked what my concerns were I explained to him how I fidget, can’t pay attention to a lecture for more than 10 minutes at a time, and how my mind constantly wanders.

I literally described how every person feels their first year of college. Whose mind isn't wandering at 7pm in the middle of night class? I am much more concerned with what I am wearing to the frat party that night than attempting to understand what the hell the quadratic formula is. Lucky for me minutes later, I walked out with a nice monthly prescription. Bring on the all nighters!

As helpful as these drugs were in college I could not wait to ditch that little shitty pill in the post-grad world. Never in my life had I experienced more irritability and headache than during an Adderall binge. A good night sleep was a distant high school memory. It didn’t matter how early I took the pill in the morning I could never fall asleep. Well, unless I smoked an eighth to my face, which majority of nights I had to. Talk about waking up on the wrong side of your meds.

Anti-depressants are the #1 prescribed drug in this day and age. It is normal for a person to feel sad from time to time, but this does not mean they are depressed. With the advancement of drugs, emotions will soon be a feeling of the past.

Life is made up of all different experiences that will toy with your emotions. You do not need to numb yourself to this, but rather embrace each experience and take it for what it is. Did a break up leave you heartbroken and miserable? You do not need to take a Prozac just go out, get hammered, and f*ck someone else, problem solved. Of course you are going to be sad but that is LIFE.

The medication of children is a vicious cycle and intrinsically problematic. As anything that is instilled at an early age, habits are difficult to change when entering into adulthood. Just because your 5 year old is running around the supermarket does not mean they have ADHD, it means they are a CHILD.

Children are supposed to behave that way; they do not need to be medicated, they need to be taken outside. No normal child enjoys being trapped in a supermarket with its parent for over an hour.

The trouble with medicating children is figuring out where to draw the line. What behavior exceeds the expected and anticipated childhood behavior? How impulsive is too impulsive?

Many adults are unprepared for what parenthood truly means and look to medication to relieve themselves of strenuous and stressful parental duties. In these situations the insanity lies in the parents and not the children they feel the need to medicate. You choose to have children, you must deal with the hardship raising them entails.

When life becomes chaotic, far too many people unnecessarily turn to anxiety medication. Having suffered panic attacks myself, I can relate to the discomfort they bring. But you don’t need pills to solve that problem, just learn how to control your breath. Look at that, you just healed yourself! Today, you can scarcely find a person not prescribed to something. America runs on Dunkin? No, America is fueled by Prozac and Lithium.

Amanda Redwood | Elite.