17. Can pills cure addiction?

 By Tom O'Connell

Can pills cure addiction? In 1932, Aldous Huxley used fiction to write about a future society that turned to a pill called "soma" to provide social stability. In "Brave New World," Huxley showed how science could be used to find a substitute for alcohol and the other drugs that anesthetize people against the pain of living in modern times.

The pill soma provided a way to cope with all the problems of humanity, and it was designed to make people forget their confusion and pain, so they would feel happier, or at least neutral. "If ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, or reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gram tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half of your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears, that's what soma is."

Was Huxley a prophet? Or just a good observer of trends? It's beyond my capacity to make the judgment. But it seems to me we have developed the most pill-taking society in the history of the world. Instead of changing our unhealthy patterns of activity as a response to headaches and other warning symptoms, we take a pill to alter portions of our brains designed to alert us to pain. Facing a crisis? Here's a pill. Depressed? Have a pill. Uncomfortable? Take a pill. Anxious? Need a pill? Afraid? Try a pill.

I wonder if some day a majority vote may authorize adding anti-anxiety drugs to our drinking water, like fluoride, so we'll all be spared the pain of conscious living. Or might the Air Force be used to spray us with chemicals to make us happier with the chaos of existence? If farmers can do it for crops, why can't a whole nation do it to feel better?

Well, a sign of the times is a ballpoint pen given to me by a friend with a slightly twisted sense of humor. My pal got the pen from a new young psychiatrist who received it as a gift from a pharmaceutical sales rep. The dose for alprazolam, an anti-anxiety drug known as Xanax, is engraved right on the pen. 0.25/.05/1&2mg. Is Brave New World here? There's a catch. I know someone who suffered such terrifying symptoms trying to withdraw from this medication that she had to go to an addiction treatment hospital.

Am I against all mood-altering medications? I guess it's time for my disclaimer. In a crisis, with a life-threatening situation, a prescription drug to alter moods is sometimes appropriate. But I can't adjust my thinking to the concept of using pills to try to escape from the inevitable grief that comes with being human. Nor do I think it's healthy to use mood-altering substances to get through till Friday. Observing trends, I can relate to Aldous Huxley's fear that whole populations might lose their ability to cope with stress, and choose addiction instead. In light of the increasing interest in adjusting brain chemistry to deal with addiction, I'm wondering if virtual reality is the only reality we can accept.

Thanks for your indulgence. I need to vent periodically. As a believer in the need for us to evolve toward full consciousness I am appalled by the widespread tendency to choose partial consciousness instead. In a subsequent essay we'll explore why I believe the spiritually based approach to addiction recovery is more appropriate than a pill-taking approach.

- Back -