Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 05/12/2026 6:56:54 AM PDT by Heartlander
Pills to wake, pills to sleep
Pills, pills, pills every day of the week
Pills to walk, pills to think
Pills, pills, pills for the family
- St. Vincent
Is the world losing its mind, or is everyone just on something? I look around and I sincerely can’t tell anymore.
Your kid can’t sit still, so the doctor writes a script before asking what he eats or how many hours he stares at a screen. He’s not broken. He’s a seven-year-old boy.
Your buddy can’t get it up, so he reaches for the blue pill instead of putting down the beer and chips. Your sister-in-law wants the influencer body, so she injects herself into a thinner version of being sick. A different disease, dressed up as discipline.
Can’t sleep? Ambien. Anxious? Xanax. Sad for more than a week? Antidepressant. It's easy: a fifteen-minute appointment, prescription in hand before you've finished saying what's wrong with you.
And the commercials. Twenty seconds of a couple holding hands in a field, followed by forty seconds of a voice listing the ways the drug might hurt or kill them. Stroke. Suicidal thoughts. Sudden death. Ask your doctor. And people do.
I was twenty-nine when I visited my family doctor on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The kind of reputable MD with a month-long wait. I went for a routine checkup and some bloodwork. He told me my cholesterol was “borderline high.” This was years before I learned that most of the discourse around cholesterol is a pharma marketing campaign doing cosplay in a lab coat. At the time I simply trusted the man.
I asked what to do.
He said, take this pill.
I asked for how long.
He said, the rest of your life. Given your family history, we can’t be too safe.
My father had picked up smoking in his thirties to cope with the stress of a pre-existing condition. Four packs of Marlboro Reds a day. Several heart attacks later, it eventually killed him. That was the family history my doctor was referring to.
I asked the name of the drug. He said Lipitor. Then I looked down at his prescription pad. It said Lipitor. I looked at the pen in his hand. It also said Lipitor.
I slowly walked out of the room backwards and never saw him again. In fact, I pretty much stopped seeing doctors after that. Not out of principle (not yet anyway). Just out of the feeling that something in the room hadn’t been on my side.
Generalizations can be hard. For what it’s worth, I happen to know some great doctors who are absolutely trustworthy. And, of course, lots of people walk into a doctor’s office because they’re actually sick and the right medicine might benefit them.
It’s the rest I’m talking about. Someone walks in tired. Or a little distracted. A bit sad in February. A kid who fidgets or a wife who’s quieter than she used to be. There’s no disease, there’s a life. And the system that used to help tell the difference now turns life into a subscription.
And it compounds. The SSRI flattens you, so they add the stimulant to wake you up. The stimulant winds you up, so they add the benzo to take the edge off. The benzo wrecks your sleep, so they add the Ambien. Every new prescription is treating the last prescription’s side effect. At some point you stop being the patient and become the side effect.
Many of these drugs were studied for mere weeks and then prescribed for decades. There’s no off-ramp because the on-ramp was never built for the duration. Try to stop the antidepressant and you find out your brain has rewired around it. Try to stop the benzo and you can have seizures. The script renews itself. You churn or you stay.
Your wife agrees. Your mother agrees. Your brother agrees. The doctor went to school for this. You should listen to him. What, you think you know better? The credential isn’t on the wall anymore. It’s in every conversation you have with the people who love you.
“I won’t talk to him unless he’s on his meds.”
I look around at the people I love and I’m not always sure who I’m talking to anymore. Half of them seem to be on something. More docile than they used to be. Further away, especially in their eyes. I miss them and they’re standing right there.
Your body had a signal and they diagnosed it away. That seven-year-old kid never even got the chance to develop one in the first place.
Getting back to yourself doesn’t start with stopping the pill. It starts with trusting the signal again.
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
“I won’t talk to him unless he’s on his meds.”
If anyone has ever said this to you, they are not the problem.
I have a friend that everyone says this about. He’s bipolar. The medication changes every 2 weeks or so.
Also known as sorcery
“One Pill makes you larger,
And another Pill makes you small
But the ones that Mother gives you
Don’t do anything
At all!”
Bkmk
Caffeine is my drug.
Diet and exercise is the best sure fire way to stay off pills.
Thing is - most Americans won’t stop with the processed foods and sugary drinks. So before we blame the doctors with their pills - blame ourselves.
I quit the practice I was at due to their covid insanity and found a small local practice unaffiliated with any big networks.
I’ve been on BP meds for years and wanted to go off when I lost some weight. The PA supported that and then recommended some natural supplements to maintain the blood pressure. That seems to be holding steady.
I don’t go to the doctor except for my annual physical or off I’m dying. I take no prescription drugs except for an asthma inhaler. Mr. GG2 just refused a statin because we’ve been bad the past 6 months eating too much junk. His cholesterol went over 200. Now were back to our homade meals and watching csrbs. By the next check up he’ll be back under 200.
My best friend runs high on cholesterol. 3 months ago it was 436 so instead of a station she went to a holistic doctor who put her on an array of vitamins. She dropped to 295 as of last week. Most things can be fixed without pills.
The problem with prescription meds is that they hit you with the highest dose. I cut my statin in half with no ill effects.
The cholesterol number can be misleading. What you really need is an artery scan. You need to know if the plaque is sticking.
May I ask what natural supplements you use to maintain a good blood pressure? I have been using Lisinopril for several years to keep my pressure low.
I’m fine with it, no ugly side effects, but just in case that prescription is late in arriving or if I decide one day to try a more natural method, I’d like to know what has worked for you.
Then you get old and get the cancer.
And half you diet is pills.
Run just as fast as I can
To the middle of nowhere
To the middle of my frustrated fears
And I swear you’re just like a pill
Instead of makin’ me better, you keep makin’ me ill
You keep makin’ me ill
Two great inventions came out of the American South that changed history. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. Slavery, instead of dying out became immensely profitable and the horrific Civil War followed. A Virginian by the name of Bonsack invented the automatic cigarette making machine. within 20 years multitudes of Americans were inhaling huge amounts of carbon monoxide and pollutants. Heart attack and lung cancers, previously rare became common. Had nothing to do with pills and very little with cholesterol.
Correct but add seed oils as well—as toxic as sugar if not moreso
What song are those lyrics from, or did you write the prose yourself?
Cholesterol isn’t the demon its portrayed to be—your body produces it, and your brain is mostly made of it, and the longest lived people in the world have high ldl levels—its all the crap that people consume with it
If you have other issues with arterial plaque Nattokinase can be very effective
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Nattokinase+arterial+plaque
**Caffeine is my drug.**
I had a high school classmate that was valdictorian. She always showed up at school full of energy and intensity. It was told to me that she had a couple cups of coffee before getting on the school bus. I once paid her a visit where she attended college, and noticed the cigarette. Just as hyper, if not moreso.
At the 10 year class reunion she was still energetic. However, the smokes had noticably lowered her voice, which was already a bit low in HS.
I’m glad to have never taken up either habit. In july I’ll be 72, and rarely take even an aspirin.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.