Do you think society, as a whole has become too dependent on anti-anxiety medications?

Yes, definitely. People seemed to have stopped figuring out their own ways on how to deal with it and has started relying on pills as some sort of medication as a quick fix. I also struggle with anxiety and a few years ago was diagnosed with general axiety disorder. The medication made me like a zombie and you know what is ironic. I only started dealing with my problem once I decided that I was going off them and dealing with what was giving me the panic attacks. There are other ways to sort out problems. I feel that medication should be the absolute last resort rather that the first.

I think this theory could really go for medication in general… Yes society is far too dependent on things like this. When you start using any drug dependently, and feel you absolutely need it in some way I think you should be cut off. I’ve never used anti-anxiety medication myself, so I don’t know it’s effects in particular, but it doesn’t sound like something would want to be stuck on.

yes.

I’d point out that people on anti-anxiety medication having 5% higher mortality rates does not demonstrate a causal relationship. It could be the same group would have as high or higher mortality rates without medication..

There are people who can not function without anti-anxiety medication. There are there people taking anti-anxiety medications who don’t need them.and there are people who abuse them. There are also people who weren’t helped by medications and even some even worse on them. Their being abused, over-prescribed, or not always effective should not keep people who can be helped by them from taking them.

For a lot of people psychotropic medications carry a stigma. This something we need to get over. Why not ask if society as a whole has become too dependent on antibiotics, vaccinations, or traffic lights? It is the stigma that makes people think we have to discourage psychiatric medications.

I am going to go with this was a correlational study (please correct me if I am wrong). Which means that there is absolutely no way to determine directionality. People who take these drug.s could just be sicker than the general population who do not need these drug.s. Unless it was a randomized experimental study there is absolutely no reason to believe that these medications are causing premature death. As for natural ways to deal with stress, I may not be a huge fan of medication, but I believe they have their place. This is the same argument people use against all medications. Medicines have been saving lives for a long time. The difference between medication and so called ‘natural’ means is that medications have to undergo trails, while natural supplements have no such restrictions.

Yes. My boyfriend and I both have anxiety disorders. He was on medication for it and I wasnt (mostly due to they fact I was likely to have a panic attack at the thought of a doctor!). It was something I just had to work through, and I did. It still effects me a bit, but its nowhere near as debilitating. My boyfriend on the other hand was on SSRI’s for years, and they seemed to just suck the life out of him. He had no emotion or anything, and while they helped him somewhat, he couldnt really work through the issues that were causing his anxiety until he stopped taking them. After being on them for so long though, he was really dependant on them, and it took a long time before he could completely stop taking them. After he did, he improved dramatically. I think he needed the medication to start with, but more should have been done, in terms of counselling, etc, to actually help him with the cause of his anxiety. Instead, what happened was he was put on medication for almost a decade, and left pretty much to deal with it on his own, like the pills were the answer.